Falling Fast

Chapter 17 - Mrs L and shirtlessness

Even though I lived next door to Grigory, I hadn’t been inside his house. He’d been decorating so when he needed directions somewhere he came over here and made me a cuppa. Similarly, if I needed a page of my terribly written Russian notes transcribed, he sat at our table and talked me through it.

It was probably a good thing that I hadn’t been back to that house just yet. Every so often, not as often as it used to be, whenever I saw the house I thought about Mrs. Lewinsky, the crabby neighbour I took food to and checked the fire alarms for. It was true that I had liked her wallpaper even less than I liked her, and that was saying something, but you got used to a person. It had been a few months now though – she’d died in June – so I was pretty sure I could handle it.

Hopefully Grigory being there would make it easier. He’d distract me with conversation, even if it was about something thoroughly pointless.     

“Zoey?” Lex asked waving a hand in front of my face. I blinked back to reality to see her smirking at me. “You’re going to see him in a few minutes.”

I gave her a flat look because of course she’d come to that conclusion. “I’ve been awake for all of five minutes. Of course I’m half out of it.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Sergey going to like your joggers?” I asked sweetly.

She shrugged. “Sure. I mean, he saw me in a towel last –”

“He what?” I squeaked.

“He climbed through my window just as I was getting out of the shower and…” she shrugged, but her face was slowly blushing.

“What did he do?” I asked leaning forward and lowering my voice even though we were the only people in the house.

“Apologised like mad and hurried back to his room,” she shrugged. “I tried talking to him before I came here, but he was oddly silent.”

“And now we’re going to Grigory’s house to set it up for the party tonight and he’s going to be there and it’s going to be awkward.”

She pulled her toast out of the toaster and buttered it looking pained. “I didn’t think about that. Maybe we should – ”

“Oh, no. This I want to see,” I said smiling perhaps a little evilly.

I grabbed her hand, the one that wasn’t holding her plate of toast and pulled her through the house, down the garden and up to Grigory’s front door. He answered just half a second after I rapped my knuckles on it.

He was in pyjamas still, blue shorts and a fitted white t-shirt, his hair was a little tousled and he still looked half asleep. Dan had said to me once that the sexiest thing on a girl was her pyjamas but I hadn’t believed him until this moment. Grigory in jeans and a t-shirt or suit and tie was one thing, but in pyjamas, completely unguarded and with a look of surprise in his still sleepy eyes…

I was in so much trouble.

“Zoya?” he asked.

My breath hitched and my eyes widened. I knew he meant me even though I’d had no idea that there was a Russian version of my name. I hadn’t researched it and he’d never used it. The biggest give away was how he looked at me, his dark, possessive eyes flitting over my body, lingering occasionally and making the world fade away.

“We’re… We’re supposed to be, um, helping set up the party. The Halloween party,” I explained because, you know, he didn’t know what sort of party was happening at his house. Ugh. Idiot.

“Ah, give me ten minutes to get showered and dressed. Sergey and his friend Alexis aren’t here yet either.”

“Dude, I’m right here,” she said making me jump.