From Lukov with Love

“YOU DON’T HAVE to come with me,” I told Ivan as we got out of his car, subconsciously rubbing at the weird tingle in my throat that had been bothering me all day. I blamed it on leaving my water bottle in the car and not having a chance to run back out to grab it, or else face the wrath of Nancy Lee.

He huffed, and I swore to God he rolled his eyes. “I already said I would.”

“I know that, smart-ass, but you can still back out. My sister or her husband can give me a ride later, if you want to leave,” I suggested, waiting for him on the path up to my sister’s house since the passenger side was closer to the curb.

Ivan shrugged and shook that black head of hair. “I’m not backing out. It’s just… how long did you say it would be? Three hours?”

“Four hours,” I corrected him.

He seemed to think about it as he came up beside me before tipping his head to the side, coming to whatever conclusion he had gotten to. “I’ve put up with you for four hours, this is just two kids, it can’t be that hard.”

Obviously this man had never babysat before if he thought it wasn’t that hard, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. I was kind of looking forward to seeing him deal with a toddler and a baby. “All right, don’t say I didn’t give you an out.”

Ivan scrunched up that perfect, symmetrical face as we stopped in front of the door. “Give me some credit, we’re only babysitting. It isn’t rocket science.”

I nudged him with my elbow right before reaching up and knocking on the door.

He elbowed me right back.

How the hell had we gotten to this point?

My damn car hadn’t started. Again. And my uncle hadn’t answered his phone when I’d called, and I couldn’t exactly afford to call a tow truck driver. There were plane tickets and hotel rooms I was trying to save up for, and groceries, insurance, an electric bill I paid as part of my “rent” and other random expenses I had every month. Right around the same time that I was debating who to call to come pick me up, came the obnoxious toooooooot that lasted maybe ten seconds and made me jump when it had first rang through the air, coming from a classy black car. Following the toot was a driver side window being rolled down and a very familiar face peering out from over the edge of the glass.

“Car trouble again?” Ivan asked from his spot behind the wheel with his sunglasses covering his eyes.

I sighed, then I nodded.

“You need a new one.”

I just looked at him. “Okay, I’ll get on that.”

He made a face right back. “Get in.”

“I’m not going home,” I told him.

Those black sunglasses were aimed right at me as his jaw did this tick thing. Then, “What? You got a hot date?”

“No, numbnuts. I’m babysitting tonight.”

The expression on his face instantly changed, but I didn’t think anything of it.

“I’m going to my sister’s,” I finished, reminding him about what Ruby and I had literally talked about in front of him a week ago.

Ivan shoved his glasses just above his eyes with the tip of his finger. “Get in then.”

“It’s further away than my mom’s.”

“How much further?” he asked slowly.

I told him what side of town, and watched as he made a face.

“How long are you supposed to babysit?”

“About four hours,” I said, hearing the hesitation in my voice, mainly because I wondered where the fuck he was supposed to be going that he was worried about how long it would take.

Then he made a thoughtful face and said, “Okay. One second.” He must have reached for his phone, because the next thing I knew, he was focusing on his lap and saying, “One more second.”

Who was he texting? And what was he texting?

I’d barely started to wonder what, when he glanced back up and said, “Okay. If it’s only four hours, I can drive you there and drop you off at home afterward.”

Wait. Afterward?

“You’re going to drive back and pick me up?” I asked with a frown.

He pinched his mouth in that way that used to drive me crazy because it looked like he thought I was an idiot. “No. That’s the other side of town from where I live, genius. I’ll babysit with you, and after that, I’ll drive you back home… as long as it’s only four hours. I need to be home after that.”

What did he have to be home for? Was someone waiting for him? Did he… have a girlfriend?

“You getting in?” he kept going.

It wasn’t any of my business. None.

Nope, none of my business.

If the swallow I took felt tight, I wasn’t going to overthink it. “You can just drop me off and one of them can take me home after.”

I didn’t have to see his eyeballs to know he was rolling them. “Shut up and get in. I can take you as long as it doesn’t run too late.”

He had a girlfriend, didn’t he?

“You don’t need to stay—” I started to say before he cut me off.

“Get in, Meatball,” he’d demanded, already rolling the window up.

And with a dirty look and a reminder that whatever he was doing afterward had nothing to do with me, I got in. And he drove us to my sister’s, which was where we were, with me waiting on the paved sidewalk, arguing with Ivan after we’d bickered over whether he drove slow or I drove fast.

He drove slow.

That was how I found myself in front of Ruby’s house with Ivan beside me.

“Coming!” I heard my sister call out from the other side of the door. All of a second later, the door opened and she was there, already beaming that great big smile that made me feel like I’d kill someone for her and eat their heart too. “Jas.” She hesitated only a second before taking a step forward and wrapping her arms around me.

I hugged her back, deciding to keep my mouth shut about the pause she had taken before touching me. Had I ever not wanted her to hug me? I couldn’t remember, and the possibility that I had once made her think twice about doing something like hug me, made my stomach tighten.

I could fix this. I could work on it.

Pulling back, I tipped my head toward Ivan at the same time her eyes strayed to him. “I brought reinforcements to take care of your gangsters.”

My sister’s face turned pink instantly, and she nodded tightly, her eyes shifting from me to him and back again. “Hi, Ivan,” she managed to squeeze out.

Ivan smiled gently. Then, because he held his hand out toward her, and when she did the same, he took it and gave it a soft shake. “Nice to see you again, Squirt.” He gave her a charming smile that made me uncomfortable for some reason. “You don’t mind if I call you that, do you?”

My sister blinked, and so did I. But I knew her reaction wasn’t because Ivan was handsome or anything like that. Her husband was smoking hot in a completely different but equal way as Ivan. And she was madly in love with him.

She was just shy.

And no one called her Squirt but family. At least as far I knew, not even Aaron called her that.

“I don’t mind,” she pretty much whispered, her eyes darting to me, and then back to him. “You’re almost family now, right?”

Almost family? I shoved the idea aside just as Ivan nudged me, and I elbowed him right back.

“Come in,” Ruby said, taking a step back. “We’re ready to go. We’re just doing dinner and going to a… eh, store afterward.” By store, I’d bet my kidney she meant a comic book store, but I knew she wasn’t admitting it because Ivan was right there. “We shouldn’t be gone long.”

I shrugged and stepped into the house I’d been in plenty of times over the last year since she’d moved back to Houston after spending the last four years living in Washington with her husband while he’d been in the army. He had rushed through a degree over the last few years, and gotten a job at a VA hospital doing…. Something with veterans. I was a shitty sister-in-law not to know what he did exactly. I really needed to ask Ruby. “It’s fine. Do whatever you want. I don’t have anything else to do besides go to sleep,” I told her, purposely not mentioning that Ivan had to bounce after four hours to go do whatever it was he needed to do.

“Hey, Jasmine,” a nice voice called out from down the hall a moment before the tall, blond man walked toward us.

“Hi, Aaron,” I said, rocking on my heels. “Aaron, you remember Ivan.”

The blond beefcake, who I swore could have had a successful career as a gigolo if he hadn’t been in the military, held his hand out toward me, and I slapped his palm. He then turned to Ivan and held it out too, where Ivan shook it. “Nice seeing you again,” my brother-in-law said, taking a step back to be side by side with my sister. “Thanks for babysitting.”

I shrugged but Ivan said, “Sure.”

“We’ll get going so we can get back faster,” Aaron let us know, leaning over to kiss my sister on the temple.

Ruby nodded. “You know where everything is. They’re both upstairs right now. They’ve eaten. Benny’s asleep on our bed. I didn’t want to wake him up to move him. We’re still working on his potty training…”

I waved her off. “Don’t worry about it. I can handle it.” I glanced at Ivan standing there and tried to imagine him changing a pull-up… and I came up with nothing. “We can handle it.”

Maybe. At least I could.

With another kiss to the temple that Aaron gave Ruby, they filed out of the house, closing and locking the door behind them. The lock had barely been spun when there was a wail from upstairs.

“Let’s get to work,” I said, pointing at the stairs.

Ivan nodded, then followed me up the stairs of the nice, big four-bedroom house in the suburbs.

My sister’s babies shared the same room. There were two cribs set up on opposite sides, one white, the other one wood tone. I headed straight to the white one, seeing the squirming, tiny body lying face down. Jessie was crying so loud I winced as I picked her up and brought her into my chest, cradling her. She was so small… and so damn loud.

I rocked her, whispering, “Shh, shh, shh,” and bouncing her a little the way she liked, before turning to find Ivan standing in the doorway, grinning like an idiot. I blinked. “What?”

Jessie kept on wailing.

“You picked her up like it was nothing,” he said, his eyes going from me to the baby and back again, like it was a miracle or something.

“She’s just a baby, not a grenade,” I told him, still whispering shh, shh, shh, and bouncing to try and calm my favorite little baby down. It always did the trick. I smiled down at the cute, pissed-off face.

“I didn’t know you liked kids,” Ivan murmured, coming to stand beside me, arching his neck to look at the child in my arms.

I smiled at Jess, knowing he couldn’t see me, and wrinkled my nose. “I love kids.”

His “Really?” didn’t surprise me at all.

I bounced the baby a little more, her wailing toning down until it was just a whimper. Bingo. Jasmine the Baby Whisperer. “Oh yeah,” I said softly, keeping my voice light. “I like kids. I just don’t like adults.”

“You don’t like adults? I don’t believe it.” Ivan snorted, turning his neck to shoot me a smile before focusing back on the baby. His finger came up and touched one of Jessie’s cheeks sweetly, probably taking in the softness if it was one of the first times he’d ever been up close and personal with a little human.

“Shut up.”

I could hear him breathe gently. “She’s so soft and little. Are they always this small?”

I watched her little face, knowing under her eyelids there were bright blue eyes that one day might come out the same shade as my mom’s. “She came out almost seven pounds; that’s pretty big for how small my sister is,” I explained. “Benny is a big boy too, they get it from their dad.” I dropped my head to give Jessie a kiss on the forehead as she gave a fussy baby cry. “Kids are innocent. They’re sweet, they’re honest. They’re cute. They know right and wrong better than adults do. What isn’t there to like?”

“They’re loud.”

I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye and cleared my throat, trying to ignore the tingle coming from it. “You’re loud.”

His gaze was already on me as he said, “They have tantrums sometimes.”

I glanced up at the ceiling. “It still sounds like you’re describing yourself.”

Ivan laughed as quietly as possible. “They cry.”

I made a face at him, that made him grin that white-white grin.

“Shut up. I don’t ever cry,” he whispered.

“Whining… crying… same thing.”

“You’re such a liar.”

I shook my head and glanced down at Jessie, my little niece. “I love babies, especially these babies. My babies,” I whispered, moving her further up my arm. Jessie gave a whimper, and I moved her again to hold her up to get a whiff of her diaper. It smelled fine. She took after my sister, her poop reeked when it came out.

“Are these your only two?” Ivan asked out of the blue.

“No, I have another niece from my oldest brother. She’s a teenager now.”

“Are you close to her?”

I looked at Jessie again, thinking of all the ways I’d failed my other niece. I hadn’t been in her life much. She had a favorite aunt, and it wasn’t me. The only person I could blame was myself. “More now, but not enough. I was too young when she was born, and then once I wasn’t… I didn’t make time or enough of it, you know what I mean? She was a baby, and then she wasn’t. It was too late by the time I realized it.”

Of course he knew what I meant by time running out. I wasn’t positive how. But he knew.

“Yeah, I know,” he agreed. “That’s part of it.” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him glance at me. “Don’t hold onto that. It’s pointless and you know it.”

I shrugged. “You say it like it’s easy, but you know it isn’t. I shouldn’t care that my oldest sister is her favorite, but it bugs me,” I told him for some reason. “I’m a sore loser, that’s probably it.”

Something touched my shoulder, and I saw it was Ivan’s hand. “You are a sore loser,” he agreed.

The smile I gave him was a little one that I wasn’t totally feeling.

“You’ll probably be this one’s favorite.” He touched Jessie’s cheek again.

“I’m working on it,” I told him. “It’s my goal. For once, I can be someone’s favorite.”

The way he turned his head slowly, made me cautious. Then he whispered, “What is that supposed to mean?”

I shrugged again, pushing that heavy feeling that had come out of nowhere off of me. I was going to fix things. I was going to be better. “Nothing. Just that I can be someone in my family’s favorite, so I’ve chosen Jessie since I have a fresh slate.”

His expression should have said something to me, but it didn’t. “I still don’t get what you mean by that. Explain.”

I rolled my eyes. “What I said. My mom’s favorite is my brother Jonathan. My dad’s favorite is my sister Ruby.”

“What?”

I shrugged. “They have favorites. Every parent does. Ruby’s favorite person is my sister Tali. Tali’s favorite is Ruby. Sebastian and Jojo’s favorite is Ruby too. It’s fine.”

It wasn’t that Ivan made a face—because he didn’t—at least not a face that 99.99 percent of people would have noticed. But that was the thing. I was the .01 percent that would. Because I did. What he did, and I knew it was more of a reflex than something intentional, was flex his jaw muscles. It was quick. Just a quick flex that was the briefest, most insubstantial movement I had probably ever seen.

But I saw it.

“What?” I asked him, still making the same face.

He didn’t look surprised at getting caught, and in that way that was all Ivan, he didn’t bullshit me and lie. “Who’s your favorite?” he asked me slowly, that gray-blue gaze intense.

I glanced at the baby in my arms and smiled down at the tiny face. “Both the babies.”

Ivan swallowed so rough I noticed it, what I also noticed was how raggedy his voice sounded when he threw me another question. “In your family though, Meatball. In your immediate family, who is your favorite?”

I didn’t even need to think about it. Not for a second. Not ever. I sure as hell didn’t need to look at him as I answered. “All of them.”

There was no disbelief to his tone when he threw my words back in my direction. “All of them?”

Giving the baby a kiss on the forehead, I said, “Yeah. All of them. I don’t have a favorite.”

He paused. Then he asked, “Why?”

The sting at my chest was so abrupt it almost took my breath away.

Almost.

What it did though, was hurt. Just a little. Just enough. But it did. It didn’t matter how rare it happened, it always felt the same.

So I definitely didn’t look at this man who I spent almost all day, every day with when I answered. “Because I love them all equally.”

But this bastard didn’t let it go. “Why?”

“What do you mean why? I just do,” I said, still avoiding eye contact by trying to play it off like I hadn’t already memorized the tiny face in my arms.

The thing about athletes—about people in general who have this need to win at anything and everything—is that they don’t know the meaning of giving up… of letting things go. That concept is foreign to them. So why I expected the man who was even more of a sore loser than the biggest sore loser I knew—me—to let something it was clear he was hung up on, go, was beyond me.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised when he kept going and asked the one question that I absolutely did not want to answer.

“But why, Jasmine?” He paused, letting the words really sink in. “Why do you love them all equally?”

The problem with hating lies was that when you wanted to fall into one, it hurt like a motherfucker to pick it up, hold it in your hands, and decide what to do with it… knowing either way it was going to ache. Maybe it made me a weak ass, but I acknowledged it and accepted it. So I told him the truth. “Because they all have good things about them, and bad things. I don’t hold that stuff against them,” I explained to him, not wanting to—definitely not wanting to—but having to. What was so wrong with the truth, except for the fact that it made me ache like crazy?

I glanced up at Ivan before I kept going, because I didn’t want him to think I was embarrassed. I didn’t want to make this seem like a bigger thing than what it was. Otherwise, he would take it to be more than it needed to, and I definitely didn’t want that. So I told him. “I want them to know I love them just the way they are. I don’t want any of them to feel bad thinking I like one more than the other.”

And then it was out there. I couldn’t take the words back.

The words hung in the air, in between Ivan and me, around and around and around and around, they were there.

He said nothing.

He didn’t say a word for so long as he stood there, all long and perfect, staring at me with those blue eyes for so long that I wanted to fidget, but he was the last person in the world I wanted to do that in front of, friends or not. He’d already seen me at my worst. He didn’t need to see how talking about favorites really made me feel.

So instead, I rolled my eyes and asked, “How about you look at something else now? You’re making me feel awkward.”

What did this idiot respond with? “No.”

I ignored him.

Luckily, it was right then that Benny waddled into the room, his clothes rumpled, his face puffy and cute, and said, “I’m hungwy, Jazzy.”

I jumped on that shit before it ran away and I got stuck talking about things I didn’t want to think about more than I already had. “Okay, Benny.” Then I looked at Ivan and asked, “You want the baby or the toddler?”

His face got alarmed so fast it made me snicker. “I need to take one?”

“What do you think I brought you for? Yeah.”

Ivan blinked before his gaze slipped from Benny, who was still half asleep standing in the doorway, to Jessie’s sleeping face. “They’re both babies,” he said, like it was news.

It was my turn to blink.

Ivan bit that pink lip of his and glanced at the little boy standing there, probably not even totally comprehending we weren’t his parents. Then he decided. “I’ll take the baby.”

I didn’t let the surprise show on my face. I thought for sure he’d take Benny instead of Jessie. “Okay. Here,” I said, stepping in front of him, already holding my arms out.

His face almost made me laugh.

“I’ve never held a baby before,” he muttered, his whole body tensing.

“You can do it.”

That had him glancing up at me as he formed his arms into the same shape I had mine. “Of course I can.”

I snickered, and that made him smile. It was pretty easy transferring the baby from my arms to his. He was a natural, slipping the crook of his elbow underneath her head and then bringing her in close to his body.

“She’s so light,” he commented the second she was fully in his arms.

“She’s only a few months old,” I told him, already turning to crouch down to Benny.

Ivan snickered. “That doesn’t mean much. You’re little too, but you’re heavy as hell.”

“Oh, shut up. I’m not that heavy.” I turned to look at him over my shoulder as I extended my arms out to my nephew.

“You are. You’re the heaviest partner I’ve ever had.”

“It’s all muscle.”

“Is that what we’re going to call it?”

I laughed as Benny came toward me, still rubbing at his face. “Okay, Tinkerbell, you aren’t exactly light either,” I threw out before wrapping my arms around my favorite three-year-old, picking him up.

Ivan laughed softly as he brought the baby up to his face the same way I had moments ago. “I’m not supposed to be. It’s all muscle.”

“I don’t know why people complain so much. This is easy,” Ivan said, holding the bottle to Jessie’s mouth as she sucked hungrily at it.

I hated to admit how easy this baby shit was with Ivan. It probably shouldn’t have been. But it was.

The second time Jessie had started wailing, this time in his arms, he’d kind of jumped a little, frowned, given me a panicked expression, and before I could tell him what to do, he’d started humming and rocking her all on his own. His shh, shh, shh sounding weird out of his mouth. I hadn’t timed it or anything, but it felt like less than a minute later, her kitten cries had turned into whimpers, and a minute after that, she had completely stopped. I had almost called him a natural, but he didn’t need that shit to go to his head. He already thought highly enough about himself.

And then he amazed me some more.

When she’d cried not too long after that, and I’d told him she probably needed a diaper change, all he had said was “Okay.” So when I offered to change it, while he took Benny, he had said, “I can do it. Tell me what to do,” and that had been it. He changed her diaper and only fake gagged twice.

He was infinitely patient. He didn’t get tired. He didn’t complain.

And it shouldn’t have surprised me. It really shouldn’t have. I’d seen him be patient, tireless, and complain-less, every day for weeks and weeks. He got it from figure skating. But I couldn’t help but think that maybe I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did.

“I’ve spent the night with them before. Do that and then tell me it’s easy. I don’t know how my sister isn’t a walking zombie,” I told him as I lay on the floor beside Benny, handing him blocks that he was making a castle out of. Or something that looked sort of like a castle.

“They wake up a lot, huh?”

“Yeah, especially when they’re this young. Ruby and Aaron are both crazy patient; they’re good parents.”

“I could be a good dad,” Ivan whispered, still feeding Jess.

I could have told him he’d be good at anything he wanted to be good at, but nah.

“Do you want to have kids?” he asked me out of the blue.

I handed Benny another block. “A long time from now, maybe.”

“A long time… like how long?”

That had me glancing at Ivan over my shoulder. He had his entire attention on Jessie, and I was pretty sure he was smiling down at her. Huh. “My early thirties, maybe? I don’t know. I might be okay with not having any either. I haven’t really thought about it much, except for knowing I don’t want to have them any time soon, you know what I mean?”

“Because of figure skating?”

“Why else? I barely have enough time now. I couldn’t imagine trying to train and have kids. My baby daddy would have to be a rich, stay-at-home dad for that to work.”

Ivan wrinkled his nose at my niece. “There are at least ten skaters I know with kids.”

I rolled my eyes and poked Benny in the side when he held out his little hand for another block. That got me a toothy grin. “I’m not saying it’s impossible. I just wouldn’t want to do it any time soon. I don’t want to half-ass or regret it. If they ever exist, I’d want them to be my priority. I wouldn’t want them to think they were second best.”

Because I knew what that felt like. And I’d already screwed up enough with making grown adults I loved think they weren’t important. If I was going to do something, I wanted to do my best and give it everything.

All he said was, “Hmm.”

A thought came into my head and made my stomach churn. “Why? Are you planning on having kids any time soon?”

“I wasn’t,” he answered immediately. “I like this baby though, and that one. Maybe I need to think about it.”

I frowned, the feeling in my stomach getting more intense.

He kept blabbing. “I could start training my kids really young…. I could coach them. Hmm.”

It was my turn to wrinkle my nose. “Three hours with two kids and now you want them?”

Ivan glanced down at me with a smirk. “With the right person. I’m not going to have them with just anybody and dilute my blood.”

I rolled my eyes at this idiot, still ignoring that weird feeling in my belly that I wasn’t going to acknowledge now or ever. “God forbid, you have kids with someone that’s not perfect. Dumbass.”

“Right?” He snorted, looking down at the baby before glancing back at me with a smile I wasn’t a fan of. “They might come out short, with mean, squinty, little eyes, a big mouth, heavy bones, and a bad attitude.”

I blinked. “I hope you get abducted by aliens.”

Ivan laughed, and the sound of it made me smile. “You would miss me.”

All I said, while shrugging was, “Meh. I know I’d get to see you again someday—”

He smiled.

“—in hell.”

That wiped the look right off his face. “I’m a good person. People like me.”

“Because they don’t know you. If they did, somebody would have kicked your ass already.”

“They’d try,” he countered, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

There was something wrong with us.

And I didn’t hate it. Not even a little bit.