Page 22 of Marrying the Pakhan

Ginger considers that for a long moment, longer than she’s considered anything all week, and something in her shoulders loosens, just slightly. “Okay,” she says, and reaches for the water he brought her. She drinks half of it in one go like she’s been thirsty the whole time and hadn’t noticed until now.

Viktor doesn’t push for more than that. He stands, tells her goodnight, and leaves the door open exactly the width he met it.

I stay a while longer after he’s gone. Eventually Ginger climbs up onto the bed on her own, no argument, and lies down on top of the yellow sheets without complaint this time.

“Mrs. Bennett will drive far to get here now,” she says out of nowhere, staring at the ceiling. “Is she still going to pick me up?”

“We’ll figure that part out. I promise you’re not losing anyone else, Ginger. Not Marisol, not Mrs. Bennett, not anyone.”

“Okay,” she says again, and this time it sounds a little more like she believes it.

I turn off the big overhead light and leave the small lamp on instead, the way she likes it, and sit on the edge of the bed until her breathing evens out.

Downstairs, Viktor’s in the kitchen when I come down, two mugs of tea already made like he somehow knew I’d need one.

“She talked to you,” I say, taking the mug he offers. “More than she’s talked to anyone in days.”

“She’s testing whether I’ll listen.” He leans against the counter, watching me over the rim of his own mug. “Kids that age can always tell the difference between someone answering them and someone humoring them.”

“You’re good with her.”

“I’m trying.” His jaw tightens, just slightly, there and gone fast. “I don’t have much practice. But I’d like to get better at it, if she’ll let me.”

“You didn’t have to bring her water yourself either. That’s what I keep noticing tonight. You didn’t have to carry boxes, you didn’t have to crouch down on her level, you didn’t have to sit with her instead of just telling her to get into bed.”

“I know.” He looks at me steadily over the mug. “But I wanted to do those things, too.”

9

VIKTOR

“You said I could pick,” Ginger says, arms crossed, standing her ground in my kitchen like she’s negotiating a treaty. “I pick pizza. The kind with the stuffed crust.”

“That’s what you picked yesterday.”

“I like it.”

“You’re allowed to like more than one thing, you know. There’s an entire menu of things you haven’t tried yet.”

“I know what I like.” She says it with total conviction.

Harper appears in the kitchen doorway right as Ginger says it, hair still damp from a shower, wearing a robe she clearly grabbed without thinking too hard about it. I have to look somewhere else for a second before I trust myself to speak normally.

“That’s such a direct echo of the woman who just walked in,” I say, “that I have to fight not to smile outright.”

Harper laughs, crossing to the counter, not bothering to hide it, and I find myself giving in without much of a fight, because arguing pizza with a six-year-old feels like the easiest decision I’ve made all week.

“Stuffed crust it is.”

Ginger nods once, satisfied, like she expected nothing less, and goes back to the drawing she’s been working on at the table, tongue between her teeth in concentration.

Four days in this house and she’s already figured out exactly how far she can push me, which is somehow more reassuring than if she’d stayed cautious with me forever.

“You’re supposed to be the intimidating one,” Harper says, low enough that Ginger doesn’t catch it over her own humming. “The scary club owner. Instead, you just lost a negotiation to a first grader over crust.”

“I have a reputation to maintain elsewhere. This kitchen isn’t it.”

Harper moves past me to get the plates herself, close enough that I catch the smell of whatever soap she used. I busy myself with the pizza box instead of doing anything about the fact that my whole body’s suddenly very aware of exactly how little distance is between us in this kitchen.