CORALINE
UNKNOWN: it's Sasha. I have a plan. I'll make dinner if you want to come over and go over it with me. I need help on two things.
He texts like he's a first grader who just learned what a complete sentence is. However, I find myself reading it over several times before responding.
CORA: what are you going to make?
SASHA: show up and find out. I live above the restaurant. It'll be ready at 8.
I consider it, ultimately heading home and asking Marie if I should. She's been out of the loop on the mafia side of this relationship and I honestly think that's a good idea, all things considered, but she knows that I got a ride home from him and she knows that I think he's attractive and I think she knows that I'd totally say yes if he asked me out, which he didn't, but she thinks he did.
I just don't particularly want to inform her that I'm going over to help him figure out the best way to kidnap someone.
You know, because she might not understand why I'm willing to help a stranger kidnap someone.
Simple answer: people make dumb decisions when the person asking questions is attractive.
Lots of dumb decisions.
But my point stands: I have nothing to do and I've been doing nothing for like two years and I'm kinda done being nothing after college. I thought I was going to be going out every weekend with a huge group of friends but nope, it's just me and Marie, and Marie has a bunch of work friends she goes out with sometimes but I'm just here because I work with my goddamn married brother and my 56 year old father that has no interest in a lively social life spare for him and some of his old friends that go way back with him.
So, Sasha, despite being the son of a mob boss, is literally the only thing that I've seen in months that could break me out of the little hole I'm in.
Because what else am I supposed to do? Go up and ask to be friends with someone at a club? No. Find love on the MBTA? Probably not, let's just put that on a back burner because I've only seen three attractive people on the MBTA in my entire time using it. Hope that someone attractive wanders into the shop? He did. His name is Sasha, he's got a Ducati Superleggera V4 somewhere and I want to see it.
So that's why I'm standing at the side entrance to the little Russian restaurant at 7:30 at night on a random day in the middle of spring. It's still ass to grass cold in Boston, the snowmelt making the roads slushy and the temperature a very very wet 40 degrees.
I knock on the door without a second thought about it, like maybe there's mobsters inside living with him or something.
I don't know why I'm not more scared of this but up until like a week and a half ago I didn't think that the mob was real and now that I'm lowkey involved in it, I still have a hard time believing that there's guys walking around in suits with cigars in their mouths directing high-value crime and telling public officials what they can and can't do. It's still in the range of 'funny movie trope' and not 'violent underground unknown entity within the international community' so it's leading me into making rather iffy decisions.
It's like about a year ago when I discovered that polo, like on a horse, isn't fake. I genuinely didn't think it was real until I was driving past some field somewhere on the way to fix a car out north and almost swerved into a ditch because there were people out on a massive field running around and hitting a ball on horses.
I swear I went home and watched like an hour straight of polo videos because I didn't know what was going on and how it managed to slip past me that polo was, in fact, a real sport.
"Hi," Sasha opens the door, a warm waft escaping and hitting me right in the nose and holy shit it smells heavenly.
"What on Earth are you cooking?" I peep inside his door to look around and when he lets me step inside, I kick off my shoes and look further inside to hopefully spot whatever is on the stove.
"Um," he clears his throat. "Shashlik but I'm using a Japanese palate of seasoning as an experiment."
I blink up at him, trying to convey with as clear of a tone as possible that I have honestly no idea what that even means. I'm also hoping a little that he isn't racially profiling me, because he missed big time.
He seems to get it, "Shashlik is almost synonymous with shish kabob, except in my family, or at least the recipe from my family, we don't use other things between the chunks of meat. At least that's how it developed due to the lack of vegetables in the winter months."
"Okay, sure, got it," I nod. "And what do you mean by Japanese palate of seasoning?"
"Sweet soy sauce, sweet rice wine, um," he scratches the back of his head, "rayu, sansho pepper. I'm going for sweet with a bit of a bite on it."
"Okay, sure, yeah," I swear it's like listening to my Dad talk about football. Wide-receiver, tight-end. I know what a quarterback is but I figure that's about the same as knowing what soy sauce is in this scenario. My mom never really made food from Korea when she came here so honestly the most experience I've had with any type of Asian food is from restaurants. She cooked out of my Dad's family's old French cookbooks.
"Rayu is a chili paste and sansho pepper is almost like black pepper but it's not, it's almost got a citrus flavor." He seems to understand that he had lost me when he started listing flavors. "I marinated the meat in the sweet seasonings and then am going to finish it with the spicier stuff."
I nod, letting him point to where I should hang my coat because I've just been holding it weird this whole time, "how did you even find that type of seasoning? I swear I tried to cook once and I could barely find anything in Market Basket. Love them dearly but it's just American stuff."
He blinks like the answer is obvious, "I went to a Japanese grocery store."
I have to hold in a bit of a laugh, "and how weird did you look in a Japanese grocery store?" If my brother is about six foot one, Sasha is around six foot four. Considering the average height in Japan is around 5'6 for men, don't ask how I know that, one of our clients is over there quite often for work and brings back fun little facts to share whenever he can, Sasha probably looks wildly out of place by height and height alone.
Not to mention he also looks incredibly Russian. Tall, lanky, sharp features, light hair, a very very solid resting intimidation face, a considerable sleeve of tattoos sticking out from his t-shirt, he's probably a sight to see in a Japanese grocery store. He's a sight to see anywhere, but he's probably not at all what they expect in there.
He's what you expect to find, well, at a motorcycle racing track, or as a wildfire firefighter, or some other insane super-demanding tough-guy-only job. Not a chef.
"Lets just say I got some looks," he mumbles.
"Like a lot of looks or-"
"A lot of looks, at least the first time, now the lady that runs it knows me and her little daughter calls me Sasha-chan."
I pull my top lip between my teeth to keep from smiling too big at that, "that's kinda wholesome."
The oven alarm goes off and he steps back from where we're standing in the entrance, slipping off to check on what's going on with the stove.
I push my shoes into line with his by the door and then pad with my socks across the floor to look over his shoulder as he rotates his meat sticks.
"So about your meat sticks," I start.
"What about it-" he coughs, "them." It comes as a quick coverup but the quirk in the corner of his lips tells me he knows exactly what he said.
"Don't you grill those?"
"Grill them," he shrugs, "yeah. That's why they're in this pan."
I look closer at the pan, it's heavy, cast iron, probably, with ribbing in the bottom to make grill marks on whatever he's doing.
"Not the same flavor exactly but this does the trick when it's too cold and rainy out to grill," he reaches above the stove and opens up a cabinet, grabbing a few little containers of spices in one hand. "Plus, I can't grill at the restaurant, not really, at least, so this is what I've been doing for a couple years."
"Alright, that's kind of smart," I nod at the pan. "Are you making anything other than meat sticks?"
He smiles, leaning his back against the countertop, "yeah, rice bed and a couple sauteed vegetables."
I nod, "okay, got it. So, while that's finishing up, what's the stuff you need help with on the plan?"
He points over to the table in the other room, not the island that's already set up to eat at, but the kitchen table that's been fully taken over by paper.
I give him a look over my shoulder and then hop on over, looking at the plans. He has maps out with pinpointed locations labeled with houses and secondary houses and then where all the office buildings are. Then he's got articles printed out on Avery himself and a notebook with some ripped out and wrinkled pages, covered in messy handwriting.
"Sash," I call.
"Hm?"
"Your handwriting is garbage."
"That's in Russian."
"Nevermind," I squint. "No, it's still bad."
He stays quiet, shaking his head.
"Did you get a haircut?" I fix my gaze on the back of his head, realizing that the long cut he had before is now reduced down to a very tight cut on the sides of his head and about an inch and a half of hair on top but that's being generous.
"Yes, why?"
"Nothing," I shake my head. On one hand, the longer hair made him look more boyish and I've always had a soft spot for long hair, it's good to dig your hands in, good to look at, good to play with, all that. However, Sasha with short hair is fucking lethal. It's bringing out every single edge on his whole face and making him look so far into intense I'm having a hard time keeping my eyes down on what I'm supposed to be looking at.
There's a lot going on with him in the first place, long long long legs accentuated by the belt resting around his hips, holding up tapered work pants. His shirt is a simple white t-shirt that lets me see the tattoos creeping out from one sleeve as I mentioned earlier. I can't really figure out what's going on with it, there's dark patches and light patches and stuff I can't make out considering he's standing in the kitchen. Though, I'm almost 75% sure there's a hammer and sickle on the backside of his elbow.
"What are your tattoos of?" I ask, sitting now at the table covered in paper.
"You have a lot of questions today, Cora," he responds, slight tug on his voice telling me that he's smiling just a little, now working with a skillet, sizzling noise taking up most of the airspace.
"So, what are they?"
"The sleeve or the others?"
"Sleeve first."
He sighs, then, while still watching what he's doing, rolls up the top of his shirt sleeve, holding out his arm. "You can come over and look, if you want."
I stand up, awkwardly walking back across the room.
I was right, it's a hammer and sickle on the bottom of his tricep. Except it's not a hammer, it's a spatula. Above it is a double headed eagle. Probably another Russian symbol but I'm not sure.
I set three fingers on the inside of his warm wrist, pulling so he flips his arm palm-up so I can get a closer look at things.
There's writing that circles his wrist and labels things, a medical style drawing of lungs on the base of his bicep, a star chart circling his upper arm, starts with lines between them showing constellations.
"Russia has a lot of negative history with tattoos," his voice comes out quiet, letting me have some focus looking at his forearm, "it was commonplace during the Soviet era, around 1930 to 1980, to have prisoners fully tattooed with symbols of their crimes and morals."
I nod, breaking my eyes from his ink to look down at the food and then up at him.
"For example, prisoners with a dagger through their neck had committed a murder in prison and were available for hire to do it again, drops of blood of the dagger symbolized the number of kills," he glances over at me, deep blue eyes behind heavy eyelashes catching me off guard, "shoulders were often a big indicator of morals, eight pointed stars show a high ranking thief and/or anti-Soviet values, a bow tie on the neck shows that a thief betrayed the thieves code which is rather notorious in Russian organized crime."
I watch him spin the shashlik with one hand and give the sautéing vegetables a shake with the other like second nature.
"A snake around the neck indicated drug addiction, a girl with a snagged skirt indicated that an inmate was a rapist," his eyes flicker over to me again, red blush creeping up his neck, "two eyes on the lower stomach indicated homosexuality."
I frown, "why?"
"No idea," he shrugs. "The only explanation I've ever gotten is that the penis was the nose of the face."
"So do you have any prison tattoos?"
He raises an eyebrow, "do you think I've gone to prison?"
"Well, no, but you have an assortment and you're really tied to being Russian so I thought maybe."
"Hm," he gives the skillet a shake, flipping over some of the onions and peppers. "You're going to have to get my shirt off to find out."
"Oh, that's the deal, damn," I smile. "I get your shirt off to see your prison tattoos and you have to get my pants off to see mine."
Sasha's eyes trace over to me, diving into mine, catching me breathless again. "You have tattoos?"
"Several."
"All in places I can't get to?"
"Well," I breathe out, "no, but."
"What are the ones I can see?"
I hold out my hand, showing him the four inch ruler tattooed onto my pointer finger.
"Useful," he mumbles, wandering eyes catching on the strapping of muscle in my forearm. I tend to scare boys off with that but he's enthralled for just a moment before his eyes flicker up to mine again.
"And then," I clear my throat to get my attention back to what I'm doing. "I've got another that you can see," I roll up my sleeve on the other side, showing him the small tattoo on my upper arm. "This is an exploded view engine block diagram."
He leans in closer to look at it.
"Though we're not really allowed to say exploded," I fill the silence, his breath coming out in a little huff against my skin before he pulls away from taking in the design.
"You're not, huh?"
"No, we have to say energetic disassembly or-"
"Energetic disassembly?" He pulls his lips between his teeth, trying not to laugh.
"I know, it's ridiculous." His shoulder is almost so close to mine that I can feel the heat coming off of it, not close enough that I could lean over 'on accident' and touch it but not far enough that he's not right there.
"If you move a little," he gestures toward the kitchen island set up for a meal, "I can plate this."
I step away, allowing him to set the shashlik onto a plate before wrestling around with the other things.
"Wait, shit," he looks over at me, "do you have any dietary anything? Kosher? Halal? Allergies?"
"Um, nope," I shake my head, "I'm not really religious and I'm not allergic to anything, why?"
"Three of these are pork and three are beef. I wanted to make sure you could eat the pork if you wanted to. Also allergies are just important for me to know."
"Why, so you can poison me?"
He frowns, then smiles, "no, Cora, so I don't kill you."
"Ah, fair enough," he sets down the plates on the island and then sits next to me, immediately heading for the bowl of rice and in a way that almost feels like demonstrating and almost feels like him just serving himself, sets about a cup of rice on his plate, then goes for the sauteed vegetables, scooping some on top of the rice. Lastly, he takes two of the sticks and sets those on top before turning to me and gesturing at everything.
"It's going to be incredibly awkward for you to watch me eat, you know," he casts me a rather skeptical look. I flush and lean forward for the rice.
I manage to get it plated, I don't know how his looks so effortlessly perfect and mine is a mess, but I'll let it go, and then he starts in. It smells far too good to pay attention to the right way to do things, the first instinct and thus the first thing I do is lean forward and take a bite of meat right off the stick.
The flavor, as promised, is initially spicy and then soothed with the slightly sweet tender insides of the meat.
I might have to take a walk to process it. I might have to go sit on an angsty bridge at dusk somewhere and process everything that just happened in my mouth. I honestly, genuinely, could cry.
"I've never seen someone eat shashlik like corn on the cob," he comments, breaking me from my momentary trance. I look over at him, his two wood skewers are sitting next to his plate, the meat chunks mixed in with the vegetables and the rice.
"Wait, then what's the point of putting them on the sticks?"
He raises an eyebrow, "it's a method of cooking them."
"You're no fun," I lean forward and take another horizontal bite off my stick. "This is more fun."
Sasha glances at me as I rip off a third little bit, his eyes alight with amusement.
"Even better," I flip the stick straight up and put my mouth over the end, pulling a cube off the end of the skewer. His ears go red before I realize what that must've looked like.
"You're crazy, Cora."
"And I think you find it fun," I bite another chunk off of the stick.
"Maybe I do."