Page 133 of The Pucking Arrangement

Maybe that’s the real tragedy—timing. It’s always the blasted timing.

Chapter27

Busted by a Six-Year-Old

Dmitri

The hardwood floor creaks under Ris’s tiny feet as she attempts a plié, her tongue poking out in fierce concentration. Galina, ever the picture of poise, moves with the certainty of a woman who could probably still out dance an entire corps in her sleep.

“See? Just like that, Risochka.” She adjusts Ris’s arms with a few precise corrections, her movements so smooth it’s like watching a magician pull invisible strings. “Now turn out from the hips—yes, perfect.”

Next door, Erin’s cello drifts through the air, Saint-Saëns wrapping around us like silk, delicate and haunting. She’s been at it for hours, throwing herself into the music like she’s running from something. Or from someone.

“Your daughter has a natural sense for dance and rhythm,” Galina muses, her eyes sharp. “She should take ballet. It would help with her skating.”

“I like figure skating,Babushka.” Ris wobbles through an ambitious spin. “Papa says I’m getting really good!”

“Even more reason.” Galina’s smile is reassuring. “Ballet builds the foundation for everything else.” She pauses, just long enough for me to brace. And then, far too casually, “Speaking of foundations...”

Here we go.

“The house feels different,” she continues, adjusting Ris’s posture again. “Warmer. More alive somehow.”

I grunt noncommittally, keeping my gaze locked on literally anything else. But my stupid traitorous eyes flick to the left, toward the wall where Erin’s music hums through.

“Papa makes Erin breakfast every morning!” Ris supplies helpfully.

My stomach drops.

“Or she makes us breakfast! And she helps me practice cello, and we make pancakes on weekends, and?—”

“Amnushka.” I try to head her off, but?—

“—and sometimes she sleeps in Papa’s room when she has bad dreams!”

Der’mo.

Galina’s eyebrows shoot so high I’m genuinely concerned they’ll never return to their original position. “Bad dreams, hmm?”

Ris nods enthusiastically. “Uh-huh! But it’s okay because Papa keeps the bed really warm and sometimes Erin talks in her sleep, but mostly it’s just mumbling. Oh! And one time Papa carried her upstairs when she fell asleep on the couch.”

I clear my throat, deeply regretting every decision that has led to this moment. “Ris, why don’t you showBabushkayour skating medals?”

Ris perks up instantly. “Okay! But don’t move,Babushka, because I’m bringingallof them, even the one from when I was four and mostly just fell down a lot!”

She tears off toward the stairs, and I don’t look at Galina. Maybe if I stay perfectly still, she’ll lose interest.

“Bad dreams,” she repeats, her smirk positively lethal.

I’m never letting Ris stay up past bedtime again.

I chance a glance at her. Bad decision. The woman is radiating smugness.

“She’s quite talented,” Galina says mildly, as if she isn’t actively setting my entire existence on fire. “The way she plays... It reminds me of Elena performing. That same passion.”

The comparison hits like a check to the boards. My jaw tightens. “Galina?—”

“Not in a painful way,” she adds quickly. “In a healing way. Like the house is remembering how to breathe again.”

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