Katinka padded quickly across the room and climbed into bed beside me, her slender frame slipping under the blankets.
“Everything okay, Myshka?” I asked as she snuggled in against my side.
“Da.” She replied softly, her warm breath caressing against my bare chest.
I wrapped a protective arm around her, rubbing small circles with my thumb along her back.
“Your mom called.”
I felt my spine straighten. I knew this was going to happen. I only hoped that I would be able to have the rest of the night to think about it all before I was confronted.
“I figured she would,” I sighed out instantly irritated with myself for opening my mouth.
“Do you not want to marry Nina?” Katinka asked. I could feel the confusion on her face as her brow scrunched up against my chest.
“It’s not just that. I don’t know Nina.”
“You do too know her. We have known her since we were kids.” She reminded me, not letting me off the hook.
I could only groan as I let my head fall back.
“That was years ago, Tink. I don’t know who she is as a person. What if she is a psycho?” I reminded her, throwing her words back at her from earlier.
“She isn’t a psycho and it hasn’t been that long ago,” Katinka said slapping my chest in reprimand.
“Tink,” I warned.
Katinka let out a soft giggle. “I’m sure she has grown out of her ugly duckling stage by now,” Katinka said between giggles fully grasping my hesitation.
I chuckled pulling her in for a quick squeeze.
“My mother is never going to let me get out of this,” I sighed.
“Maybe Nina isn’t going to be happy about this either. Did you think of that?”
I scoffed. “Have you looked at me? I am a sexy motherfucker.” I puffed up my chest arrogantly in defiance.
Katinka needled my side, her fingers digging into my ribs causing me to squirm away in both pain and laughter. Her slender fingers were deadly weapons with the intent to cause more harm than humanly possible.
“Wait, come back here. I need my pillow,” She cried out pitifully.
“Only if you promise to cease with the claws of dread,” I demanded from the other side of the bed.
“Fine,” She huffed out, conceding.
I reclaimed my spot in the bed and Katinka settled back in, leaning into my side, her head resting against my chest.
“But seriously, what if she doesn’t want to marry you? I mean you act like you’re the only one that is unhappy about the whole situation. Nina doesn’t even know what your parents have planned yet. She won’t know until morning when your mom calls up her parents or worse yet, your father.” Katinka drew tight circles on my chest as she spoke, her words sinking in causing me to realize my faults.
“I know you think you are this crazy sexy man, with a borderline Damon ego. But be realistic and think about it. If you were such a catch wouldn’t you have been caught by now?” I yanked on her hair causing her to yelp out.
Her comment was dead on the spot but I wasn’t willing to let her know how much so.
“You’re an ass,” I growled out at her.
Katinka just giggled. I knew she was teasing but she also had a valid point. I was so worried about having an arranged marriage with Nina that I never once gave any thought as to how she would feel. For all I knew she could have a beau or hell even be a lesbian.
“You know my parents accused me of catching ‘the gay’,” I told Katinka causing her to burst out into roaring laughter.
“Seriously?” She said gasping for air.
I widened my eyes conveying my sincerity. “Seriously.” My admission only made her laugh harder.
“They do realize that you can’t catch being gay right?”
I just chuckled. “Yeah, I tried to tell them that. I don’t quite think they believed me.”
“So what are you going to do?” Katinka asked after finally getting her giggles under control.
“I honestly don’t know.” I sighed in defeat. “Do you think you can help me escape to a deserted island? Once a month you can fly by and drop out a care package to me. I’ll only need a case of Vodka and some MREs,” I said only half in jest.
Katinka replied by slapping my chest. “You don’t get to run away and hide from this. You need to figure out what you want and if it’s not Nina, then you need to figure out how to get out of that mess.” I agreed with her fully. I just didn’t know how.
I quickly changed the subject. I was tired of dealing with my own troubles. There was nothing I could do about them tonight.
“What’s Ivan been up to? I noticed he has been slipping away,” I asked knowing Katinka would have answers if anyone did.
“He has been going back and forth to Russia. I think he has a girlfriend but I can’t get him to admit anything yet. He just smiles and blushes when I ask him.” I could feel the weight around my heart press farther. It seemed I was the only one floundering in the love department. Immediately I became even more depressed.
We lay in bed talking until Katinka drifted off in my arms. I was content to let her lay there. It wasn’t the first time we had slept in the same bed together. Though it was the first time I have had to sleep sitting straight up.
Every time I tried to move Katinka’s tiny frame away from me she managed to wrap herself around me like an octopus leaving me even more exhausted, reminding me why I never wanted to share a bed with her.
Katinka had one arm slung over my waist and one of her legs braided through mine. I had no idea how Tosha was able to sleep with her. She was a bed hog and punched and kicked me all night long. At one point I felt sure she was doing it on purpose. She had swung her right fist right into my lip causing it to swell. It took everything I had in me not to just kick her out of the bed, literally, with my foot, right then and there. I had tried to escape several times only to have her latch on for dear life leaving me to a restless night’s sleep. I finally conceded defeat and drifted off into an uneasy sleep.
Chapter 4
It was just after dawn when Tosha finally came to collect his wife. After a night with Katinka in my bed, I knew right away why Tosha waited so long to come get her. He was taking advantage of a night without being abused. He looked fully rested and chipper as he scooped her out of the bed, cradling her in his arms. The smirk on his face said it all. I flipped him the bird before he turned away.
I settled down into the bed hoping to be able to get some sleep now that I had Tyson Jr. out of my bed. I lay there tossing and turning unable to get comfortable. Katinka’s words weighed heavily on my mind. I had been so wrapped up in not wanting Nina that once Katinka had planted the seed about the possibility of Nina not wanting me I wanted nothing more than to prove that I was one hell of a catch. Though, admittedly, I had no idea how to go about doing so short of having a t-shirt made that stated I was indeed a catch.
Nina would be a fool not to want me. I was rich, handsome, and… well… one hell of a catch. Once I had started to really think about it I realized I really didn’t have more to offer than being rich and good looking.
I gave up on trying to get any sleep and got out of bed. My mind was my worst enemy and wasn’t going to allow me to sleep away my sorrows. After a quick shower, I decided to head down to the gym. I hoped that I would work out my issues or at least clear my head. I needed a reprieve from the swirling thoughts in my mind.
I met Ivan as I was walking into our home gym. The smile he had been wearing the past couple of months seemed to have wilted. It appeared he had the same thought I had, working all his problems out in the gym. I gave him a quick jerk of my head in greeting. We were men, we didn’t talk about feelings. We picked up heavy shit and put it back down.
“WOD?” He asked dryly. I gave him a quick nod in answer.
We had picked up the habit of using WODs, Work Out of the Day, when we were staying in California. We had a personal trainer that was a CrossFit
instructor. We tried to keep up with the training now that we were back home, incorporating WODs into our everyday life using an app that was linked to our Trainer’s gym.
Ivan punched the app on his phone taking note of the WOD that came up on the app, he wrote it down on the large dry erase board we had hanging on the wall so that we could easily look up and see what we had to do next.
He scribbled down the WOD as I began collecting the equipment we would need. It looked like we were going to be doing a shit ton of burpees, clean jerks, wall balls, and box jumps. Translation, this was going to be a fucked up workout that was sure to clear our minds and give us more important problems to worry about, like blinking our eyes.
I set out our equipment and took note of the reps. We had forty-five minutes to finish the workout. It didn’t seem like a lot of time but it felt like forever once you began. We would be doing ten reps of each working our way down to one. Each round we did we would start over and drop a rep. In the end, we were going to be doing fifty-five reps total but when you broke them down into smaller sets it kept you from wearing yourself out too quickly and made it easier to pace yourself.
Ivan plugged his phone into the docking station filling the silent room with drums and guitars. The sounds of metal music echoed off the walls. It was how we always worked out. There was no time for talking. We were here to clear our minds of the stress of life.
I set the timer on my phone, sinking it up with the timer on the wall. Once Ivan took his place and gave me a nod signaling he was ready I started the timer. We dropped down and started knocking out burpees.
I fucking hated burpees. If there was one workout that I wanted to disappear from the face of the planet it would be the burpee. However, when it came to one workout that kicked your ass and worked every muscle in your body, that would be the fucking burpee. I swear after every workout involving burpees I feel like even my asshole and eyelids have been worked to the max.
I repeated the motion over and over, each time counting in my head. Starting in a standing position, I dropped down into a squat, kicked my feet back, hands planted on the floor leaving me in the planking position, my chest dropping to the floor then springing back up, perfectly executing a pushup, and then jumped back up into a standing position, literally jumping as I clapped my hands above my head before dropping back down again. I could feel every muscle in my body bunching in protest as I repeated the motion ten times.
Once finished I glanced quickly at the board noting my next set, the clean jerk. Standing over my bar I squatted down, my hands getting a good grip on the bar, tucking my hips beneath me I pulled the bar up with all two-hundred and fifty pounds of weight, keeping my chest up, arms straight, and both feet on the ground.
Once I have the bar over my knees, I shift the majority of the weight from my mid-foot to my heels, extending my hips and torso, pulling the bar in a vertical motion. Using my hip extension I thrust the bar up, driving the bar upward as I threw my chest up and shrugged my shoulders.
Dropping into a squat position, my arms pulling me under the bar, I caught the bar in a rack position, resting it on the top of my chest and shoulders. Standing up from the squat I held the bar in the racked position.
Kicking my feet out a hair I reset my position, leaving my feet shoulder width apart. I dropped my hips with a quick downward motion into a quarter-squat building up the momentum for the jerk. Driving my legs upward I pressed the bar above my head, dropping my hips. The motion was quick and fluid leaving me in a slight squat with the bar pressed firmly above my head. I stood up out of the squat while keeping my arms extended finishing the movement, my body a clean line from top to bottom. I dropped the bar shaking out my hands and started again. It felt fucking amazing.
I don’t know what it was about the clean jerk but I fucking loved it. I guess it was the whole testosterone man thing about picking up heavy shit and putting it back down again. All I knew was that I fucking loved it.
I finished my reps faster than I liked and moved on to the wall balls. It was simple and painful. I knew once this workout was done I wouldn’t be able to climb the stairs to my room. My quads were going to burn for days. I wasn’t finished with the first round and already sweat was dripping down my face and plastering my shirt to my chest. I used the bottom of my shirt to wipe off my face.
I grabbed a twenty-pound ball from the corner and tested the weight in my hands. I knew I was wasting time, trying to get my head straight before I started. All I could think was how much my quads were going to kill me.
“Come on pussy,” Ivan shouted over the music forcing me to get the lead out of my ass.
I shook my head smirking at him. He was already in position and had tossed his first ball. I dropped into a squat then bounced back up, arms extended at I shot the oversized, weighted hacky sack up to the marker painted along the wall. My eyes followed the ball up and then back down into my arms where I seamlessly dropped back down into a squat allowing the momentum of the ball to carry me. I repeated the process over and over again, each time the tingling in my quads grew a little more.
Once I was finished I let the ball fall to the ground and stepped over to my box. It was a large metal square that was hollow on the inside. I had decided to take it easy on us today since we were doing so many workouts that were going to be working the quads and opted to use the twenty-four-inch box.
Dropping into a squat in front of the box I leapt up springing off my feet and landing smoothly in the center of the box. Stepping back first with my right foot planting it firmly on the ground I continued with my left leaving me standing on the floor. I squatted back down and continued the whole process all over again nine more times.
Forty-five minutes later the timer went off and Ivan and I both crashed to the floor, our bodies lying motionless as we regained our senses. Every muscle in my body ached. I knew I couldn’t stay here long; I still needed to stretch out and keep my body moving. For now, I just didn’t give a shit, I was going to lay here on my back and stare at the ceiling.
“Tink says you have a girl.” I not so subtly threw Katinka under the bus in an attempt to get answers from Ivan. I will admit I took a cheap shot at both Katinka and Ivan. I betrayed Katinka’s confidence and took advantage of Ivan’s weakened state. I was a self-serving bastard, using Ivan’s troubles to deflect from my own.
Ivan only grunted in response.
“Give it up man,” I egged.
“I have a girlfriend, yes. How long I will have her, I have no fucking clue,” He finally gritted out. I could hear the anger and tension in his voice.
“What’s the issue?” I asked hoping he would indulge me, giving me a reprieve from my own worries.
“Her family is trying to marry her off,” He huffed out bitterly.
“Do you love her?” I finally asked after a beat.
Ivan only grunted in response.
“I’m just saying, if you love her, marry her before her parents beat you to the punch.” I tilted my head slightly and peeked out at him from the corner of my eye. Ivan was lying flat on his back, knees bent, one arm slung over his forehead.
I didn’t think he would ever answer. Ivan was never one for sharing what was going on with him. I was never one for having heart to hearts either but we were brothers and sometimes you just needed to talk to someone, especially if you’re trying to hide from your own issues.
Ivan sighed and finally spoke. “What if stealing her away would cause pain to someone close, what if it would break her sister’s heart?” He asked.
“Are you dating her sister, too?” I asked incredulously raising myself up onto my forearms to look down at him.
Ivan gave a stiff chuckle. “No, but what if it would hurt her all the same?” He asked turning his head so that he could look me in the eyes.
I could see the pain this situation was causing him. He really did have feelings for this girl.
“If you’re not with the sister and you and the girlfriend are in love, I say go fo
r it. It’s better to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission,” I replied honestly. Maybe I was biased. My brother came first and I would always have his back no matter what.
A slow smirk started to make an appearance on his face. “So if you had to marry a chick and I swooped in and stole her you wouldn’t be mad?” He asked skeptically.
“If I wasn’t with her at the start but you were, then no, I wouldn’t be mad. Bros before hoes now and always.” It looked like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Ivan stuck his fist out toward me and I bumped it with my own.
“Bros before hoes,” he said with more confidence than I had seen him with all day.
Ivan and I eventually pulled ourselves up from the floor and began to clean the equipment, putting it away. There was an annoying hop back in Ivan’s step but I ignored the pangs of jealousy that threatened to bring me down. Instead, I let the music that continued to blast through the speakers drown away my worries as we worked.
Once everything was cleaned up we each picked a spot on the floor and began to stretch out. I could feel my muscles protesting as I stretched out the well-used fibers.
The workout had done its job, leaving me too sore and full of testosterone to even worry about my problems, instead, my mind was focused on a whole new set of issues, how to get upstairs to my room to shower and dress.
By some miracle I found the energy to transport my body from the floor of the gym up to my room. It was a struggle the whole way but I managed to take a quick shower and shuffle on enough clothing to be presentable to my housemates, meaning I was just wearing a pair of sweats, nothing more.
My stomach began to protest, begging for substance, forcing me to take the stairs once again, this time to the kitchen. I cringed at the thought of taking the stairs again and pondered the idea of having an elevator installed. I would even settle for one of those chairs advertised for the elderly that would travel up and down the staircase as you sat in the bucket like seat.
Always Rocking: A Heavy Metal Romance (Slava Pasha series Book 4) Page 3
