Page 43 of Born into Chaos

In case I have any doubts about what she means, she adds the eggplant emoji, a thumbs up, and several chili peppers. Lara adds in the pregnant woman emoji, and Yelena does the laughing with tears emoji. Lara has no idea how right she is about the baby. It’s just not quite what she’s thinking. The baby is already here, but I’ve never been pregnant, and she technically doesn’t belong to either one of us.

I give them a quick thumbs up and then put my phone away. The last thing I want is to freak Vitya out with my texts. If he had any idea we were discussing him like this, he’d probably walk right out of the house and never come back.

After unpacking our clothes, I venture back into the living room. Samantha’s fallen asleep again, and Vitya must’ve changed modes on the keyboard because it’s playing her a soft lullaby now. He glances over at me and then goes right back to assembling the baby swing he’s working on.

“Need any help?”

“Sure.” He motions for me to sit down and then hands me a metal bar. “Hold that piece while I screw it in.”

I do as he says, watching him put together a baby swing he bought for a little girl he found who’d been severely abused and neglected. Vitya can pretend to be hard all he wants, but I know the truth of it. So many men in his position would’ve just left her to die. They wouldn’t have wanted the responsibility, and they sure as hell wouldn’t have taken her home and then spent a small fortune to make sure she had every comfort available.

We work in silence. He hands me things, and I hold them while he screws it all together until it’s all done and there’s a baby swing sitting in the living room.

“She’ll love this,” I tell him, running my hand over the pink seat with cute bunny pictures on it.

He scratches at his jaw and watches her sleep. “I’m going to unpack the rest of the stuff.”

“Need help?”

“No, it’s fine. Just keep an eye on her.”

I don’t try and stop him when he walks off. I just watch him go and then grab my tote bag. Sitting next to the playpen, I dig out my large sketchpad and charcoal pencils. I’d been working on a sketch of Samantha while we were driving up here, but I can’t resist starting a new one while I have her right in from of me and looking so freaking cute. Like usual, as soon as I start drawing, I go into a focused sort of trance. Everything else fades away while the lines on the page slowly start to transform into a picture of Samantha sleeping. Her small hands are in loose fists, and her pink pacifier fell from her mouth at some point, so I’m able to capture her cute little mouth.

I’m just finishing up the short wisps of her hair when I hear Vitya’s voice in my ear. I had no idea he’d come back into the room, and I startle at the sound.

“That’s really beautiful, Sveta,” he whispers, and he’s so close I can feel the heat of his breath on the back of my neck.

“Thank you,” I whisper back. It’s the first time he’s ever said anything about my art. He’s never even acknowledged it beyond a soft grunt every now and then.

I turn my head to look at him, putting us only a few inches apart.

“I thought you hated my drawings.”

He furrows his brows and leans back, widening the space between us. “Why would you think that?”

“You’ve never said anything about it before. You usually just grunt and look away.”

“I don’t grunt that much.”

“For a while in the beginning, I was seriously worried that you didn’t know how to speak.”

“You always were dramatic,” he tells me, and I roll my eyes at him.

“Please, you’ve got me beat on that one.” When he raises a disbelieving brow, I say, “Want me to go throw some wrapperson the floor?”

“That’s not being dramatic. That’s just being clean.” He shrugs a broad shoulder and looks around the messy living room that’s probably driving him crazy. “I like things to be neat.”

“Well, Samantha will cure you of that fast enough.”

He gives a small smile and looks over at her. “She’s sure as hell trying.”

As if realizing she’s being talked about, Samantha opens her brown eyes and as soon as she sees us, her mouth lifts up in a huge, unmistakeable, gummy grin.

“Vitya,” I say, grabbing his arm in my excitement. “She just smiled!”

He laughs and pulls his phone out, snapping several photos until Samantha stops smiling and realizes she’d rather be held. Her soft whimpers threaten to turn into screams, but I reach in and scoop her up before she can let them loose. I kiss her cheek, making her smile again, and when I look over, I catch Vitya snapping another quick photo before he pockets his phone and says, “Can you watch her while I finish up and start supper?”

“Sure.” I hide my huge smile in Samantha’s neck as I carry her into the kitchen to get her a bottle.

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