Settling Slowly

Chapter 16 - Pins and needles

As it turned out Dan had a lot of fun getting back behind the wheel and they stayed out for a few hours so I had to make my own way home. I decided to paint Brandon's leg – we got banished to art for that – and then I did all the work I'd missed. Then Lexie took me to McDonald's after school. As ever it was absolutely packed even at four in the afternoon and we had to share the table with high up stools with a few other small groups of people. I didn't mind so much normally, but there was a really loud kid sat next to me who kept on singing "Everything Is Awesome!" from The Lego Movie. And it was the same few lines over and over and over and over.

I nearly punched her in the face to get her to shut up before we left.

"So, have you decided about Russia yet?" Lexie asked and munched a few fries.

I nodded and swallowed my bite of 'beef'. "I'm going."

She smiled. "Awesome! You're going to love it."

"Do I get an insiders look of what Moscow looks like?" I asked. She'd been there in the summer.

She shook her head. "Grigory made me promise to not tell you. He wants to be the one to tell you all about it and show you around."

"Really?" I asked sounding not very impressed. "Why? It's only a city."

"Zoey! It's his home! And it's really romantic."

"If you say so," I huffed. "Bar the dinner I made him... uh... whenever it was, this," I said gesturing between us and around the seating area, "is about as romantic as I get."

"You made him dinner?" she asked. "When?"

I shrugged. "No idea. The way this week has been and with screwed up sleep... I don't even know what day it is today."

"Tuesday," she promptly supplied.

"No it's not. I know that. But for all I know everyone could be playing a huge, cruel prank on me and it's actually Sunday. You and Sergey doing anything nice in the holiday?"

"We're going to go looking at student accommodation."

"Oh," I said and looked at my burger.

"Oh don't be silly, Zo!" she laughed. "Most places that are affordable don't do mixed rooms. It's still going to be you and me, at least for the first year."

I looked up at her with hope in my eyes. Ever since we were little we'd had this plan that we'd go to either the same university and stay in halls together or if we studied in London we'd go student accommodation shopping together and live in the same place.

"Really?" I asked.

She smiled softly, immense fondness in her eyes. "Yes."

I sighed. "Good."

"And you're coming with us." She smiled. "Sergey wanted it to be just us, but I insisted."

I grinned. "Awesome."

"And we're thinking on making a week of it so we can do some touristy stuff as well."

"I can do that. If you're not busy getting naked with Sergey."

"Zoey!" she yelped mostly because I'd said that in public, but partly because the kid had stopped singing Lego Movie and was probably now listening in. Her mother did not look impressed. And I was never normally one to say something like that at all, let alone in McDonald's.

After a moment Lexie, of course, just laughed. "It's finally happening."

I frowned. "What?"

"You're leaving your innocent minded little girl ways behind."