Page 50 of True North

JT turned off the engine. In the silence that followed, he tried to think of what to say. He’d clearly stumbled on a sensitive topic, and he wanted to give Misha the room to talk about it further without applying unwelcome pressure. Finally, he settled on, “Do you want to tell me about them?”

Misha was silent for long enough that JT opened his mouth to backpedal. Before he could say anything, Misha turned to him with a watery smile. “Maybe later, okay. We talk now, I cry—” He gestured. “Then your parents think I’m so feral.”

JT reached over to grip his shoulder. “Whatever you want. You need a minute?”

Misha lifted the hem of his shirt and pressed it to his face. “No, it’s okay. Let’s go.”

Misha hung behind him on the front porch as JT rang the doorbell. Inside the house, the dogs started barking, and JT rolled his eyes. His mom kept talking about training them, but it was never going to happen. He heard the deadbolt turn—the only way to keep the door from unlatching itself at any passing breeze—and the door opened to reveal his dad, apron on and spatula in hand.

“Hurry, come on in, the salmon’s going to burn,” his dad said, beckoning to them with the spatula. “Hi, Misha, good to meet you. Come on in.” He turned and went back to the kitchen, leaving the dogs to bark, leap, sniff, and slobber.

By the time JT closed the door behind him, Misha was on his knees on the floor, laughing as the dogs lavished him with excited licking. JT had to admire how his dad had finessed the situation: no awkward introductions, and now Misha was already at ease. He’d warned them Misha was shy with strangers, but he hadn’t expected such a careful, light hand.

The dogs eventually recovered from the novelty of a new person and went wagging down the hallway to the kitchen. JT and Misha followed. JT’s mom was opening a bottle of wine as his dad prodded at the frying pan with his spatula. No one else was there.

He had thought the house was quieter than usual. “Where are Grandma and Tyler and Kendall?”

“We decided not to invite them,” his mom said, intent on wiggling the cork out of the mouth of the bottle. “That seemed like too many loud human beings at one table.” She shot JT a glance and raised her eyebrows meaningfully.

“Good thinking,” JT said. He could clearly imagine Misha’s reaction to his siblings, and worse, his siblings’ reaction to Misha. Misha would go straight back into the woods and never come out again.

Unlike at most family dinners, the table was already set, with a tablecloth and cloth napkins instead of paper, like they were having company over. JT had the uncomfortable realization that Mishawascompany, at least as far as his parents were concerned, whereas he had already begun to think of Misha as family.

Misha was silent as the wine was poured and the salmon was dished out. JT’s initial relief that his siblings weren’t there began to morph into regret. They would at least make enough noise that Misha’s reticence wouldn’t be quite so glaringly obvious.

JT’s dad put his napkin in his lap, cleared his throat, took a sip of his wine, and opened with, “So, when are you thinking about heading back to Toronto?”

JT winced. A guilty sideways glance at Misha revealed that Misha was watching him curiously. “Haven’t thought about it yet. Training camp starts the twelfth of September. I usually go back a bit ahead of time to get some media stuff out of the way.”

“Well, email Naomi, she’ll tell you.” Naomi was the team’s media coordinator or, as his dad put it, JT’s boss. She scheduled all of his interviews and otherwise more or less ran his life during the season, with an iron but loving fist. She probably did have an exact date in mind that she wanted JT back in town.

“I’ll email her soon,” he said. “Still plenty of time.”

“Will you send us your travel schedule for the season?” his mother asked, unfortunately continuing on the subject of hockey when JT wanted to talk about literally anything else. “We’d like to come catch a few games when you’ve got a homestand.”

“Sure, that’d be nice.” JT cast another glance at Misha. He was holding his wine glass now and gazing across the table at JT’s mom. “So—”

“Do you watch hockey, Misha?” JT’s dad interrupted, barreling right over JT’s attempts to talk about something less fraught.

Misha shook his head. “No. Only soccer.” He smiled at JT. “Sometimes baseball now. Maybe I learn to like hockey.”

“Oh, do you watch baseball with JT?” his mom asked.

Misha nodded. “Yeah, it’s on, like—all the time.”

JT tried to hide his wince. It was obvious now that he should have warned Misha that his parents didn’t know they were living together. He was an idiot not to have realized that Misha would surely say something revealing.

“Oh—the TV in his house?” JT’s mom asked, eyebrows up. “Are you there often?”

Misha hesitated before he answered and shot a quick glance at JT. “Sometimes, um—hang out, you know.”

Thank god for Misha’s quick thinking. JT would beg his forgiveness later. Any other fumbles his parents would hopefully excuse as the product of Misha’s shaky English.

“Watching Tigers games, I hope,” JT’s dad said with a grin.

“I’m a Jays fan now, dad,” JT said. “We won’t talk about it.”

“Never do.” JT’s dad took a sip of his wine. “What part of Russia are you from, Misha?”