Chapter 3

My gaze wandered to Dimitri again and again, and while I was admiring him for the umpteenth of time, my father interrupted every conversation.

"Thank you all for coming here tonight. My wife and I are grateful for such great friends and family and that you all found time to join us here. And of course, thank you Belikov, for providing us the location to hold this party. Again, may I add." At this everyone laughed. Our parties here became somewhat of a legendary festivity. You were incredibly lucky to be invited and to be a part of a Mazur-Hathaway party in this cabin. "Anyway, thank you for spending this evening with us. Enjoy yourselves."

After this little speech, everyone lingered around, listened to music and enjoyed themselves.

The five of us headed for a walk around the property. It wasn't gargantuan, but bigger than you would expect. We rounded the space and after walking pass the same shopping card for the eighth time, Adrian suggested we should sit in it and push each other around.

Sydney, who usually would have objected, was the first one to agree. I was ready to join them, when Lissa spoke up. "We should head in and ask Dimitri if it is alright first. We can't just use something, just because it is on his property." Always the voice of reason I knew we would have to appease her in order to have fun.

"Okay, I'll go in." I said, without any discussion. The faster I did what she asked for, the faster we could start.

The guests were still standing everywhere, eating and chatting. I found Dimitri in a corner in the kitchen, apparently tidying up.

"Hay comrade, is it alright if we use the shopping card?" I said without another explanation.

He looked at me and nodded smirking, not asking any further questions.

Running back outside I informed the gang we could start. Sitting inside the card one after the other, we pushed the card over the walkway, laughing and having the biggest fun of our lives.

It appeared that our joy found spectators after some minutes. Part of the guests and Masons parents came out, followed by my parents and Dimitri to watch us act in carefree fun.

"Okay, so I guess now it is time for the dessert in form of our cakes." My mother announced.

"This way the sportsmen, and sportswomen can strengthen themselves." Added my father winkingly.

At the prospect of food, I was one of the first ones inside as my parents started cutting the cake and handed out plates to everyone, exchanging kisses occasionally. It was sweet. Even after all those years, the two of them seemed to be head over heels for each other. That's how I would want my future relationship to be like. Going together through thick and thin, getting out of everything even stronger than before. Lost in thought I almost missed the huge plate with a mountain of donuts. I stopped and piled donuts on my plate as well.

"You seemed to have a lot of fun out there." Dimitri noted grinning at me.

"Very much, comrade." I smiled back at him.

"I'm glad you enjoy yourself this much here at my cabin."

"Doesn't a cabin need to have a bedroom to identify as a cabin?" with furrowed eyebrows I looked at him.

He raised one eyebrow, I was so jealous he could do this. "Whatever, anyways it makes me happy, to see you happy." He added with an undertone I couldn't decipher. Was he trying to flirt with me? No way, that couldn't be… Or could it?!

The earlier incident at the buffet got shoved in the depth of my mind when he looked at me with this boyish smirk, and that glint in his eyes.

Before one of us could say anything else, my friends joined me by the buffet. "Of course we would find you near the donuts. Always eating enough for two, little Mary." Adrian greeted me. Sydney poked him for that comment and I was a little embarrassed that he said that in front of Dimitri. "Sorry." He muttered unconvincingly, the others laughed at his obvious lie and I followed them to our table in the back of the garden.

The evening progressed and it was fun to hang out with our group of friends again. My friends, which were more like cousins or a sister in Lissa's case, made time fly by in the blink of an eye. Before we even noticed, Mason's father came over to our table. "Hay guys, you seem to have fun. Sorry to interrupt it, but we really need to head home."

His announcement was met with groans, but finally Mason followed his farther and we all hugged them goodbye.

Not shortly after Mason's departure, Sydney and Adrian were picked up by his parents and they took Lissa with them, because apparently it was their uncles' birthday the next day and Lissa joined them for the celebration.

This left me with the rest of the guests. Admittedly there were only a few people left. All the 'kids' as our parents still liked to refer to us, were now gone which meant I was alone with the 'grown ups'.

Nevertheless, I sat down at the table my parents occupied with Dimitri and some of their colleagues.

The music was now quieter and only a background sound. Suddenly the music stopped, then started playing only to stop again, some seconds later. After the third time my mother spoke up. "Your Elton John falters."

Before Dimitri could say something, I heard my voice. "It's not Elton John. Don't you know Garth Brooks?" I asked, as though this was obvious, and she should have known.

Dimitri looked at me openly surprised. "You know Garth Brooks? I'm impressed."

"Sure." Was all my mind was capable of saying.

With that it was gone. The moment ended, as though it had never existed. Everyone resumed to their previous conversation and Dimitri took care of the faltering music.

Why shouldn't they return to the conversation, silly? my inner voice asked. It's not like anything happened. But for me, everything changed. The feelings I had for him, were enormously proud that I impressed him by knowing Garth Brooks. Not like I would admit to anyone that I only recently started listening to country music just to feel closer to Dimitri. To be able to talk to him about something and to try to understand him as a person and why he enjoyed listening to this kind of music.

Actually, I started to really love country music myself by now. Not so sure if this would happen with these western books he always reads, if I would try one of these, not that it would ever happen. However, I had added a lot of country music to my Spotify playlist over the last few days.

Everyone engaged in their conversation, they started opening the umpteenth bottle of wine that evening, so I left the table with my irritation about this little nothing that happened before.

Somehow what happened won't let me go. He was impressed, that was all I could think about. And his eyes, sparkling with joy and the smile he gave me. But no one noticed, which just again showed me how much my mind blew this out of proportion.

Leaving the tipsy party people behind I stomped over the walkway we've used earlier with the shopping card.

Since I was alone, I decided to take a walk around the property, but this time it was almost completely quiet, besides the duffled music and occasional laughter from the cabin. When I got to said card we've left behind to get the dessert, I decided I might as well settle myself in it again.

Sitting there, looking up towards the sky, I could see the first stars. It was almost pitch black by now, the moon and the stars the only source of light. A beautiful sight.

After some minutes I heard footsteps behind me and turned in the shopping card to try to see who was approaching me.

To my surprise it was Dimitri.

"I should have known that you would go back to this shopping card." he joked when he was close enough so I could hear him.

"Yeah, you know, this card and I have a real connection. " I joked back. Changing the topic I added, "A full moon, look how beautiful it is, comrade."

He shortly looked at the sky before settling his eyes on me. "Yes, very beautiful indeed." This bluntness surprised me, or was I just imagining things again? It sounded as though he wasn't talking about the moon, but something else he saw. Oh, how I wished it was true.

We looked at each other for a while before I looked away, suddenly feeling very shy. "Why aren't you at the party anymore?" he asked, looking up to the stars.

Taking some moments to appreciate how good he looked with the moon lightening his face, I almost forgot to answer.

"Everyone was busy talking to each other and I didn't want to sit there like an outsider."

Raising one eyebrow he looked at me again. "You? An outsider on your parents' party? How could that be when you always seem to be the center of attention?"

Unsure whether he was serious or making fun of me, I decided it was the latter.

"Haha, sure comrade. Everybody loves me and that's why no one talked to me before. You did notice that the only words I said since the other went home were about Garth Brooks?" looking at him skeptically I saw his mouth twitching.

Did I really just made the Dimitri Belikov almost smirk? It's not like he's never smiling, but most of the time his face looks kind of firm, on the border to looking grim.

"Very important words, Roza." he joked back, leaning on the side of the shopping card with his arms. Suddenly his face was very close to mine.

"Your eyes are beautiful." Did I really just say this out loud? I shrieked in my head.

Chuckling he leaned closer towards me. I could feel his breath on my skin.

"Thanks. And you are right about yourself. Everybody loves you."

He was about to lean in even closer and I was sure he was going to kiss me... When we heard footsteps and my father's beaming voice.

"Belikov, you found my daughter? What's taking you so long?"

In an instant we sprang apart from each other, which was really difficult, considering I was still sitting in that card. My heart was racing in my chest. Feeling busted and very disappointed, I looked everywhere but at my father or Dimitri.

"Yes, Sir, I found her. We were just chatting, that's all." Dimitri answered casually. You couldn't even hear a glimpse of uneasiness in his voice. If I haven't been there before I would have never guessed he was about to kiss me and that we just got busted by my father.

"Perfect. Sweetheart could you please come inside. Your mother and I really want to go home now, it's almost two in the morning and Pavel is already waiting for us." My father's voice slurred a little, the only evidence he'd been drinking the whole evening.

We must have taken longer than I thought. Talking to Dimitri made it seem like minutes rather than over an hour. Climbing out of the card, I trailed behind the two of them while thinking about our almost kiss, over and over again.

When we got closer to the cabin, I could see Pavel helping my mother packing the car.

Pavel, my fathers right hand, was the only one I actually considered my uncle. Despite the fact that we weren't blood related, he was the only uncle I knew growing up. He was the one who occasionally looked after me and let me stay up longer than my parents would've accepted. Admittedly it had been rare moments, since my parents were away most of the time, which meant that Pavel traveled with my father taking care of their business. But when they were at home and wanted to go on a date or a business dinner where Pavel wasn't obliged to tag along, he stayed with me and did all the cool uncle stuff you could think of.

According to my parents, Pavel had been the one to drive them to the hospital and I had him wrapped abound my finger from the moment he first held me in his arms, moments after I was born. So you could say that I was very close to him and loved him like the uncle he was, no matter the DNA.

Apparently the rest of the guests had already left when I was away. Now Dimitri, my parents, Pavel and I were the only ones here.