Jessica's Fate

Chapter 74

I found myself thinking about Pete, more often or not over the course of the next two weeks. I was currently up to my elbows in cookie dough, trying to make enough cookies to keep our family happy through Christmas.

Mom always made the Greek cookies for Silas, as she'd been doing for over ten years and she always had dibs on a few of the other types of cookies.

I claimed the sugar cookies, having honed my cookie decorating skills on them in the past few years. They had become an all year cookie for me because it was one of the most asked for things on my jobs either to be party favors for people to take home or to be part of a cookie bouquet centerpiece for the guest of honor to take home. I also usually made Russian Teacakes, by name only, Raven had long ago told me they weren't actually Russian. So sometimes I just swapped those walnuts for pecans and went with Mexican wedding cookies. I still made him his favorite holiday pastries. I also usually experimented, to Luke's delight, with a few flavors of fudge and other candy like pecan pralines and peanut brittle. I was trying out a coconut cashew brittle this year, the first test batch had been amazing and Luke ate over half of it in one afternoon at the diner.

But as I rolled cookies or stirred boiling sugar, I thought about that guy. Pete. It had been on the tip of my tongue several times since that day to ask Kota for more information. I wanted to ask him what he'd said to him about if I was seeing someone, curious if his big brother over protection instincts had kicked in or if Pete met with brotherly approval. I halfway wanted to be that bold girl and ask if I could have his number.

Maybe I'd be the one making the first move this time.

Maybe not.

I pressed a hand to my stomach, willing the butterflies to settle down. They'd returned with a vengeance and any time I imagined having a conversation with Pete, they took up the familiar tattoo of fluttering that I had only ever experienced with Zack and Tony.

There were a few guys in my classes that had tried to ask me out under the guise of testing out some nearby restaurant to see how their pastries were.

But then I overheard them talking about my "pastries" ... if you know what I mean.

They were speaking Russian, I mean, there was nothing more satisfying than shutting them down in perfectly accented Russian.

Yes, I may or may not have used a few of the more colorful swear words that I'd learned.

Yes, I may or may not have threatened to use the Professional Russian that I had on standby.

Yes, I may or may not have arranged for Raven to drop me off and pick me up every day for a week and I had greeted him in loud Russian and with smacking kisses to his cheeks. He'd caught on fairly quickly and glared over the top of my head for good measure before loudly cautioning me about fruit cups as he let me out of the car or tucked me inside the car.

That was the most fun ever.

I'm pretty sure Raven enjoyed it even more than I did.

Seeing as I'd never let him put my ex boyfriends and their collective asses in a slink. Sling. Whatever.

I hadn't heard a peep from the Russians since.

Too bad really, they were sorta cute and I'm sure that they would have liked my borscht and rye bread.

Also, too bad because they'd given up without a fight and without lingering attention that would have allowed me to roll my brothers through next, starting with North and Silas and continuing on with Owen and finishing with the scariest one of all, Kota. Nothing scarier than your actual blood brother taking down guys that had disrespected his baby sister.