“You are your mother’s son, Ilya.”
This set him back a step, a hard one. He frowned. “Harsh.”
“Look . . .” Theresa sighed, then gathered the thickness of her hair in one hand to tie it on top of her head with the elastic band she tugged from her wrist. She gestured. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“About what?” Ilya reached for his beer, surprised to find it had somehow emptied faster than he could remember drinking it. He bent to open the cabinet and pulled out a bottle of whiskey. He poured himself a glass, neat. Offered her the bottle just to see what she’d do.
Theresa gave him a hard look and made no move to take the bottle. “About anything. Or maybe you’d rather let the liquor listen.”
“Hey.” Ilya sipped, grimacing at the kick of whiskey against the back of his throat. “Now who’s being a dick?”
She laughed, just a little. “Touché.”
They stared at each other for a few seconds. Ilya sipped more whiskey. It was smooth going down, but he put the glass on the counter without finishing it. He didn’t have a problem drinking alone, but it looked like he had one drinking while being judged. He scrubbed a hand through his hair.
“Shit,” he said.
Theresa pulled out the kitchen chairs, one for him and one for her. She gestured until he sat, then went to the fridge to pull out the fixings for sandwiches. Deli meat, cheese, pickles, mustard, mayo. Rolls from the back he hadn’t noticed, along with a container of macaroni salad. She laid it all out along with a couple of plates while he watched.
“Eat,” she said.
“You sound like Babulya.”
Theresa smiled. “She was a smart lady. I’m starving. If you don’t want to eat, fine, but I’m going to murder a roast beef with cheddar.”
“You eat a lot,” Ilya said.
Theresa snorted soft laughter and shook her head, giving him an amused glance. “Yeah? And?”
“No and,” he said. “Just an observation.”
She was quiet for a moment. “Your grandmother spent a lot of time with me in this kitchen, making sure I was fed. It feels like the thing to do when someone needs taken care of.”
If that was what she thought of him, she was going to be in for a sad surprise, but that she might think it of him had Ilya swallowing the smart-ass comment he’d been prepared to make. Instead, they both made towering sandwiches mostly in silence, broken only by requests to pass the mustard or hand over the pickles. He had to admit, it was the right idea. He didn’t need to be taken care of, but it felt kind of nice to let someone try.
She took her first bite and let out a low, breathy moan that sent a shiver through him, one that Ilya cursed himself for feeling. It had been weeks since the last woman he’d brought home. And he hadn’t been doing any self-maintenance in that respect, either, not with a houseful of people and feeling the way he’d been. That was all it was, he told himself, uncomfortable at the way he couldn’t stop staring at the swipe of her tongue along her bottom lip to capture the slick of mustard that had dripped from her sandwich. He was thinking with his dick, the way he usually did.
“So good. What?” she asked, quieter this time. Less confrontational.
“You have . . . umm . . .” He passed her a paper napkin from the basket in the middle of the table. “Something on your . . . yeah.”
Theresa wiped her mouth. Her gaze on him was constant. Steady. Before this moment he wouldn’t have been able to say what color her eyes were, but he could see they were a deep and liquid amber. The color of the whiskey in his glass, actually. The one he’d left on the countertop, still mostly full.
“Thanks.” She dragged a fork through the macaroni salad and ate a bite, watching him. “So. You want to talk about it, or what?”
“I don’t have anything to say.” Ilya eyed the sloppy sandwich on his plate. His stomach rumbled, so he took a big bite, not giving one damn about how the condiments squirted out all over his face.
Theresa handed him a napkin without a word. He used it. Set the sandwich down. Gave her a long and steady glare, challenging her to say anything more.
“It’s okay to miss your grandma, Ilya,” she said finally. “It’s okay to have mixed feelings about your mother coming back around. And your brother . . .”
He stabbed his fork into some macaroni salad but didn’t eat it. “What about my brother?”
“Look, all I’m saying is that it’s okay to miss Babulya. It’s okay to feel uneasy about your mother being here, or feel a little competitive with your brother—”
“Why would I feel competitive with him?” Ilya broke in.
Theresa’s mouth twisted for a second, before she gave an exaggerated shrug. “He’s been gone a long time, but now he’s back. It must be strange, that’s all. But it’s not cool to let yourself get stuck in some kind of depressive lethargy. It’s not going to help you in the long run, you know? You need to get up, get back to work.”
“I wasn’t there for her,” Ilya spit out, uncertain why he was saying it but unable to stop himself.
Theresa nodded as though she understood what he meant, even though he hadn’t been totally clear. “Babulya?”
“Yeah. I wasn’t there for her. I was too busy to see her. I didn’t like the home, I didn’t like seeing her that way, so I put it off. I wasn’t there for her, even though I knew . . . shit, I knew . . .” He drew in a hitching breath, horrified that tears were clogging his throat and threatening to slide out of his eyes. He covered them with his hand, fingers squeezing his temples to keep from weeping. He couldn’t do that, couldn’t break down. Not in front of her.
The scrape of the chair alerted him to her getting up. She put a hand on his shoulder. The weight of it was more of a comfort than he’d expected. Way more than he wanted.
“It’s okay to be upset, Ilya.”
“I’m fine! You don’t know a damned thing about me or how I feel!” He stood, pushing against her before he could get some distance between them.
That perfume teased him again, along with the cloud of her hair. He grabbed her wrist, turning her, not sure why. More to say, maybe, or at least that was what he thought. The motion pulled her close against him. Too close. Theresa drew in a breath, her eyes going wide. Lips parting. He let her go when she yanked her arm from his grip.
“You might not believe that I cared for your grandmother and that I’m very, very sorry that she’s gone, but you don’t have to believe me,” Theresa said. “I don’t really care if you do or not. I don’t care what you think about me, or my reasons for coming back here or anything else.”
“What do you care about?” Ilya shot back. “Me?”
Theresa’s gaze searched his. “I barely know you anymore. But yes. I guess I do. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Why would you?” he muttered.