Maid For You 4

Chapter 22

I stood up and bent down to pick up my heavy snow mold. The igloo was started to get higher now, and as I waddled over to it in order to hoist the latest brick up top, Nikolas came up to me and took the other end of my box of snow. "Let me help you," he said, and together we added another brick atop our igloo. We'd been at it for a few hours now, and we were nearing completion.

"So, how good is this igloo when it comes to igloos?" I asked him. "Since you're the expert."

"I think that we have done a fairly good job with it," he told me. "It is turning out to be quite a nice igloo." He looked at me and smiled. "U vas khorosho poluchilos'."

"What?"

He laughed a little bit. "You did well."

"Oh, thanks. You too."

We finally finished laying the last bricks, and all that was left was to crawl in. I began first, crawling through the small little tunnel before entering into the main, circular part of the igloo. It was...smaller than I expected, but adequate size for two people. I sat on the snow holding my knees to my chest while Nikolas came in, muttering in Russian.

"This is a lot smaller now than when I was a kid," he said, entering into the larger part of the igloo on his hands and knees. He then looked up at me, and a creeping pink stained his cheeks, and I wondered if my own face was coloring. Because suddenly, the igloo did seem very small with just the two of us in this little space.

I turned my face away, and tried to look relaxed. I lowered myself onto my back, with my knees bent and my feet planted on the ground and my hands resting on my stomach. Nikolas shifted so that he was sitting on the snow, but in the process of us trying to make ourselves comfortable, his arm brushed against mine, and my heart jumped a bit. He muttered sorry, I said it was fine, and I stared up at the ceiling instead of at him.

"We did a good job," I said, looking up at the crude dome. Muffled light came through in the thinner cracks between our bricks, making the igloo plenty bright. "It is warmer in here too, I think." I wanted to think about the igloo instead of the spark of something that I'd felt when he and I had brushed against each other, because I wasn't trying to turn this moment into something. It was a moment of two friends doing an activity together, and there was no point in making it out to be more than that.

Nik looked up. "I'm glad that you suggested this activity. I truly did enjoy myself." He then glanced at the patch of snow behind him, and lowered himself so that his back was on the ground and he was looking up at the ceiling. "I will have to take a picture for my father to see."

"You should! I'll bet he'd like that."

Neither of us said anything for a moment, enjoying the silence and rest, when Nikolas said, "I am going to miss him."

I turned my head to face him, but he was still looking up. His face was still, but not emotionless—his lips were turned downward and his eyes looked sad and his face broke my heart. Again, I thought of my own dad, with his mischievous brown eyes and goofy grin and the way he called me "Cassarole" and "Cassaroni". If I knew he was going to die, I could only imagine that my grief would be unbearable.

After a moment, I asked Nik quietly, "Is it really certain?"

He drew a deep breath. "It is. It's certain. And I fear—I fear it will come soon." He spoke very quietly, though I could hear him quite clearly within the silence of our igloo. "My father, Papa, has always been my greatest friend. He understands me in a way that no one else does. He just...he knows who I am. And he loves me. He loves me so wholly and completely, and I—I don't want him to go." He closed his eyes. "I understand that it is God's will that my father be taken from this earth. He must have a higher plan than I, but—but I still want him to stay. I will still miss him."