I open my eyes and look over at him without lifting my head. “I do?”
He huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, all over the side of your face and neck.” His laughter grows louder before he says, “No wonder they tried to kick your ass when they saw you.”
I reach up and scrub at my cheek, trying to get the dirt off. I have no idea how it got on me. I wasn’t the one with my face on the ground, but we’d done a lot in those woods, and it’s not too surprising that I got just as dirty as Sitka.
“Especially if she looked worse than you,” Niki says from my left.
“Nothing to be ashamed of,” our Uncle Vitaly says from across the room, because he has bat-like ears when it comes to juicy gossip. “You can’t make love in the woods and expect to walk out of there clean as a whistle.”
“You have got to stop saying that,” our Uncle Danil says.
“He’s never going to stop,” Sasha says. “I honestly don’t think he can.”
“Well, he’s been like this since we were kids,” my dad says, “so I’m guessing you’re right.”
Completely unfazed by being talked about, my Uncle Vitaly looks over at Talia. “I couldn’t help but notice the pie on the counter. Do you mind if I grab a small slice?”
Val laughs at what his dad’s just said and tells Talia, “Just hand him the whole thing with a fork.”
“That’s rude,” his dad says. Looking back at Talia, he stands and tells her, “I would never ask you to hand me the entire pie plate.” When he walks towards the kitchen, I hear him say, “I can get off my ass and get it myself. Do you have any ice cream to go with it?”
When I meet my dad’s eyes, he just grins and says, “He insisted on coming.”
“I still think it would’ve been hilarious if we’d left without him,” my Uncle Lev says with a laugh.
“He would’ve just taken Dominic’s plane and caught up with us,” my Uncle Matvey says.
My Uncle Danil nods in agreement. “And then we never would’ve heard the end of it.”
My dad and uncles share a laugh at that, each of them knowing it’s true, and when my uncle Vitaly comes back in with a pie plate and a bowl of ice cream, I say, “Thanks for flying out to try and save my ass. I’m still fairly confident they wouldn’t have killed me, but I’m glad you’re all here to even things out a bit.”
“They might’ve killed you,” Sasha says. “They don’t have any rules to begin with, and if you’d made them think for one second that you were just fucking around with Sitka, they would’ve stabbed you for sure.”
“Well, if they’d listened to me back at their house, then we wouldn’t have had to go through any of this,” I say.
“They caught you on their property?” my dad asks.
“Yeah,” I say while looking around at all the wide-eyed looks my uncles are giving me.
It’s my Uncle Lev who breaks the silence with a “Damn, kid,” followed by a laugh that quickly catches on until my entire family is giggling like a roomful of kids.
“Guess the Pacific didn’t completely obliterate your balls,” my Uncle Danil jokes.
“I’m still not sure mine have completely thawed,” Ev says.
“It can’t be that bad,” Mia says and then grins at the look we both give her.
Ev points a finger at her and looks over at Max. “She’s getting in the water before we leave.”
Max laughs and pulls Talia onto his lap while Lyra uses my brother’s hands for leverage, taking a few steps on her way to Niki’s waiting arms.
“Your ass is definitely getting in the water,” Max says, backing Ev up.
“I didn’t say I wanted to jump in,” Mia says, but Max is already shaking his head at her.
“Nope, it’s already a done deal. Plus, this’ll help ease tension between the families. The Medvedevs love to surf. You can’t be a wuss and back out now. You’ll ruin the whole peace treaty thing we’ve got going on.”
“Yeah, Mia,” Sasha says. “You don’t want to be the one responsible for starting a war just because you were too scared to go in the water.”
