All the Secrets We Keep (Quarry Book 2) Read online

  Ilya flipped her both middle fingers as Niko did the same. Then the brothers gave each other high fives. Alicia made a face, and when Niko crossed the room and tried to kiss her, she fended him off. At least for a second or so, before she dissolved into laughter and gave in.

  “Gross,” Ilya said conversationally as he plopped onto the couch next to Theresa. “You’re going to get mono.”

  “That was the game,” Theresa said. “We won.”

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Ilya said. “We gave it up to you.”

  Alicia shot him the bird. “L-l-loooooooser.”

  It was a lot like it had been back in the day, even if at the same time it was completely not. Theresa recalled a lot more f-bombs being thrown around back then, along with noogies and wrist burns. The good feeling was the same, though. Back then they’d enfolded her into their group effortlessly, if only briefly, and she felt the same way now.

  Part of something.

  Belonging.

  Included.

  But only briefly.

  She caught Ilya watching her and quickly smoothed whatever expression she’d had that had made him frown. “Rematch?”

  “Not for me. I’m beat.” Niko shook his head.

  Alicia stood. “Me, too.”

  Theresa and Ilya shared a look. It was obvious that Niko and Alicia had plans that were going to keep them up at least an hour longer, if not more. Not that she blamed them or anything, but the walls were thin upstairs. She wasn’t going to go up there for a while. Theresa busied herself cleaning up the game pieces while Ilya, unbidden, took care of the dirty plates and bottles. She followed him into the kitchen when she’d finished.

  “So . . . I’m going to watch a movie,” she said. “You want to hang out a little longer?”

  “You don’t have to work in the morning?”

  She shrugged. “I make my own hours, and I don’t have any appointments until the afternoon. It’s only eleven now.”

  “Yeah, I guess I could hang out. Watch something. Sure.” He didn’t move, and neither did she.

  He hadn’t shaved in a few days by the look of the scruff on his chin and cheeks, and suddenly all she wanted to do was rub her palm over the bristles. His hair was silky smooth, his face rough. It had tickled her earlier, and she touched her cheek, remembering. She should’ve felt caught by his gaze but instead felt only embraced.

  He was going to kiss her again, and this time they were alone, so she would let him.

  He didn’t, and the sweet anticipation tinged with anxiety eased within her. She hadn’t misread him. He’d changed his mind. She saw it in his eyes and the tilt of his small smile and the way he let one finger twist into one long curl that hung over her shoulder.

  He wanted to kiss her again, and maybe that was going to be all they’d ever have. Wanting. Better off for it, she told herself as she let out the breath she’d been holding. They knew there was no good that could come out of acting on this.

  In the den, she let him pick the movie while she rearranged the cushions and knitted afghans on the back of the couch to give them both room to sprawl. He chose a recent release full of gunfire and car chases, and despite the action and noise, less than halfway through it, he was yawning broadly. Shortly after that, Ilya had twisted on the couch to lay his head in her lap. Her fingers found the softness of his hair, threading through it. Every so often she let her hand caress downward, giving in to the urge to rub his bristly cheek before moving up again to stroke his hair.

  In the TV’s flickering blue-white light, she could let her gaze fall to his face every so often. She could trace the line of his brows with her fingertips. She could feel the weight of his head in her lap and see the gleam of his eyes when he looked at her. Neither of them spoke. Words would’ve ruined this, whatever it was. Speech would’ve forced them to acknowledge it.

  She watched him fall into sleep.

  The movie ended, and the room went briefly dark after the credits had finished scrolling. In the darkness, Ilya moved on the couch, shifting to press her back along his front so the two of them were spooning. His breath heated the back of her neck, her hair a barrier to the touch of his lips.

  “Thanks for asking me to come over,” he murmured.

  Theresa didn’t answer him. She closed her eyes, listening to the slowing in-out of his breath and relaxing against him. And then, sometime before morning light began its creeping crawl through the windows, she got up and left him there while she went to her own room and her bed, but she wasn’t able to get back to sleep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Meet me at the diner at one today.

  The message had pinged his phone about an hour earlier, but Ilya hadn’t heard it. Now he had only twenty minutes or so to take a shower and get over there, and even if he rushed, he was going to be a few minutes late. He shot Theresa a message in return letting her know he was on the way, but he stalled out in his bedroom, not sure what he ought to wear.

  It wasn’t a date, he reminded himself. They weren’t going to do that. Even if he was interested in dating anyone on a regular basis, which he wasn’t and hadn’t been for a long time, it couldn’t be Theresa.

  “You look nice,” Galina said when he stopped in the living room on the way out to tell her he was leaving. “You always did clean up well, Ilyushka.”

  She sounded drunk, although there was no evidence of her drinking. The pet name was a sign, though, as was the way she lolled on the couch watching daytime television. Ilya ran a hand over his hair, damp from the shower, and looked down at the jeans and T-shirt he’d finally decided were nice enough to make it obvious he’d put in some small effort, but casual enough to show it hadn’t been too much.

  “I’m going out,” he said.

  His mother laughed, low and throaty. “I see that. To meet a girl, yes?”

  “I’m . . . yeah. Sure.” He patted his pockets to check for his phone and wallet and keys. He didn’t want to ask, but he did. “You okay? Do you need anything?”

  “I’m fine. You can bring back some coffee and cream when you come home. We’re out, and your brother used to be sure we had some, but I suppose he has more on his mind these days than whether or not his mother is supplied with coffee and cream.”

  “Yeah, I can do that.” Ilya hesitated, wanting to get out of there, but the old, distasteful compulsion to check up on his mother lingered. “You sure you’re all right?”

  She looked at him. “Go meet your other woman. I’m fine, I told you.”

  “She’s not—” He bit back the words. Galina was baiting him the way she’d been doing for years, but he didn’t have to rise to it. Instead, he nodded and ducked out of the living-room doorway without another word.

  He made it to the diner in another fifteen minutes by taking backstreets and avoiding the traffic lights. He pulled in at 1:12 and had no trouble finding a spot in the lot because the only other car there was Theresa’s battered gray Volvo. She was leaning against it, tapping a message into her phone, but she looked up with a smile when he got out of his car.

  “Hey,” she said. “You made it. Good.”

  Ilya looked toward the building, brow furrowed. “Doesn’t look open.”

  “It’s not. They closed last week.” Theresa slipped her phone into the bag hanging on her shoulder and clapped her hands together. “Want to go inside and check it out?”

  “Like . . . break in? Aren’t we a little old to be doing that sort of thing?”

  She grinned, and once again Ilya was struck with how broad and beautiful that smile was, and how a man might be tempted to do almost anything to earn another from her. “I have the key.”

  “How’d you get a key?” He followed her across the lot to the front door.

  She glanced at him over her shoulder as she fit the key into the lock in the double glass doors. “I have a good relationship with the Realtor. I took care of a lot of property transactions at my last job. Sometimes she couldn’t get to a site at a convenient time fo