Sam had to resist the urge to roll her eyes. The “uncle says” stuff had reached a fevered pitched ever since Pavel had started spending most of his afterschool time with Nikolai.
However in this case, Pavel didn’t know the reason she was taking him to the Children’s Museum after school as opposed to on the weekend as she’d originally planned was because Isaac had sent her an email asking her to do something with the boy until five pm. Apparently, Nikolai had a meeting he had to attend during their usual practice time.
Sam had quickly agreed and tried to focus on the fact that Nikolai had been consistently spending time with Pavel up until that point, but she couldn’t help but be a little disappointed. Of all the days for him to schedule a meeting during his regular skate time with Pavel, did it have to be on the boy’s birthday?
Not that Pavel was allowing her to make much of a big deal out of him turning nine. He’d forbidden Sam to throw him a party, and the only reason he’d agreed to let her take him to the Children’s Museum on his birthday was because they already had a family membership, so it wasn’t like Pavel was giving into some silly custom.
God, she wished Nikolai hadn’t said that to him. In many ways, Pavel was thriving. He was steadily gaining weight, he’d nearly caught up in math, and he’d even made a few friends at his new school. But he still seemed truly afraid of going against his uncle in any way, abiding by all of Nikolai’s rules and personal beliefs like they were sacrosanct.
This refusal to acknowledge his birthday was not good, Sam thought as she waved the little boy off to school with Dirk later that morning. Not good at all. They should all be celebrating and thanking the heavens for him making it to the age of nine, especially after the year he’d had.
But she made herself take a calming breath. Things with Pavel were so much better than they’d been four months ago, she reminded herself. And they’d only get better with time. He had a routine and stability and she was there to look out for his best interests. Eventually everything else would fall into place, with or without Nikolai’s blessing.
She hoped.
Accompanying Pavel to the Children’s Museum gave her an excuse to take off from work early, which she almost never did on Fridays, since those could be high intake days. But Ruth’s House was currently at full capacity, and though Nyla was still in school, she was proving to be more than capable when it came to taking over in Sam’s stead.
Sam was beginning to trust her nearly as much as she’d trusted Josie back when her best friend had only been a volunteer. And that gave her a lot of peace of mind as far as her upcoming maternity leave was concerned.
Dirk arrived with Pavel to pick her up from Ruth’s House at three on the dot that afternoon. She’d told the bodyguard she could take him herself, no need for him to stay past his allotted hours, but he’d insisted. “Mr. Rustanov pays me to shadow the kid—plus, I’ve never been to the Children’s Museum and Pav says I’m missing out. Sounds like fun.”
So that was how she ended up digging for dinosaur bones, riding an indoor carousel, and exploring the Reuben Wells locomotive with Pavel and his bodyguard, who was ostensibly there to have fun but glowered at every person who came anywhere near Pavel as if they were enemy forces in disguise. Including the children, who seemed to find the bodyguard’s menacing presence fascinating. A few of the parents and caregivers, in contrast, escorted their children far away from Dirk’s “don’t even think about fucking with this kid” vibe, which seemed to suit Dirk just fine.
“You don’t look like you’re having much fun,” she said with a wry smile, as they lingered for the hourly water clock lecture in the museum’s atrium lobby. Pavel was on the floor with the other children, while she and Dirk stood off to the side with the rest of the adults.
Dirk wasn’t even pretending to listen to the many interesting details about the water clock as he scanned and rescanned the stairs and all the entrances and exits. Sam was beginning to suspect he hailed from some kind of Special Forces background, and that all this open space made him nervous.
“No, I’m having a great time,” Dirk answered. Completely monotone.
His phone made a dinging sound and it must have been important, because he actually stopped eye sweeping the lobby long enough to take a look at the text message.
“All right. We gotta get out of here,” he informed her as he re-pocketed the device.
“Excuse me?” Sam asked, thinking she must have heard him wrong.
“That was Isaac. Rustanov’s meeting’s been cancelled. If we get there in the next twenty minutes, he can still get some ice time in with Pav. You don’t mind tagging along, do you? I don’t think I can get him there in time if I have to drop you off.”
First of all Sam didn’t like the thought of Pavel having his museum trip cut short, and on his birthday no less. And second of all, she could think of about ten thousand things she’d rather do with the rest of her afternoon than watch Pavel play hockey with his uncle. But in the end, she guessed she must really love the kid because she let him decide whether they should go or not.
Pavel didn’t even take a moment to consider. “Uncle Nik,” he answered immediately. “I gotta practice my goal shots some more. Uncle says if I can get one past him, he’ll buy me a pair of Bauer Supreme MX3s.”
Sam had no idea what Bauer Supreme MX3s were, but assumed they must be ice skates and valuable ones at that if Pavel was willing to cut short his Children’s Museum trip.
Once they got to the Polar’s training facility, a concrete and red brick building with cars filling nearly all of it parking spaces, Dirk led the way.
“Isaac said to take you straight back to the Polar’s rink. Rustanov’s waiting for you there. C’mon, I’ll show you the way.”
Sam understood why Dirk thought they might need an escort when they got inside. They passed a smaller rink with children playing hockey, and a larger one with thin girls, some in workout pants, some in sparkling costumes, spinning and leaping on the ice.
“Uncle says if the baby you have after this one is a girl, he’s going to enroll her in figure skating here,” Pavel informed her. “He says Russian girls have ice skating in their blood.”
He said what now? Sam wanted to reply. The big sixteen-week ultrasound where the doctor should be able to tell the baby’s sex wasn’t for another three weeks—after the close of the Polar’s season, as if the baby had been perfectly planned to fit into Nikolai’s schedule. But the genetic screening blood test Sam took a couple of weeks ago had come back with an XY sex indicator, so it was a pretty sure bet they’d be having a boy.