Page 58 of Only for Tonight

When his mother disappears into the kitchen, Alexei looks at me. “You survived.”

“Your sisters are scarier than your mom.”

“That’s accurate.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “You okay? I know this is a lot.”

I look at Ella in my arms, then at the photos on the wall—young Alexei in a football uniform, gap-toothed, grinning. Alexei at prom, looking uncomfortable in a suit. A family photo with his dad, all of them crowded together on this same couch, smiling.

“I’m great,” I say, and I mean it. “Your family is really something.”

“They’re insane.”

“I know. But I like it.”

He holds my gaze for a second, and something passes between us that I don’t have a name for yet. Then Tracey’s kid comes tearing through the living room, screaming about ice cream, and the moment breaks. Alexei catches the kid mid-sprint and flips him upside down, and the screaming turns to hysterical laughter. Ella startles in my arms and then settles, and I sit in the armchair in his mother’s house, surrounded by his loud, messy, loving family, and I think: oh.

This is what I’ve been missing.

This is what I lost.

Dinner is chaos. The good kind—plates being passed, Tracey’s kids throwing broccoli, Jase apologizing for the broccoli, Valerie telling a story about Alexei’s senior prom that makes him turn red and threaten to revoke her birthday present. Irina presides over it all from the head of the table, correcting everyone’s posture and making sure plates stay full.

Alexei sits beside me, his hand finding my knee under the table every few minutes like he’s checking I’m still there. Ella is in Irina’s arms more than mine—the woman basically claimed her the moment we sat down—and watching this enormous, gruff linebacker’s tiny Russian mother coo over a baby while simultaneously running a dinner table with military precision is something I’ll never forget.

At one point, Tracey leans over to me and says quietly, “She likes you.”

“Your mom?”

She nods once. “She’s letting you see the baby photos. She doesn’t do that unless she’s decided you’re staying.”

I don’t know what to say to that, so I just smile and eat another bite of the best roast chicken I’ve had since my mother’s.

On the drive home, Ella’s asleep in the back, and the city lights blur through the windshield. Alexei’s hand rests on my thigh, warm and heavy.

“Your family is amazing,” I say.

“They liked you.”

“Even Valerie?”

“Especially Valerie. She texted me from the kitchen. Said, and I quote, ‘Okay, she’s not terrible.’”

I laugh. “High praise.”

“From Valerie? Trust me, it is.”

We’re quiet for a block. Then I say, “Your mom’s saying about the heart not asking for permission.”

“Yeah. She’s, uh . . . not subtle.”

“I liked it.”

He glances at me, then back at the road. His thumb traces a circle on my thigh. “I liked watching you in there,” he says. “With my family. You just . . . fit.”

My chest goes tight, and I lean my head against the window and watch the city go by, letting myself feel it—all of it. The warmth and the fear and the wanting, tangled together so tightly I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.

“Alexei?”

“Yeah?”