“Maggie’s thinking it,” Sacha said.
“I am not,” Maggie said primly, even though red bloomed across her cheeks.
“Maggie’sabsolutelythinking it,” Sasha corrected, winking at her.
Mikhail dragged in a breath through his nose and took a deliberate sip of his drink, while Bryony sat in silence beside him, her cheeks just as red as Maggie’s.
Nathan chuckled and shook his head. “And to think, Yuri, that you’ll be leaving all this behind when you go to San Francisco. Don’t get too used to the peace and quiet.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Yuri looked around the crammed table. The truth was, he might actually miss all of this. In fact, he was quite certain that he would. For all the times he’d begged Alexei to send him off on a business trip over the years, now that he was on the brink of leaving, he suddenly wasn’t sure he wanted to go. Was this how his brothers felt whenever they needed to leave too?
But someone needed to go to San Francisco to buy the ship Alexei wanted, and there were too many things going on in Sitka for Alexei to go himself, especially now that Rosalind’s uncle was the governor of Alaska.
So it would have to be him, and he was supposed to be excited, confound it.
“I can write to you.” Sacha leaned closer to the table, that teasing grin still plastered across his face. “I’ll make sure to include every single embarrassing thing Mikhail does while you’re gone.”
Mikhail leveled him with a look. “I haveneverdone anything embarrassing.”
“Is that so?” Sasha drummed his fingers on the table. “Then perhaps you’d like to explain why you nearlytoppled over backwardin your chair this morning when Bryony touched your arm.”
“The chair was unstable.”
Bryony raised a brow. “It seemed perfectly sturdy to me.”
Sacha grinned. “It’s not his fault, Bryony. Love makes a man forget how furniture works.”
Alexei sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “I cannot believe this is the conversation we’re having over dinner.”
Kate smirked. “What did you expect? Manners and polite discourse? Half of this table is made up of Amos men.”
Alexei exhaled slowly, probably trying to summon a bit of patience. “I keep thinking they’ll grow out of this at some point.”
“We won’t,” Sacha quipped.
“Not ever. The house would be far too serious.” Yuri let out a mock shudder and glanced around the table. Everyone was smiling—other than Alexei, and he never smiled.
Oh, hang it all. He really was going to miss his family while he was in San Francisco. What would it feel like that first night in the hotel where he knew nobody? He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten a meal by himself. There was always someone in the house eating with him, even if it was Maggie’s six-year-old half-brother, Finnan.
Was he supposed to eat every meal by himself in the hotel restaurant? He wasn’t going to know what to do—not that he’d ever admit that to Alexei.
Hopefully after that first night, he’d at least have businessmen to eat with.
But that still wouldn’t be the same as sitting at the table he’d eaten at for his entire life, laughing with his family.
And here he was, starting to feel homesick before he’d even left home.
He was being ridiculous. San Francisco was a large city bustling with people upon people upon people. Surely he’d find someone interesting there, or maybe ten someones. It couldn’t be that hard to make friends.
But there was someone who wouldn’t be in San Francisco.
Yuri dragged his gaze back to his bowl of half-eaten soup.
If only he had a way to contact her.
He shoved a hand through his hair. Maybe he was just conjecturing that something was wrong. Maybe there was nothing wrong and she simply forgot about their meeting, since it was usually on a different day entirely.
But what was he going to do about her letters?
