Her expression went slack, and her eyes flared.
“I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant,” he amended quickly. He meant she didn’t understandhisfamily’s relationship dynamics. Fuck,hedidn’t understandhisfamily. “Your family is all normal. My family is…well…” He tilted his head toward the room housing said family.
“No, I know what you meant.” The column of her throat pulsed as she swallowed hard. “I should go. She shouldn’t wait out there by herself.”
“Heather, I didn’t mean it like that. Really.” He tried to extract his foot from his mouth.
Heather bit her lip. “Okay, but I should still…go.”
“Right. Yeah.” He nodded.
She hurried out the door, leaving him alone in the foyer.
His mother stood alone in the doorway to the family room and just shook her head.
Jase rubbed the headache that brewed beneath his skull.This is why you don’t get involved in family shit.He repeated it to himself over and over.
11
Chapter Eleven
Senior “Senior” Prom Countdown: 20 Days
Originally, Heather was on the fence about letting Babushka stick around at her apartment. Turned out, Babushka was a pretty freaking awesome roommate.
Case in point? The laundry Babushka had washed, folded, and put away for Heather. Yes, she had rearranged all of Heather’s drawers in the process, but it’d been a week and Heather hadn’t had to touch the washing machine. It would take Heather a bit to grow accustomed to having her lingerie moved to the bottom drawer of her dresser, but she’d get used to it.
Not that she took advantage of the old woman. Babushka just always got to the laundry first. And the dishes. And the woman cooked like a dream. Heather slogged up the stairs after work every afternoon and Babushka had dinner ready for her.
Heather had told her repeatedly she didn’t have to do it. But who was she to ruin the woman’s happiness? If making Heather piroshki and potato pancakes was her thing, Heather could be totally on board.
And she’d shared her recipes with Candy and the other bakers. Which meant, Heather was selling the hell out of some cookies.
To top it all off, Babushka also taken over personally hawking prom tickets to anyone over the age of fifty-five who came within a five-foot radius of the cookie shop.
A knock at the door and Heather stood from the table. “I’ve got it.”
“No. No. You sit.” Babushka shuffled past Heather to the front door. “You have vork. I vill answer.”
Heather had spent the morning getting donations for her prom project. She went back to her notepad of patrons, marking who had agreed to donate what.
Babushka pulled open Heather’s front door. Jase stood on the other side.
“Enough is enough, I’ve come to bring you home,” he declared to his grandmother.
Oh. Hell no.
Heather moved to head off the swiping of thebabushka. “Jase. Hello. Come in. Have somegolubzi.”
He sucked in air. “Shit. She’s turned you.”
“Mouth.” Babushka patted his cheek. “Cuss in Russian, like a good boy.”
“Gav-no,” he replied, stepping into the apartment.
Babushka’s smile would’ve been infectious if Jase weren’t there to steal her back.
“What happened in here?” He glanced around the rearranged apartment.
