Page 38 of Paved in Hate
“Famous last words if I’ve ever heard any,” Vitaly says, shaking his head.
“Where’s it at?” Matvey asks.
“Already in the nursery,” Roman tells him.
I give Vitaly’s sweater a soft tug, and he immediately looks over at me, concern written all over his face.
“Do you think I can still paint while you put it together?”
He smiles and gives my hand a soft squeeze. “Of course. There’s plenty of room, and with Danil’s big head we’ll have it done in no time.”
“Big head?” Danil asks. “Roman said genius brain, not big head.”
Vitaly smiles and shrugs. “Same thing.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s not at all the same thing,” Danil tells him.
“Come on,” Roman says. “I want to surprise Emily with this, so we need to get it done before she wakes up from her nap.”
Vitaly checks his watch. “Damn, she’s already taking her nap?”
“She couldn’t get comfortable last night and slept like shit, so I’m making her lay around today.” I can hear the concern in his voice, and yet again I’m reminded of the vast differences in our families. “She tried to argue with me about it, but she was asleep pretty much as soon as her head hit the pillow.”
“Okay, let’s do this,” Vitaly says, standing and picking me up again, not letting me go until I’m in front of the mural I’d started yesterday. Leaning down, he says, “Don’t hurt your feet again. Sit on the stepladder when you can, and I’m making you stop for lunch.”
His lips brush my forehead in a soft kiss before he stands and walks over to his brothers. They eye the large box like it’s a puzzle that needs figuring out. Twenty minutes, my ass. I have a feeling this is going to be an all-day event.
Grabbing my brushes, I pick up where I was forced to leave off last night and start working on the little bird in the tree. I bite my lip and try not to laugh when I hear the cussing start in Russian. Evidently, the crib is not quite as easy as they thought it would be.
“I don’t understand why we can’t figure this out,” Danil says after thirty minutes have gone by and the crib is still in pieces on the floor.
“Because this damn thing doesn’t make any sense,” Vitaly says, holding up the instructions and then flipping the diagram around to try and see if that works out better for him. It does not, so he hands it back to Roman with an annoyed grunt. “This is designed to make you fucking crazy.”
“How hard can this fucking be?” Lev asks, holding up one of the rails. “I mean, we’re basically building a box with no lid.”
After another forty minutes, Vitaly shrugs and says, “Your kid is sleeping on the floor. I’m sure he’ll love it. We can get him some nice comfy blankets.”
When I start laughing, he turns those amber eyes on me and lifts a brow. “Something funny,ptichka?”
“No,” I say, unable to hide my smile. “I’m sure it’s very complicated.”
“It is,” he says, and I swear it almost sounds a little bit like a pout.
“This is making me question everything,” Danil admits.
“Brain’s not feeling so big now, is it?” Vitaly asks with a laugh.
Matvey grabs the instructions. “We’re not being outdone by a goddamn crib. Okay,” he says, pointing at the diagram. “We need Part A. Which one is A?”
They all look around, finding the right piece before Matvey says, “And we attach it to Part B.”
When they locate both pieces, they hold them together while Lev asks, “Where the fuck are the screws?”
“I don’t know,” Matvey says, “but it also says we need dowels. What the fuck is a dowel? Do they have instructions in Russian?”
By the time they manage to build the damn thing, I’m laughing so hard I’m crying. I can’t remember ever laughing this hard in my life. Being around this family makes it easy to forget that I’m supposed to be on my guard. Vitaly walks over, a smile playing at his full lips.
“I’m glad you found that so amusing.”
