Settling Slowly

Chapter 2 - Freudian, ten thousand men and trousers

Mama isn't happy with you.
Grigory filled up on
cookies and doesn't want
much for dinner.

I grinned at the text Sergey had sent me. It didn't matter much to me whose house Grigory ate at, just so long as he left his house. Sure I would have really liked him to come here though that would have meant policing Dad's behaviour, but his relatives' was a good second.

Will she feel better if I
give her the recipe?

... no. Apparently Grisha
needs to eat healthily.
And he really needs a
Shave :/

I told him he looks like a
yeti.

??? yeti???

Hairy man eating snow
monster

Well, I thought yetis ate people. I could have googled it, I probably should have, but I couldn't be bothered to fight with the crappy internet the weather had doomed us all to live with for the next forever. I'd thought the snow was awesome when it arrived, now it was a pain in the arse that needed to get a move on. I was not going to grumble to Sergey about it though. He'd probably seen more snow in one Russian winter than I'd ever see.

Don't you mean an
Abominable Snowman?

Yeti is so much easier to
spell and say

We sent a few more texts back and forth on that vein before Sergey suddenly stopped texting me, most likely because he was sitting down to eat dinner. I was called down for dinner not long afterwards. Dan was still at Brandon's house so it was just me, Mum and Dad. I hadn't spoken to my father since I left the house earlier, mostly because we'd been in different rooms of the house, but I was still annoyed with him. He didn't make eye contact with me as I sat down at the table and Mum was giving him The Look. The suck it up and admit you're in the wrong look. That look. The Look.

I didn't like Mum having that look on her face anymore than Dad liked it even though it wasn't aimed at me right now. I sat down uncomfortably and shifted in my chair for a few moments. Then I picked up my fork and began picking at the spaghetti bolognaise in my bowl.

Dad sighed and put his fork down. "I'm sorry."

I nodded to my bowl.

"Peter," Mum said in a firm, but low voice.

Dad sighed again. "I don't like that he lied to you, I don't much like that he's six years older than you either," he said gruffly. "But if you like him... I won't stop you."

When I didn't say anything he playfully kicked my shin which made me smile. I looked up and his grey eyes were showing nothing but a father's concern for his daughter. I totally understood that, but that didn't mean I appreciated it. If it were Dan in my position he would have let Dan sort himself out. With me... he always protected me because I'd nearly died when I was a baby. I'd been born about four months early, had little to no chance of survival but had pulled through. Dad had always been more protective of me than Dan because of it and it drove me around the bend. I didn't mention it now. It wasn't that I didn't want to, I did - I wanted to yell at him sometimes - but this was a bit of progress and eighteen years of habit was not going to change over night.