Page 71 of True North
Misha spoke to him in quiet Russian that JT couldn’t understand and didn’t need to. The tone of Misha’s voice told him everything he needed to know. When Misha sank into him at last, JT held him as close as he could and kissed his neck and shoulders and moved with him, rocking together in the bed that they shared, in the house that they shared, in the life they were making for themselves. A good one.
“Oh, JT,” Misha breathed. JT held him as Misha fell apart in his arms.
Twenty-Seven
They fell asleep afterward, which wasn’t in JT’s mental plan for the day, but he felt so much more alert after waking up that he had to admit he had needed it. He had slept okay last night after Lenny’s reassurance that Misha was safe, but he was still running a deficit. Plus, it was just really good to wake up with Misha beside him. He wasn’t ever going to get sick of that.
They took a long shower together and went downstairs to put some lunch together. JT baked some salmon and Misha chopped tomatoes and onions for a salad. They ate out on the deck, Misha’s bare toes resting on top of JT’s beneath the picnic table. Misha still hadn’t put a shirt on. JT watched him stuff way too much food in his mouth with each bite and felt so over-inflated with fondness that he might float away on the breeze.
Misha pushed his plate aside when he was done eating. “I need to call my parents tonight.”
JT deliberately kept stabbing lettuce with his fork and didn’t look up. He had never heard much of anything about Misha’s family, only that Misha hadn’t talked to them in a long time. “Oh yeah?”
“They don’t know I left Toronto. Probably Alyosha told them. He’s guy I lived with in Toronto. But they don’t know I’m here.” He shrugged, looking out toward the lake. “They think I’m dead.”
Oh, Misha. “I bet they would be really glad to hear from you.”
“My mom, she will cry. My dad, too. My sister—” He glanced at JT, then looked back out at the lake. “I have—twin? I think that’s word. My twin sister. She was so mad I leave Russia. She wouldn’t talk to me. I called her this morning, and we talked some. She said I need to call my parents, and I know she’s right.”
“What’s her name?” JT asked cautiously. He didn’t want to spook Misha, but he also didn’t want to ignore this overture in case Misha was hoping he would prod a little. And he was also, of course, intensely curious.
“Katya. Yekaterina. I’m older.” He said it with a wry smile. “Like fifteen minutes.” He glanced down at his hands, then up at JT. “I have two brothers, too. A big family.”
“Shifters like big families, right? Lots of kids.”
Misha rolled his eyes. “No, that’s like—movies. Lenny and Marie don’t have kids. My parents just, I don’t know.” He grinned. “I think me and Katya are, um, mistake? Accident.”
JT laughed. “Or they wanted one more and got two? I knew a family growing up, they wanted a second baby and instead had triplets. That’s a lot of babies at once.”
“Too many,” Misha agreed. He reached over to filch a tomato from JT’s plate, ignoring the entire salad bowl sitting right there, still half full and with multiple tomato options.
“I actually promised my parents I would go over there for dinner tonight,” JT said. “So you can have some privacy if you want to call your family.”
“Okay,” Misha said. He filched another tomato and grinned at JT with all of his teeth. “Thanks.”
“By the way, uh. I was thinking about—if you don’t mind. I was thinking about telling my family about, you know.” JT gestured vaguely between the two of them. “Us. Only if you’re okay with that.”
Misha eyed him, chewing. “Who? Parents?”
“Yeah. And my siblings, eventually, and my grandmother. I know you haven’t met any of them, but I’d like you to, when you’re ready. You can think about it.”
“Hmm.” Misha tapped his toes against the tops of JT’s feet. “I think it’s okay.”
JT felt his eyebrows shoot up. He hadn’t expected that. “Really?”
Misha shrugged. “I don’t embarrass you? I don’t have job. I lived in the woods. Maybe I go to prison. I’m not—how you say, best catch.”
“I’m really proud of you,” JT said, meaning every word. “I want them to know that you’re, you know. That you’re important to me.”
Misha ducked his head, the way he did when he was pleased and feeling shy about it. “Okay. If you want to.”
“I do want,” JT said. He wiggled his toes beneath Misha’s until Misha smiled.
JT went out later that afternoon to run sprints along the road, leaving Misha frowning over his English homework at the kitchen table. The day hadn’t felt that hot on the dock or the deck, but out on the road, with the dark asphalt under his feet, he felt like he was parboiling. Still, it was good to get his heart rate up and sweat out some of the stress of the past week.
When he was done, he walked home along the lakeshore, cutting through his neighbors’ yards, and sat on the narrow strip of beach at the water’s edge, out of sight of the house. He didn’t want Misha to spot him and come out—not right now.
He sat and watched the water as the breeze dried his hair and his sweat-soaked T-shirt. Someone was out sailing, which he didn’t see all that often, a pair of white sails cutting westward across the lake.