In the Beginning (Volkov Bratva #1)(26)

Lauren couldn’t hold back her laughter at this point if she tried. She held her side as she fought to breathe, only laughing louder when he glared at her though he was fighting a smile.

“How did you kick your own ass, Mish?”

“It was shaming, I know. The guy felt so bad for me, he called an ambulance and rode to the hospital with me. I broke a toe and bruised my ribs. Sad part was, she had only gone out with me to piss him off. I avoided her for the rest of the year.”

She laid her head on his shoulder, still laughing softly. “I don’t know whether to feel sorry for you or laugh more.”

He feigned hurt. “I was a traumatized child.”

“Thanks for telling me though.”

“I needed to tell you before my sister does. She’d tell the whole world if given the chance. When you meet her, you’ll see what I mean.”

He said it so casually that it didn’t register at first, then Lauren smiled. It wasn’t an if she met his sister, it was a when. She didn’t know whether everyone met his sister, or that she was special in some way, but she liked to think it was the latter.

“I guess it’s only fair that I share an embarrassing story.”

Mishca laid back in the grass, his hands folded behind his head. She matched his position, except she laid her head on his chest and fiddled with a cluster of flowers.

“I was twelve and thought that I was old enough to have my first kiss.”

Mishca looked from her eyes down to her lips then back up again. “You didn’t have your first kiss until you were twelve?”

She cringed. “Yea, if you can call it that. I wasn’t very popular back in my hometown.” Especially when everyone her age treated her like having a murder father was some kind of disease.

“Maybe I should have waited longer,” she went on, “because it was definitely not what I was expecting…So there was this guy, Stephen. He wrote poetry, wore all black, and sometimes wore thick black eyeliner.”

Mishca snorted. “Seriously?”

Slapping his chest playfully, she smiled. “Stephen was a babe, okay? He sat next to me in Health and on that day, he was wearing these black glasses. Now like I said, I wasn’t very popular in school. I was a bit gangly and had awful bangs as a result of my clever moment with a pair of scissors, but he didn’t care about any of that. He was always nice to me.”

“I wager you were just as beautiful then.”

She could feel his gaze on her, but was too embarrassed to look up. “I had made it up in my mind that I would just do it, walk in class and lay one on him. I’m at the door and he’s sitting by himself at his desk, drawing in his notepad. I take a deep breath, go over and tap him on the holder.” She buried her face in the crook of Mishca’s neck, could almost imagine his reaction. “When he looks up at me, I close my eyes, pucker my lips and go in for the kill really fast. I must have calculated the distance wrong because I pretty much slam my forehead into his nose.”

Mishca isn’t making a sound, but his entire body is shaking with laughter. “That’s not so bad.”

She groaned, her mortification growing worse as she finished the rest of it. “He had this medical condition though, his blood didn’t clot or something. Meaning, if he ever got the slightest hit or anything that made him bleed, it could go really bad really quick. Though it only felt like I tapped him, he’s like gushing blood. Hell, I thought he was dying.”

Now he’s laughing earnestly, holding onto her before she could roll away. “Come…come on…I’m not,” he’s trying to get the words out. “I’m not laughing at you.”

“Everyone thought I attacked him and went running and screaming from the classroom. The police were called,”—Ross hadn’t been amused at the time, but he nee let her live that day down since—“and even the fire department came down to the school. It was a big deal for months. No one talked to me, just give you that look. I didn’t find out until a year later that he was gay.”

Mishca laughed so loud, the birds in the tree above them scattered. “That trumps mine, love.”

Yea, that trumped everyone’s.

“Hoe about something a little less embarrassing, yes?” Mishca suggested.

For hours, they stayed in the park, talking, laughing, confessing this to one another that they might not have told on a first date, it being easy because they stayed on safer topics. He didn’t bring up her father again and she was thankful for that. By the wee hours of the morning, Lauren felt like she knew more about him that she did her own mother.

It was around four when she got a text from Amber asking if she was all right.

Mishca glanced at his own phone, noting the time. “I should be getting you home.”

She thought of protesting, enjoying herself too much to have the night come to an end, but when she thought of seeing him in the next few days for their usual morning coffee, she thought better of it.

They went back to his car, driving out of the city and back to her brownstone. On the way, Mishca reached over and held her hand, sweeping his thumb over the sensitive skin of her wrist. It was almost a passive act, like he was unaware that he was doing it, but to Lauren, it made her feel something more, a feeling that she had no idea how to describe.

By the time she was home and Mishca was off after walking her u to her door, Lauren could feel the fatigue setting in. She changed into her pajamas, finishing up in the bathroom before hitting the lights, climbing into bed. Her phone lit up with a new message.