All the Lies We Tell (Quarry Road #1)(83)
“Ilya!” Nikolai stood, too. “Don’t, man.”
Alicia flinched at his words and closed her eyes for a second before looking at him again. “Because of you. Right? Isn’t that what you think? Isn’t that why you came after me at all? To replace her?”
“You,” Ilya said with a sneer, “could never replace her.”
Nikolai moved around the table to take his brother by the arm—firmly, but gently. “C’mon, man. You want me to walk you—”
“I’m not f*cking feeble.” Ilya yanked himself out of his brother’s grip and focused on Alicia. His sneer became a sly, nasty smile. “Did he tell you he’s not going back?”
“Not going back?” Alicia looked at Nikolai, confused. He frowned and ran a hand through his hair with a sigh. She looked back at Ilya. “I thought you said you were only on a short leave, that they expected you to go back? That you had to—you had a contract.”
“He dissolved it.” Ilya thumped the packet of papers. “Got a bunch of money, got bought out. He doesn’t have to go back to Israel. He can stay here, right here in good old Quarrytown, for as long as he wants to. He didn’t tell you that, did he?”
Stunned, uncertain of what to say, she looked at Nikolai. His expression was confirmation enough. Blinking, Alicia stood slowly. Now the three of them faced off, over the remains of takeout food going cold.
“I thought you were going to leave,” she said after a few seconds of silence.
Nikolai sighed again. “I was. But I changed my mind.”
“Were you going to tell me?” She put her hands flat on the table to steady herself, as if she might fall over at any moment.
“Yes. Of course.” Nikolai backed off from his brother but didn’t take a step toward her. “Tonight, actually.”
Ilya snorted derisively. “Aw, how cute. See, Allie. He brought you dinner to soften the blow.”
“It’s not a blow,” she said after a moment. “It’s just unexpected. It just changes things, that’s all.”
Ilya said something else, but Alicia in that moment couldn’t have cared less what he had to say about anything. All she could do was look at Nikolai. He looked back.
“Oh, shit,” Ilya said. “So it’s like that?”
Without looking away from Nikolai, Alicia said, “Yes. It’s like that.”
CHAPTER FORTY
Then
Niko didn’t want to admit it to himself, but he couldn’t wait to see her. Through all the cold, dark nights of Antarctica and all the long, hot days working in the apiary fields of Beit Devorah, he had not missed Quarrytown or, for the most part, the United States. He certainly hadn’t missed Galina, whose letters still found their way to him, but which he’d refused to answer. He thought of his brother now and then, but the only person consistently on Niko’s mind was Allie.
He didn’t regret leaving. He’d seen a chance and taken it, and it had led him to bigger and more exciting things. Leaving had saved his life, but it didn’t mean he didn’t wish he’d done it a little bit differently.
It was almost a year since he’d been home, and he hadn’t noticed until now that he’d grown another couple of inches. His chin and cheeks bristled with scruff if he didn’t shave every day. His arms and legs bulged with the muscles he earned fixing broken pipes and dealing with heavy equipment, as well as from all the work he’d done for the past few months back on Beit Devorah, where he went to stay after leaving the science station. He noticed now because he’d been on a plane for something like sixteen hours and on a bus for another five. His clothes were rumpled, his hair, a mess. He wasn’t sure whether he smelled bad or whether he’d become immune to his odor, but a shower would definitely not have been a bad idea.
That wasn’t the way the universe worked, though. When the cab dropped him off in front of his house, the first thing Niko noticed was the construction along the street. Then, the flowers in front of the house in window boxes that had been empty for as long as he could remember. He held back, uncertain. He knew Galina had moved away; her last letter to him was postmarked South Carolina and had taken months to reach him. And it was possible Ilya’d gone, too; maybe he found his own place. But surely Babulya would still be there, and his grandmother had never been a fan of planting flowers.
This wasn’t his home any longer—hadn’t been for a long time—and that was his choice. He’d made himself a stranger to it, so it felt only right that he knocked on the front door instead of simply letting himself inside. He wasn’t expecting to see Allie’s face on the other side of it when it opened, and clearly by her startled expression she was not expecting him. Then his arms were full of her, the familiar scent of her hair tickling his nose, and she was laughing but also crying a little.
“Come in, come in!” She stepped back into the hallway, welcoming him.
All of this was overwhelming, but he noticed that she wore pajama bottoms and a faded T-shirt. She was talking, but he wasn’t really paying attention to what she said as she led the way to the kitchen, where Ilya was at the table, and Babulya turned from the stove to greet Niko with a cry of joy. It wasn’t the strangest thing in the world for Allie to be there with them, but still, something about it jarred him even as Niko allowed his grandmother to enfold him into her embrace. His brother got up to clap him on the shoulder, shake his hand, and even hug him, as they all seemed happy and surprised and excited to see him.