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“Vlad,” he says.
I open the door.
Oh my.
Dressed in a bespoke black suit that hugs his every muscle, a crisply starched white shirt, and a black tie, he’s a sight to behold.
“You look amazing,” he murmurs, his eyes greedily scanning me from head to toe.
Ignoring the heat in my cheeks and other regions, I twirl coquettishly. “It’s the dress you got me.”
His voice roughens. “No. It’s you.” Before I can respond, he gestures at the limo. “Come, we’re already late.”
Drunk on his words, I get to the limo on autopilot.
He holds the door open for me.
With a goofy grin, I slide inside and sit by his trusty laptop—the last time, this had made it so he’d sit next to me.
Yep. He slides over, his presence making me tingly and giddy.
“Is it hot in here?” He plays with the air conditioning controls.
So hot. So take off all your clothes… “I’m okay,” I lie, the words of the song playing through my head.
He gives me a warm smile and tells Ivan, “Poyehali.” He then raises the partition.
The car torpedoes forward, and we sit there, staring into each other eyes like a couple of staring-contest champions.
“What’s the name of the restaurant?” I force myself to ask.
His lips twitch. “On Yelp, it’s listed as the New Hut.”
“Any relation to Pizza Hut or Jabba the Hut?”
“The latter has two Ts in his name,” he says with a smile.
I fight the urge to grab him by the tie and lick that smile. “Well, the word ‘hut’ doesn’t make it sound as fancy as I imagined.”
He adjusts his glasses. “It’s fancy. The hut bit is a leftover from its longer name—The Hut on Hen’s Legs.”
I blink, taken aback. “That’s a horrible name—no offense.”
“I don’t disagree. It’s a reference to Russian fairy tales. A hut like that was the home of the infamous Baba Yaga. If you’ve seen the John Wick movies, he was for some reason compared to her constantly.”
I lift a well-groomed eyebrow wig. “I’ve heard of her. She’s a cannibalistic witch, right? Ate little children. Great association for a restaurant.”
He grins. “That’s what I told my parents too. They kept the name anyway. At least everyone’s switched to calling it the New Hut, so less cannibalism associations.”
“But why is it new?”
“Because the old one burned down, and my parents got the empty space on the cheap. They kept the name because it already had some recognition among the Brighton Beach community.”
The limo comes to a full stop, and I spot a green street sign that informs me we’re already on the famed Brighton Beach Avenue—or Little Odessa, as it’s sometimes called.
Just to confirm this, a train makes thunderous noises on the aboveground subway tracks nearby.
Getting out, I smile at the storefronts with names written in Cyrillic and at people who look like extras in a movie about Soviet Russia.
