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“And what?” My question is filled with bitter menace, but I would love to know. What would Petro say? Vasyl, Anton? They know women. I know nothing of the opposite sex.
“Ask her out for coffee?” He raises a brow when I glare at him. “Girls like coffee. Mila fucking loves coffee. It’s why she’s up half the damn night all the time.” I snort at this. That is certainly not the reason. I may not know much about women, but I do know Petro and his obsession with his young wife.
“Liliya is not the type of girl I can associate with,” I bite back at him, annoyed with his presence.
“Why?” There’s a hint of something in his tone, but I can’t make it out.
“Seriously?”How does he not understand?
Shaking his head, Petro steps out of the shadows we’ve been hiding in and grabs my sleeve to drag me along with him. “Watch her, kid. But don’t forget to fucking blink.” There’s humor in his eyes as he says this.
“What does that mean?” I scowl as we begin walking towards Liliya and her friends.
“I mean, put a normal face on, meet her eyes, and quirk your lips a little. Let her know you’re interested.” His words stop me stone-cold.
A few steps ahead, Petro turns and frowns.
“I can’t be interested.” I fucking hate my past more now than ever.
“The fuck you can’t,” he hisses. “What those motherfuckers did to you, they ain’t controlling your life no more, Dez.Youare.” He jabs me in the chest with a finger as he snarls the words out to me.
“You’d never understand,” I snap back defensively. None of them can. I love the brothers as much as I know how, but they’ll never understand what it was like to be me as a child.
Sighing, he shakes his head before glancing at the group of girls and back to me. “You’re right, kid. No one will understand the fucked-up shit you lived through, but I know what it feels like to believe I’m not worthy of the woman I love loving me back because I still fucking struggle with that truth every goddamned day.”
Swallowing roughly, I glance away from the raw emotion coming off Petro. He and his brothers have always been honest with me and treated me with decency and respect. I’ve tried to return the same courtesy because, if not for them, I don’t know where I’d be.
“Meet her. And afterwards, if that interaction doesn’t make you feel like you’d fight an entire fucking war for her, then you can walk away. But you’ve got to give her a chance.” The last part is said softer.
Chancing a look over at her group, I notice the four girls watching us. They’re looking at Petro; he garners female attention wherever he goes. But Liliya is looking shyly at me. Her eyes flick to meet mine, then dart away and come back again.
“And when she can’t handle my past?”
“Such a fucking pessimist, man.” Clapping my shoulder, Petro shoves me forward as we begin walking again. “Make her fall in love with you first, and then nothing else matters after that.” I know he wants to believe that, but it’s a lie. One I’m willing to go along with right now because I have her attention. One I didn’t know how much I wanted until she gave it to me.
As we wait to cross the street, Petro asks quietly, “Her father the one you’re calling all the loans in on?” I nod, not risking losing her stare. “Play it easy, kid. Introduce yourself, ask her name; you don’t want her to know you’ve been stalking her just yet.”
“Love first,” I repeat his previous statement.
“You’re getting the hang of it, nephew.” He shoots me a pride-filled grin. “I’ll be over here. Mila smells another woman’s perfume on me, and she’ll be out for blood. Fucking pregnancy hormones.” He doesn’t sound as though he minds.
As I slowly approach Liliya’s friend group, the three she was talking with step forward a bit, hiding my girl behind them. At first glance, one might think they’re protecting her, but I can see from the predatory gleam in their eyes that they couldn’t give two fucks about my little bird; they only want what they think they can have. And I ain’t fucking it.
They’re vultures in a field of dead wheat grass, shards of glass after a deadly accident. Nothing. They’renothingcompared to my Liliya.
The closer I get, the gigglier they become, annoying me incessantly. “Rukhatysya!” I slice my hand through the air at the demand for them to move, but the idiots remain rooted to the ground.
The nerves that were tainting me have vanished in the face of their blockade, and my vision grows narrow with the need to reach my destination before she flutters off, thinking it’s them I want and not her.
My aggravation grows exponentially as the girls continue their attempt to garner my attention. Too stupid to take a hint until my flight or fight instincts kick in, and I’m certain you can guess that fight is the only option for me. My Karambit tactical knife slips into my hand, the blade glinting off the sun. The girls notice, gasp outrageously, and spread like wildfire.
“Malen’ka ptashka…”I raise my hands to show her I mean no harm when her bright blue eyes widen and stay glued to the blade curved near my wrist. She blinks a few times as I take a step closer. I see the pulse in her neck quicken, and her pupils dilate, but I’m not getting a sense of fear from her.
As I inhale deeply when we’re just a footstep apart, it’s arousal permeating the air. Hers. Mine. Ours.
Perhaps Petro was correct; she may not be as appalled by me as I feared.
Not yet, at least.
