Thank you for all the reviews! So, here is the next chapter! It is a little shorter than I usually write, but here it is. Please, if you do read, review. I would love to hear from you!
.Lysa.
"So hungry!" Viktoria announced one afternoon, a few weeks after the Vodka incident. Olena had gone out for a double shift and had left Dimitri and Rose in charge. They were all in front of the television, flicking mindlessly through channels.
"I can make something," Rose said, crushed between Dimitri and Viktoria.
"Uh huh. Like what?" Viktoria replied.
"This, is something I used to make all the time," Rose told Dimitri and Viktoria as she stirred the mixing bowl. They were both perched on the kitchen table tops, watching Rose churn all the sugar and cocoa and eggs together. She was apparently making chocolate kisses.
She must have paused sometime in the middle of all her churning (Dimitri hadn't noticed) and instead shoved the bowl into Viktoria's vacant hands. "Well, get working."
Rose allocated them both different jobs. Dimitri was in charge of the oven and washing up (much to Viktoria's delight) and Viktoria was in charge of helping Rose put everything together. Somewhere in between this, the doorbell rang.
Dimitri volunteered to go get it, considering he wasn't doing much, and came back with a surprising companion in his arms.
"Oh, hey Raeloo," Viktoria smiled. The little girl waved happily back from Dimitri's arms.
Dimitri approached an interested Rose. "Rose, this, is Raelyn. She lives next door with her parents." He smiled at the girl. "But unfortunately, her parents aren't back from work just yet and she's locked out. So you're going to be hanging out with us for a while, huh?" Dimitri added, nudging the little girl.
Raelyn was about 8 by now and was in Year 1 at the local primary school. She was a shy, introverted girl from next door, with a cute sprinkling of brown hair across her head and curious liquid brown eyes that tugged at anybody's heartstrings. Rose eagerly held out her hands to hold her with an "OMG! Aren't-you-just-adorable" look.
"Hey," Rose said softly. The little girl smiled, revealing a clean set of white sparkly teeth. "Well, you're just the sweetest thing ever," Rose crooned. She kissed her lightly on the nose and swung her around in her arms. "Would you like to help us?"
Raelyn hung out with them for the rest of the afternoon. They even let her stir the bowl and lick the spoon after (an honour Viktoria normally had). When they were finally ready, after hours of preparation and hours of cleaning up and washing up, Rose triumphantly set the hot baking tray on the kitchen table.
"Tada! Dig in!" She waved at them all to grab one. With a piece of chocolate in hand, all four of them held it up to take a bite.
And spat it out in the same second. Dimitri made a face. It was-it was-
"What is that?" Viktoria enquired, a frown creasing her surprised face.
"Salt!" Rose and Dimitri spluttered in unison.
Rose frowned down at the chocolate, her hand on her hips. "What happened? My chocolate kisses have never turned out like this!" She ran a frustrated hand through her hair. "Okay, so we put everything in. The eggs, the cocoa, the-"
"The salt."
The salt? Viktoria, Dimitri and Rose all spun around to face the little voice that had spoken. Raelyn. Sitting squat on the kitchen floor and powdered in flecks of sugar and cocoa.
"The salt," she announced, looking quite happy with herself and with little hands, brandished a small shaker of crystals.
"How long have you been riding for?" Rose asked. Rose had offered to go to the shops with Dimitri to grab some milk for his mom, but had instead struck up a conversation while they waited outside.
Dimitri shrugged and patted the bike. "What this? A few years. Mom wouldn't let Viktoria on it after I first bought it though." He chuckled. "Or after the accident."
"Accident?" Dimitri pulled back his hair and pointed out a scar going down his scalp. "15 stiches down my scalp. Two broken ribs. A few broken fingers."
Rose gaped. "Whoa. And you're still walking?" He shrugged. It had been years ago. Long forgotten. And yet he still had a constant reminder of it every day.
Rose crossed her arms over her chest. "What happened?"
"Drunk driver. Ran a red light. Didn't see it coming at all. Scared the crap out of me too and nearly skinned my whole face."
Rose raised her eyebrows. "Wow. That, uh, really increases my appeal to motorcycles."
Dimitri smiled. "It's really not that bad. That was…an accident. But it rarely happens if you know what you're doing."
A smile slowly spilt over Rose's face. Her mischievous, naughty smile. He hated it. Number1, it made her look like the sexiest thing in the world, creating fantasies of wanting to kiss her and do many other things to her he was too embarrassed to mention. Number 2, it usually meant she had cooked up some crazy, dangerous scheme that involved him and everyone else in a 3 mile radius. And he hated crazy, dangerous plans.
"Teach me. After we get the milk." Before he could protest, she hitched her skirt up and jumped on the back of the cycle, patting the seat in front of her. "Chop chop. Gotta get moving."
"How much for milk?" Rose asked, a shocked expression on her face. The man at the store hadn't really asked for much, but to her, it had seemed like a lot. He had seen her face when he had passed the money over.
Dimitri chuckled and transferred the bag with the milk to his other hand. "It's actually not that much in roubles."
Without another word, she ran ahead and jumped on the bike before he reached it. Then stopped. Rose's eyes suddenly widened and she clutched the seat tighter, her knuckles turning white from the exertion.
Dimitri slowed his pace. "What is it?" he asked slowly, almost cautiously. He knew her well enough to know when something was up.
She put a trembling hand up to point forward. "The docks! It's perfect!"
"For?" Dimitri finally reached her and leaned against the bike. She turned and grabbed the front of his jacket in her little fists.
Rose was close enough he could smell her flowery perfume. She whispered her next words. "To teach me. To ride." Then she smiled; a cute smile that popped a dimple in her left cheek.
Dimitri juggled the keys in his hands and considered. Did he want to risk her getting hurt? Did he want to face Viktoria's wrath? Did he want to get skinned alive by his mother for hospitalising Rose? Yes, yes and hell yes. If it meant her smiling like that at him again, he would have done anything she asked.
"Okay. But only just this once." She squealed and tapped out a staccato rhythm on the leather seat. "I haven't even taught Viktoria yet." With a bad feeling in his stomach, he jumped on and led the bike to the far end of the docks.
He handed her the helmet, which she immediately rammed on (looking just as adorable as before, he might add) and taught her the basic operations of the bike.
"Give a little, and go a little."
"So a little give and a little go?" They both smiled at that.
"Do you have it?" She frowned and flexed her hands on the gears with a determined sort of expression. Dimitri, standing by her side on the bike, didn't really think so. The bad feeling in his stomach was becoming worse. What if she got hurt?
"Can you stop worrying?"
Now Dimitri frowned. "How do you know that I'm-"
Rose waved a hand. "Been around you long enough to know your happy face, your sad face," she ticked them off with her fingers, "Your "I-don't-think-this-is-a-good-idea" face, your-"
"GO!" He stepped back suddenly and released his pressure on the bike. Rose, meanwhile, probably out of shock and surprise, pressed down on the wrong gear. Oh, crap.
And sent the bike flying into the docks. And Rose into the water.
"Oh, shit!" Dimitri tore his jacket off, and without another thought, dove into the warm, clear, Russian ocean.
To Dimitri's extreme sadness, Viktoria opened the door when they made it home. She gave them both a once-over (a dripping wet and shivering Rose and Dimitri), and quickly masked her shock, opening the door wider to let them in.
Viktoria grabbed the milk out of Dimitri's soaked fingers with a plain, "Don't wanna know."
I stole two lines or so for this chapter from the film, "How to lose a guy in ten days." The whole scene really, was inspired by a scene in the film. So, credit goes to the writers of that wonderful film.
Anyway,
Review?