After hanging up the phone, she punched in a familiar set of numbers for the house across the street. She’d been calling that number since they were kids. Like her, Ilya had kept the same phone from the time he’d been growing up. She had his cell number, too, of course, but if he was out there on the front lawn doing half-naked yoga, he didn’t exactly have a pocket to keep a phone in. He’d hear the old-fashioned jangling, though, and maybe he’d at least go inside before Dina completely lost her mind.
The phone rang ten times without an answer, but a knock on her front door a few minutes later revealed an unapologetically grinning Ilya glistening with sweat. It had slicked his dark hair back from his forehead and sparkled on his upper lip, until he licked it away. January had been unseasonably warm, but even so, he must’ve been putting on quite the show after she stopped watching.
“She called you, huh?” Ilya said.
Alicia stepped aside to let him in. “Yeah. Do you have to be such a dick about everything? You know she gets all worked up about that stuff. We don’t live alone on this street anymore. It’s not like it used to be. You need to remember that.”
He moved past her and into the kitchen. He poured himself a mug of coffee, as at-home in her house as she’d be in his, even after being divorced for so many years. One of the hardest things about them splitting up had been enforcing boundaries. This was her house now, not her mom and dad’s, but apparently even almost a decade of not being married couldn’t cancel out a near lifetime of being somehow intertwined.
This was one of the many times Alicia thought it would have been a better choice if she’d sold her childhood home and moved away when she left him. Across town, or even farther. Canada. China. A house near a loch in Scotland. There were thousands of places she might have gone instead of staying in Quarrytown, but here was where she’d always been, and here was probably where she would always stay. Anyway, moving away would have required money. It always came down to money, and hers had been tied up in the business.
“She’s a busybody. You got any eggs?”
Alicia reached around him to shut the fridge door he was attempting to open. “Out.”
Ilya gave her puppy eyes, but she’d grown immune to those charms long ago. “C’mon, Allie, I haven’t made it to the grocery store yet this week.”
“Starve,” she said unsympathetically, and stood in front of the fridge with her arms crossed.
Frowning, Ilya took a few steps back and drank his coffee. “Wow. Harsh.”
She couldn’t let herself feel upset about hurting his feelings. If she let him, Ilya would simply continue to walk in and out of her kitchen the way he walked in and out of her life. “When are you going to grow up?”
“Harsher,” he said, brow furrowed. “Shit, Allie.”
She couldn’t let him guilt her into anything, either. He was a master of that, too. Charming, insistent, oblivious to anything beyond himself. It had stopped hurting when she’d come to accept that Ilya’s self-absorption had nothing to do with anything lacking inside her—it was all him. Still, there would always be that tiny sting when she looked at him and remembered that once upon a time she’d loved him enough to marry him and take his name. Once upon a long time ago.
When she didn’t answer, he shook his head, then muttered, “Sorry. I’m hungry, that’s all.”
“Your girlfriend didn’t make you breakfast in bed?” The words slipped out sounding angry, even though she wasn’t. Not really. Not about the blonde, anyway.
Ilya laughed. “R-i-i-i-ight, girlfriend, right. And she couldn’t cook me breakfast if I didn’t have anything to eat.”
“So go to the store,” Alicia said without moving. “Or get a girlfriend who will go shopping for you.”
“Jealous?”
She laughed and rolled her eyes. “Oh, yes. So, so jealous.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again, this time sounding more sincere.
She paused, eyes narrowed. “Uh-huh. What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” He sipped his coffee and went to the window to peek out, as though checking on what she’d been able to see earlier. He glanced at her over his bare shoulder. “Think Dina would let me borrow some eggs?”
Alicia grinned. “Why don’t you go over there and ask her?”
They both burst into laughter. If it felt a little mean, it also felt a little nostalgic. It felt a little melancholy, and she wasn’t about to go there with him. Too much had passed between them for that.
“She doesn’t mean anything to me,” Ilya said suddenly to her back as she emptied her mug into the sink and moved to put it in the dishwasher.
Without even a glance, Alicia answered, “Who? Dina?”
“Not Dina.”
Her back stiffened, and she almost dropped her mug but managed to settle it onto the top rack before she did. When she heard the clink of his mug on the counter, she said, “Ilya. Don’t.”
He moved up behind her and put his hands on her hips. His fingers squeezed her lightly. His crotch pushed against her ass. She tensed at the gust of his breath on the back of her neck. He had not touched her that way in years.
“Allie . . .”
“I said ‘don’t,’” she repeated firmly, willing her voice not to shake. He couldn’t see her closed eyes or the way she sealed her mouth tight to keep herself from crying, her tears as unexpected as his come-on had been. “Stop it, Ilya. It’s not going to work. I’m not one of your pickups, okay?”
His fingers gripped tighter for a second or so before he stepped back, putting distance between them. His voice, low and rasping, tried to turn her, but she kept herself facing away. “I know that. I just thought . . .”
“You want what you want,” she told him as coldly as she could, which was barely lukewarm, because this, after all, was Ilya. Her worst mistake. The one man who had never been meant for her.
He snorted soft laughter that had no humor to it. “Doesn’t everyone?”
“It’s getting late. Are you coming in to the shop today?” She didn’t turn. Didn’t look. She breathed through the threat of tears and forced them away.
After half a minute or so, she heard him sigh. “Well . . . yeah. Of course. I’ll stop in before I head over to the Y for the beginner classes.”
Carefully, she closed the dishwasher and rinsed her hands at the sink. The beginner sessions consisted of a bunch of paperwork, a few lessons on technique, and some preliminary work in the pool. The advanced sessions were all in the water, and they’d also take place in the pool since Go Deep didn’t allow winter diving. All of them were Ilya’s responsibility.
She turned to face him. “Don’t forget the advanced sessions later this afternoon—both of them. You need to get them all their certification before you take them on the trip.”
“Yeah. I know. It’ll happen. Don’t worry about it.”
“They’ve all put down deposits and bought their flights. I’ve paid the hotel. We can’t afford to be late on any of this—”
Ilya nodded, his normally open expression unreadable. He glanced down at his boxers and seemed uncomfortable, at least in the way his gaze cut from hers. He scuffed a bare foot along the faded linoleum, then looked over at her sink.
“Hey. Your faucet,” he began.
Alicia cut him off with a small wave. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll call someone to come and deal with it. It’s not your problem. We’re not . . . it’s not your problem.”