Chapter 84 – If someone isn’t listening, you can’t make them hear.

An: Okay...now that I've sufficiently mourn our playoff exit here's the next chapter...hopefully I can keep you guys entertained until the fall!

Nef’s POV


For nearly two weeks Sasha’s life and my life have been splashed across the front page of nearly every tabloid in Russia. I was thankful that not very many of the American news outlets had picked it up. Katie Cerrera, the Caps Washington Post beat reporter, had tried to pick up the store but one quick conversation with Ted Leonsis, the majority owner, had ended that story. He had instructed the media that questions were to be hockey related and hockey related only. When I went to the family lounge to see him after home games I was escorted by a member of staff. I was stashed away until after the reporters left. It was very cloak and dagger and I hated every minute of it.

Tatiana had gone from hating me, to ignoring me, to trying to get rid of me, to remorseful and blaming herself for just about everything that was happening now. We’d been getting along better as of late but with Nadiya going to tabloids in Russia and telling them nearly everything Tatiana wasn’t painted in the best light. In fact, now that she saw everything she’d done on paper she realized just how unpleasant she’d been. She realized that she looked like a lying, manipulating bitch.

I was just waiting for this to die down. I needed to focus on school. I was less than 3 months away from graduation. Sasha still hadn’t told me anything regarding his contract talks and with the trade deadline a few weeks away I was becoming more and more nervous. I would spend the summer (or most of it) in my apartment packing up. I honestly didn’t want to move into Sasha’s house. He lived with his parents and as well as we got along I didn’t want to live with them. I also didn’t want to live in his house. I wanted to live in our house.

I talked to him about it and I have to say our first conversation on it didn’t go well at all. We’d argued because he just didn’t get it.

”Sasha, I don’t want to live at home with my parents so why would I want to live with yours?”

”You and my mom are getting along now. I don’t see what the problem is. I mean it’s not like they’re here year round. They’re only here for about half of the season.” Sometimes it’s longer than that.

”Would you want to live with my parents?”

I tried to explain it in a way that would make sense to him but I’m not sure if he didn’t get it because he couldn’t comprehend or if he just didn’t want to. He’s very attached to his parents. I think that…no, I know that he won’t want to let them go. I couldn’t figure out how to tell him that I just wanted it to be us. I just wanted time with us together away from everything and everyone.

I could tell when Sasha talked to his parents about it. There was a tangible shift in their attitude toward me. Over the past year and some months I’d gotten really good at noticing attitude changes in both Valeri and Tatiana. It wasn’t bad but I could tell that they didn’t like what I wanted. I didn’t want them to go away. That was the last thing I wanted. I just wanted to be a little more grown up.

”I’m not saying I want you two to go away. Hell, we just started getting along!” I told Tatiana one evening in the kitchen. She was teaching me how to make pelmeni the way that Sasha liked. ”I don’t want to live in his house. I want to live in our house. Does that make sense? Because Sasha just doesn’t get it.”

”He gets it. He does. I think he just wants to provide for you and for us. Did I ever tell you that one of the reasons Valeri only works part time is because Sasha asked him to?”

”No, you didn’t tell me that. I thought he was just ready to retire.”

”No, he works part-time as an industrial management consultant. One on the first things Sasha told us when he got his first big contract here was that he wanted to take care of his family.” I knew that part. I knew that Sasha wanted to take care of his parents after all they had done for him. ”He wants to take care of you to. He still blames himself and me for you losing the baby.”

”He shouldn’t be blaming anyone. We all messed up.” I thought we’d moved past blaming each other for my miscarriage.

”He blames himself for not being able to protect you. So he wants to make sure that you’re protected now.”

Well when she put it that way it made sense. It didn’t change the fact that I still wanted us to build our lives together but it did help me to understand. I should have known. Sasha has always tried to take care of the people closest to him, to take care of the people he loves. He didn’t look at it as his house. He looked at it as the house bought for his family. In agreeing to move in with him I had agreed to be a part of his family so it made logical sense that I would move into his family house.

How did I explain to him that while I respected his thoughts I wanted to help build that safe place for my family too? How did I explain to him that I wanted to create that safe place for the kids we would one day have? Or how I wanted to come home to the home that we created together?

I don’t think he was getting the whole together idea.


Sasha’s POV


”I don’t know what to do anymore,” I told my dad one night.

Nef and I had been arguing lately. She agreed to move in with me but it seemed like the closer we got to that point the more we argued. She didn’t want to live with my parents. She didn’t want to live in a house that I bought. She didn’t want this or that. I was having a hard time trying to figure out what she wanted. Does she really not what to live with me and is she just looking for an excuse to call the whole thing off?

”Now I wouldn’t go that far. Nef loves you and she wants to move in with you but I think that she wants to help. Look at it this way; you know how happy your mother gets when she takes care of you? You know how she wants to do all these things for you: the washing, the cooking, the cleaning, and all of that?”

”Nef is not the house wife type dad. She’s the exact opposite. This is why I think that all of us living together would be perfect. Nef wouldn’t have to do all those things unless she wanted to.”

”Sasha listen, it’s not those things that are important. It’s the act of creating a home for her family that matters to her. It’s having a place that’s yours: you and her together, that’s what she wants. She, like any good woman, wants to create a safe place for the children you want to have. She wants to create a home for her children and for her husband. You and her together. ”

That I understood. I tried to do that for my family. I wanted to take care of them, to make sure that they were happy and comfortable. I was trying to do the same for Nef. I wanted to protect her but at the same time I was overlooking what she wanted and what she needed. Great job, Sasha. We still had time to figure it out. There were still a few months in between now and graduation. She wouldn’t be moving until the end of the summer anyway.

”So what should I do?” I asked my dad.

He shrugged his shoulders and said that it was something that Nef and I would have to figure out together. He put emphasis on the word “together.”

Why can’t things ever be simple? Seriously. Why can’t it be simple?

Nef and I would have to talk about it sooner or later. Right now we’d wait until we figured out the contract situation. If I was moving to another city it might be a moot point and we’d all be living together anyway. Right now we need to focus on dinner. Our parents were finally meeting.