Hard Limits(55)

His beautiful Goth girl slapped him on the chest and rolled her eyes. "You jackass, I don't care about that. I'm nervous about meeting your grandmother. What if she doesn't like me? Maybe I should cover my throat. I don't want to upset her."

He kissed her softly on her lips. "She won't mind. And she's not going to like you. As a matter of fact, she's going to love you."

She frowned. "Because of my scar?"

"Nope. Because you slap me and call me jackass. You ready?" he asked, his finger poised on the doorbell. "You can still run for the hills."

"Ready," she said, placing her hand on top of his and pushing the doorbell.

He'd warned his grandmother about their arrival, yet when she saw them, she threw herself at Nico in tears.

He hadn't seen his grandmother in three years. Time had left its indelible mark, but her eyes were the same. Fiery and alert.

She cried and hugged and kissed them all at once, thanking the Lord for her grandson's return. Ushering them inside.

The one-bedroom apartment smelled as he remembered: like chai and his grandmother's delicious pirozhki. Same mismatched furniture. Same flowery wallpaper covered by ragged carpets. Three generations had lived together in those twenty-six square meters, Nico and his mother sharing the living room-both sleeping on that fold-out sofa-his grandmother in the tiny bedroom.

His gaze wandered to the far corner of the living room, to his mother's shrine. The one that his grandmother had erected to protect her daughter from evil when she went abroad.

It hadn't worked.

Nico unclasped the cross from his neck and gave it to his grandmother. No words were exchanged. They were not needed. She gripped the pendant in her hand, and crying, nodded. Then she placed it on the shrine, by the photo of a beautiful woman Nico hardly recognized. 

She urged them to the kitchen, where she had the table already set with her finest china, inherited from her own mother. Three tea cups and three plates. The Grabar family's heirlooms.

"Who is this lovely girl?" she asked in Russian as she poured them tea.

Nico didn't hesitate. "Paige. She's the woman I'm going to marry."

"Have you asked her already?" she inquired, looking at him and then at Paige.

"No, he hasn't," Paige said in a heavily accented but flawless Russian.

"You speak Russian," Nico said, surprised.

She nodded. "Nemnozhko. A little. I can defend myself."

"So?" His grandmother asked, smiling from ear to ear. "You going to pop the question and see what she says? I haven't raised any cowards."

Paige smirked. "Yes, are you going to pop the question, or are you too scared?"

He'd planned to do this on the banks of the Neva River. Or in the gardens of the Peterhof Palace. Somewhere romantic and sumptuous. But he might as well do it here. He knelt in his grandmother's kitchen and took a velvety box from his pocket.

Paige's smirk flew out the window. Her bravado too. She obviously hadn't been expecting that.

"Nico, what are you doing?" she whispered in English, her eyes big. "I was just joking. Teasing you. You don't have to-"

He opened the box, offering it to her, and her words died in her mouth. He'd fallen in love with that ring the second he'd seen it, a beautiful piece that had Paige written all over its design. The perfect vintage ring for his Goth girl.

"I'm not a great catch." He looked around. "What you see is what you get. No narco bling. Hell, no bling at all, but I love you, and I will always love you. I will protect you and cherish you and honor you every day of my life. Will you marry me? If you need a pros and cons list before answering, I can-"

Tears rolling down her face, she nodded and threw herself in his arms. "Of course I'll marry you, Nico," she said, kissing and hugging him. "Anywhere. Anytime. Screw the pros and cons list."

His grandmother cried, cheered, and spoke so fast Nico was sure Paige wasn't catching a word.

He slid the ring on her finger. Perfect. "You like it?"

"I love it. I love you, Nico, but are you sure about this? I'm not the easiest person to be around. I'm … quirky, to put it mildly. And heads up, I'm already thinking about blue to purple to pink gradient hair. And a corset piercing on my side."

He didn't have the faintest idea what she was talking about, but it didn't matter. He tipped her chin up and whispered on her lips. "Bring it on. For me, the only way out now is in a body bag."

She broke into laughter. "That's the spirit."