I open the car door and look at him expectantly. “Get in.”
He doesn’t move at first, just stands there looking back at the house.
“I don’t know what the fuck my mother was thinking,” I mutter while I walk around to the driver’s side. “That was a total disaster.”
I’mcertain my family just ruined everything and now he’s going to run. Which means I’ll have to kidnap him for real, chain him to the bed, and wait for Stockholm Syndrome to kick in so he remembers he loves me. That was a fucking mess. I knew exactly how that dinner would go, and I still let her drag him into it anyway.
We walk into the living room, and Kelly bursts out laughing.
“Your family is insane,” he says. “I thought you were the handful, but they’re worse.”
“I’m perfectly sane. They’re the problem.”
“Right. Sure. Perfectly sane. It’s definitely them, not you.”
I scoff and shake my head. “You should have seen last New Year’s. The ceiling got two new holes in it when my father tried to stop Yulian from murdering Lev.”
“Is that what those bullet holes were from? But there were so many.”
“It’s his go-to move to make us stop fighting since we were children.”
“Jesus Christ.” He walks off with his hands on his head, then looks back at me with wide eyes.
“What is this vase thing? Why does everyone keep freaking out when it gets mentioned?”
I groan and tilt my head back toward the ceiling. “Not you too.”
“Is the vase some metaphor for something else?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Nyet. It’s a fucking vase. My great-great-something grandmother smuggled it out of some revolution in Russia. It’s been in my mother’s family ever since. Someone broke it when we were kids, no one confessed, and they’ve been fighting about it for almost twenty fucking years.”
I glance up at him. “Last year, Yulian even made a PowerPoint to prove it wasn’t him. Timeline and everything. Our mother was so distraught she had a photo of the vase framed. That’s in the living room now. The glass is cracked because Mikhail once threw it at my head.”
“I have no idea what to say to any of that.”
“I should have warned you about how they can be.”
“No, Alexei, you could not have prepared me for what I was about to walk into. I think I might excuse myself from family functions from now on.”
I grin at him because that works perfectly for me. “Gives us a reason to stay home then.”
He grins. “Yeah.”
Then he walks up to me and wraps his hands around my neck, pulling me into a kiss. “Come on, let’s go open our presents. Then I want you to fuck me.”
I mentally fist-bump myself and thrust my tongue into his mouth.
He is everything I have ever wanted.
He witnessed my family in its full chaotic force, and he’s still here, still choosing this, still choosing me. My father hasn’t spoken to me since he saw us together. I weirdly don’t care anymore. I have Kelly and that’s all that matters from now on. I pull back just enough to look at him, really look at him. His green eyes are bright with something that makes my chest feel tight.
“You’re not running,” I say, and it comes out quieter than I meant it to.
“No,” he says, his thumbs brushing along my jaw. “I’m not running. Your family is insane, and I’m still here.”
He knows exactly what I am and wants me anyway.
“Presents first,” he says, stepping back with a smile that’s pure mischief.
