(Song is by Christina Grimmie, who is playing Nae. Both she and the actor playing Andrei are very talented musicians. The picture is also of her.)
My mother was sleeping by the time I got home that night, and my father did not say anything about where I was. He only said something about helping him make vodka for the next night’s customers. I stayed up most of the night and simply stared out the window right next to my bed. I wondered how far Nae’s home was from where I laid, and I thought about if she was asleep. I pictured her sleeping, body still and hands tucked under a still head as her expression would have been soft. Finally, I had just put a pillow over my face and tried to count my way to sleep. I made it to fifty numbers before reciting both the Russian alphabet and the Latin one in my head. The Latin one put me to sleep halfway through.
Nae had my phone number, but she did not call me during the weekend, and I checked every few minutes to make sure. I spent the weekend at home and let Vincent go out on his own to meet girls. The only things I was able to focus on were Nae’s kiss, her touch, and the feeling of her body in my arms. Most of the vodka I made for customers, which was not much, went down my throat instead, so my father just sold more medicine instead. I had female companionship from Ilia when I took her to Central Park so she would play with her friends from the school.
I spent my Sunday writing the essay that was given to go along with Frankenstein, the last project for Advanced Placement English, something I was lucky to be taking. Two hours were spent just writing the first page of the essay since I could not get any inspiration from a green monster going after a city. Somehow I managed to write the last page completely in Russian with the alternative keyboard that was set on my computer. I did not notice until my mother handed it back to me after reading over it and teased me in our native tongue. Even after putting the language back to what the teachers spoke generally, the grammar had to be changed so it would make sense and not fail me.
I walked in to school on Monday, the first day of June, and took my seat in the middle of the History classroom. I could see Nae enter from the corner of my eye when I reached into my bag for my laptop. She took her seat next to me when my screen lit up.
“Hey,” she said softly. She wore a dress that flowed nicely, with big and thin sleeves and a belt that was the color of gold around her waist. The skirt reached just above her knees and her sandals seemed to match her belt. Her hair was worn straight.
“Hey, Nae,” I returned her greeting with a bit of a crooked smile.
Nae turned in her seat so she could face me, her legs in the aisle. The chocolate color in her eyes melted in to mine as she leaned even more forward, and I felt myself freeze when she closed her eyes. My eyes stayed open when Nae’s lips touched mine with a warm touch that tasted something like orange juice. I did not care about the eyes of other students in the classroom as I put a hand on the back on her neck and kissed her back.
“Ooh, whoa, baby!” a boy a year below us finally bellowed, his voice ringing through the whole classroom. Nae’s lips broke apart from mine and her eyes opened, sparkling enough to ease my tension. We both smiled at the same time as the classroom broke into an applause.
“Nice going!” one of the kids who insulted me about my origin shouted from the back of the room.
“They’re so cute!” a girl’s voice squealed from the front of the classroom.
Nae groaned at the excitement that filled the room and turned around in her seat. “Great,” she mumbled to herself.
The door to the classroom shut with a bang and the rest of the students slumped into their seats when the teacher entered the room angrily. She gave me a hard glower when she saw my burning cheeks and cocky kind of smile.
“Do the sample questions on the board!” she said in a harsh tone, pointing at her messy words that were written on the board. She huffed to herself and took a seat at her desk.
I opened a document on my laptop as Nae tapped my shoulder and leaned in to my ear. “The guy is supposed to call first, for the record.”
I froze. “Oh…”
She giggled and went back to her computer screen, even though she had no work to keep herself busy. “I forgive you.”
“I thought you might be mad at me.”
Her head shook. “For kissing me? I like you, otherwise I would have slapped you.”
I laughed quietly at the thought. “I like you, too.”
“Your tongue told me that.”
I reached to the right without looking away from the computer screen and ruffled Nae’s hair with my hand. Laughing, she slapped my hand away just as Mrs. King gave us another look.
~~~
“My little Andrei is growing up!”
My eyes rolled at Vincent’s teasing. We took a place on the outside bleachers that had a perfect amount of shade coverage by a giant tree that towered over the entrance to the football field. The lunch shift broke out about halfway through the day, and the football field was flooded with students who were either running around the field or eating their lunch.
“You seem to have forgotten that I have dated before,” I reminded him between bites of a sandwich with tuna in it.
Vincent shook his head and threw an arm up. “You don’t like to.”
“That is not true.”
“Have you ever taken a girl’s clothes off?”
“Vinny-”
“Andrei?”
I frowned at the thought and leaned back on the metal rail that was at the top of the bleachers. “No,” I finally told him.
He nodded slightly and leaned forward. “It’s because you don’t let yourself get anywhere with a girl. I mean, do you know how many girls tell me how hot my best friend is? Let it happen.”
I sighed and shoved the rest of my sandwich in its bag. “It vill happen ven it happens. I like Nae, I have respect for her.”
Vincent frowned. “Are you going to tell her about your folks?”
I bit down on my lip and let my head shake as a sign of denial. “Her father is the chief of police. It is his job to keep the alcohol and the medicine out of the reach of anyone not dying,” I told him, head beginning to pound at the thought. “I cannot just let that happen. I do not vant to tell her for a while.”
He chuckled and ran a hand through his hair. “That man sounds like a piece of work. Poor Nae.”
I nodded and laughed a little. “Yes.”
~~~
I wrapped my arm around Nae as we attempted to get through the hordes of people congesting the city after the schools had let out. Music from the three-dimensional billboards blared over the sounds of cars running on electricity sped down the roads. At the end of every corner of the street was a police officer to watch over any activity that looked suspicious. Each held one of their tablets used for communication in their hands, often putting them up to their mouths so they could speak to other officers. I felt my body begin to freeze every time we neared one of them, but Nae assured me that her father was at the station.
“We are here,” I told her when I unlocked the door to my apartment.
Nae’s eyes scanned the living area on the right side with all of the entertainment equipment, including the flat television and its stereo built in. She briefly looked into the kitchen on the left side before smiling. “You have a nice place,” she complimented.
My hands went into my pockets. “Thank you.”
“Where is everyone?”
“The restaurant,” I said. “We sell Russian food there as something a bit different than most food here.”
Not the only thing that is different.
“I never asked you,” Nae mused, taking a seat on one of the island stools in the kitchen. “but are you an only child?”
I shook my head. “No, my little sister is Ilia, and she’s eleven.”
Nae reached behind her and picked up a frame from the counter. The photo inside the black frame showed Ilia and myself bundled up in coats and gloves during our Christmas vacation in St. Petersburg. The Russian snow was falling down quickly and covering our black coats in white. “She’s so pretty.” Nae ran her finger over the frame. “She looks like you.”
A little smile formed on my face when I came up behind her. “She looks like my mother I think. My mother is also blonde like Ilia and I.”
“And your father?”
“Grey hair, big man. He looks like a wall made of brick.”
She covered her mouth with her hands as she laughed loudly. “My dad is pretty buff, too.”
My arms wrapped around Nae’s waist from behind. Giggling, she grabbed my hands and leaned into my chest. Her fingers, with nails that were painted silver, locked with mine and sent chills through my body.
“I could take him on,” I challenged.
Her eyes met mine, the light from the window on the other side of the room shining in them. “Really now?”
“Of course,” I lied, making my grasp on Nae tighter as I bent down to kiss her head. My face sunk into her silky hair as my fingers ran over the fabric of her dress. I put my hands on her waist and spun her around, her sandals sliding on the tile as she spun, her skirt billowing up a bit. Giving me a sly little smile, she reached up and kissed me. Her lips tasted of cherry lip gloss that coated my lips when I returned her gesture. I inserted my tongue in her mouth with ease, running it over her teeth. Nae’s arms wrapped around my neck as she led me forward, wiggling her tongue in the kind of way that made my insides turn over in surprise. It was almost as if she was trying to roll her words from the inside of my mouth.
Nae’s fingers grazed over the portion of my chest that was exposed slightly by opened buttons on my shirt when I lifted her into my arms, her legs around my waist while our tongues were still connected to each other. My fingers grazed Nae’s soft skin on her legs as they had the last time we were in the similar situation. I walked backwards when she leaned closer to me, her tongue stretching a little deeper into my throat. It sent a spark like electricity through my veins as her tongue moved from the back of my jaw to the tip of my tongue, causing me to throw my head back and let out a bit of a gasp. Nae’s lips moved from the inside part of my mouth of my mouth to the crook of my neck when I did so, tickling the skin with the softness of her lips. Throwing my head back once more as a response of pleasure, I fell into the door of the kitchen pantry, which caused the doors of the pantry to fly open. Little plastic bags of powder and pills, along with glass cups with freshly brewed alcohol fell from the shelves and crashed to the ground, a sound that caused both sets of eyes to go wide at the scene.
~~~