Laraine felt shy about going to the London Underground now. She was nervous about running into Mikhail, he got her all tongue-tied, for one thing, and now that she knew he was Oksana's brother, the whole idea of talking to him got her even more nervous. Then there was all that teasing from both Gia and Chad about her finding a guy who didn't speak English. She could have sworn she'd only been joking when she'd told them how she thought a guy who didn't speak much English would be perfect, because he wouldn't be able to use lines on her or make promises he wouldn't keep or say he had this thing about avoiding commitment.

"You over-think these things," her brother Chad said. "Everybody goes there. Besides, your little brother is in the band."

"You're right," Laraine said. She had every right to go into the London Underground, she thought, rebelliously, as though someone had accused her of chasing the bartender. She'd just try to get someone else to get the drinks. There was a waitress now, too. Though it was dopey Taryn, the dumb girl who ran around on Toby. Sure, she had to get a job at a club Toby played. Where her other boyfriend was one of the bartenders.

Come to think of it, Mikhail was the only one Laraine knew of who could serve drinks at the London Underground and not be offensive to Toby.

"Hey, guys," Toby greeted his brother and sister. He was setting up some sound equipment.

They made some small talk for a while. Laraine told Toby she'd come in with her date one night when another act was playing, and the music wasn't nearly as good.

"Oh, the preacher," said Toby. "Are you going to marry him and make Mom a happy woman?"

Laraine laughed. "He wasn't as stiff as I thought he'd be. I haven't heard from him again. Maybe some other mother is shipping her daughter for his wife."

"Besides, Laraine has someone else in view," Chad said.

"Really?" Toby said.

"He's just teasing me," Laraine said.

Toby went off to check on something.

"I was thinking, Chad," Laraine said. "Quit razzing me about this guy. Where there's a daughter, there is often a wife."

"Nah," Chad said. "Where there's a guy in the park with just the kid and no wife, there's a divorce. Besides, he wouldn't look at you the way he did in front of his sister if he was still married."

"Laraine," said Toby, coming back to them. "Go and ask Mikhail for a bottle of water. Tell him it's for me and he'll give it to you on the house."

"There's Clay," Laraine said.

"Not Clay," Toby said. "Mikhail."

"So this means Taryn has a chance with you?" Laraine said. "If she didn't, you could make peace with Clay."

"I don't know," Toby said. "But I don't want anything from Clay."

"The drama of the London Underground," Chad teased. "I guess that cuts out using the waitress, too. Well, you're stuck with Mikhail, Laraine. Toby, what do you know about Mikhail?"

Laraine rolled her eyes at Chad. He was relentless at teasing her on this for some reason, and he didn't normally do that.

"He's a real good guy," Toby said, oblivious. "He's an immigrant and he's an engineer, but he has to learn English, so he's got the bartender job. And he works really hard at that. His little girl is a figure skater. She's good. Has Sergei for a real coach and everything. Sergei let him work here. Sergei has been divorced from Mikhail's sister and been fighting with her for years."

"Looks like there is some peace being made here," Chad commented. "He's coaching his ex-wife's niece and hiring her brother. And I think Mikhail is probably pretty smart. Well, come on, Laraine, let's go."

Laraine followed Chad, determined that he was going to do all the talking. They sat at the bar.

There was an attractive blonde woman sitting there. When Mikhail came away from giving a couple of beers to a customer, she addressed him in a foreign language, presumably Russian. He answered her in Russian. The conversation didn't sound all that friendly. It sounded like she was sarcastic and he was indifferent.

Mikhail turned and saw Chad and Laraine. His eyes lit in a way that filled Laraine's stomach with a thousand butterflies. She felt like she could not move to get up off the barstool if she had to in order to save her life.

"Sorry," he said to them. "My ex wife. She like to fight."

Chad stepped his foot gently on Laraine's. See, I told you so, his foot said.

"Hey, buddy," Chad said. "That's what ex wives are for, aren't they?"

Mikhail smiled. Laraine couldn't tell if he got the joke.

Chad ordered a beer and "white wine" for Laraine. "That's what she always wants," Chad explained.

Mikhail poured the Chardonnay and gave it to Laraine. She wondered if he could possibly have remembered that particular white wine from the time she had ordered it along with the lemonade. But then, it was a bartender thing to remember that stuff. And the lemonade had stood out for him.

"Oh," she said, suddenly. "We're forgetting Toby," she said to Chad.

"Our little brother, he's the guitarist in the band," Chad explained to Mikhail. "Wants us to get him a bottle of water."

Mikhail reached down and got a bottle of water and set it on the bar. "I'll take it to him," Chad said. Laraine thought about fratricide for a second. She turned and watched him go, wondering if he planned on coming back. He had taken his beer with him.

"Don't your parents come too?" Mikhail asked her. "Yvonne's always do."

"Oh, my dad's a newspaper reporter, and he always seems to have a deadline," Laraine said. "My mother's – she's too religious for a bar."

He nodded. His eyes seemed to look right into her. Like he could read her mind. She wasn't even sure he could understand what she'd said. A recklessness seized her. "Do you think there's a God?" she asked. He was a bartender, after all. People probably asked him all sorts of crazy things.

"I don't know," he said.

"Good answer," she said.

"Your mother has too much religion, you think?"

"Yes," she said, smiling in spite of herself. "She has too much religion."

"I have no religion," he said. "State atheism – communists."

Laraine nodded. "But after the fall of the Soviets, couldn't you practice your religion?"

"Yes," he said. "My family never get interested in the religion again. Some do."

"Oh, boy," Laraine said, "don't talk to my mom. She'll see you as a soul to save. I mean, try to convert you. She wants everyone to convert. She wants everyone to believe in the same God she does. If she thinks you don't, she will try to convince you." Laraine kept adding sentences, since every one she uttered seemed to her to include some phrase he might not understand. She was surprised he had even understood her Soviet question, but he had answered it intelligently.

"Hey, Mikhail, get me an iced tea," said Skye Quartermaine, who was suddenly at the end of the bar.

"Sure," he said. He gave Laraine a smile. Laraine now had leisure to notice that Mikhail's ex-wife was staring her down.

Amused, Laraine stared back for a moment.

Chad came back.

"Thank God you're back," Laraine said.

"Praise the Lord," Chad said, toasting her with his beer.

"You know, you can talk to Mikhail more than you might have thought," Laraine said. "I mean, he can talk about more than just simple things."

"What were you talking about?"

"How he has no religion, because atheism was the state religion and the family never got into the revival after the Soviet Union fell."

"Oh, no, Mom is going to be after Mikhail, Oksana, the whole bunch if she ever finds out about them."

Laraine laughed, relaxing. "Exactly what I said. Let's go listen to the band."

"Leave Mikhail to fight with the ex-wife, eh," Chad teased.

Mikhail refilled Tatiana's drink. "So you think you got a chance with an American girl," she said, taking a sip.

"That's you who has that problem," Mikhail said. "You find your American man yet?"

"Not yet," she said. "But like you said, America is full of American men."