Page 7 of Cherished By the BRATVA Grump

“So,” Demyan says, snapping my attention to him. I only reach his shoulder, and I’m in heels. “You grew up here?”

“From the age of five, yes.” I put my phone in my purse and try not to let emoji-gate unsettle me.

“Ah, did your parents move here for work?”

I sigh. This is the conversation I dread with everyone, so I might as well get it out of the way.

“No, I was removed from my biological parents and brought to my mom’s house by Child Protective Services.”

I wait for the inevitable fallout of that sentence. The quiet withdrawal people make when they find out I was in the system.

“Well, I’m glad you ended up with someone who clearly cares deeply about you.”

I stop dead in my tracks, my jaw dropping open.

“What?” he asks. “Is everything okay?”

I pull my coat tighter around me. “Yeah, I just… I’ve just never had someone respond that way.”

“What way was I supposed to respond?” he asks, a crease forming between his dark brows.

I shake my head slightly and offer a half shrug, because I don’t know how to answer his question.

He walks back to me, only a couple of steps, and takes my hand in his.

“I’m sorry you had a rough start to life.”

“Stop.” The word comes from me before I can control my mouth. “Let's just get this over with.”

Demyan

Mrs Kleine, who insists I call her Patricia, has made chicken. The smell hits as soon as Tamsin opens the door. It’s that warm smell of home cooked food that stirs up memories of when I was a kid and my mother would cook for the family. Me, my sister, and our father. We’d sit around the dining room table and eat like lords.

Patricia has made potatoes and steamed vegetables and some sort of gravy she calls a “roux.”

“It’s wonderful to have a guest for dinner,” she says, handing me a bowl of stuffing. “It’s been a while. I had Daisy staying not long back, but I didn’t get the opportunity to properly cook for her.”

Tamsin watches her mom with something akin to suspicion as I load my plate with dinner.

“Thank you for having me at such short notice. This is a lot of food.”

“Well, I usually cook in large batches and then plate up dinners to freeze for the days I don’t feel like cooking. Now Tamsin is home, it will be nice to cook more often.”

The food is delicious. I hadn’t realized how much I missed good, home-cooked food. I should probably make more of an effort to learn how to cook, but after a day of doing whatever my cousins need me to do, I normally don’t have enough of an appetite for anything more than take out.

Patricia watches while Tamsin and I eat in silence for a moment then says, “So, Demyan, tell us a little about yourself.”

My fork stops halfway to my mouth, then I drop it back to my plate.

“I work with my cousins, as you know, Federov Freight…” I start, suddenly feeling like I’m being interviewed for the first time in my life.

“No,” Patricia states when I trail off. “Tell us about who you really are.”

Our eyes stayed locked together for a few seconds longer than would be considered normal. But then there’s nothing normal about me and nothing normal about this…first date?

“I’m thirty-four years old and I’m a fixer for my family.” I glance across to Tamsin to gauge her reaction.

There’s a line pinched between her brows, but she isn’t looking at me, she is focused on scooping vegetables onto her fork.