Her Rustanov Bully: the (possibly romantic?) tale of how I pucked around and found out
Her Rustanov Bully: Chapter 27

The month of February did not clear up any of my confusion when it came to Yom. I barely got through the audiobook of Jane Eyre as a high school senior. But as a college senior, I felt a whole lot more sympathy for the main character.

As much as I’d spent the last three years feeling like the boring, straight, Black best friend to Trish’s colorful main-character energy, I was starting to suspect I’d somehow become the star of my own low-stakes mystery novel called Where the Hell Do I Stand With Yom Rustanov?

However, over the next few weeks, we settled into a surprisingly pleasant routine. I hadn’t realized how nice it was to have someone to eat with or to feel another person’s touch—until I got used to holding hands and sharing meals twice a day with the university’s star hockey player.

Yom’s schedule was the busy I never could have comprehended before living with a Division I athlete: two games a week, practices every non-game day, and at least two hours a day of weightlifting, cardio, and conditioning in the downstairs gym. On top of all that, he had a senior load of homework and after-dinner Statistics study sessions with me.

Yet he made it to dinner every night by 7 p.m.—earlier if he had a game afterward. And when he didn’t have a game, instead of going out after our Statistics study sessions, he chose to “study” next to me on the couch in the living room.

The study haven had freed up so much time that I’d fallen into the habit of catching up on all the shows waiting in my Crunchyroll account after dinner. Yom was very on record as not understanding why I liked these “Japanese cartoons.” But he often peered over his laptop or even set it aside to ask me irritated questions.

“So, they are identical twins, but they are in love with each other, and still, they are flirting with girls?”

“Um…” I answered, not sure how to explain the weird twin-brother relationship in Ouran High School Host Club.

“Why is he not admitting he is liking her?” Yom demanded during an episode of Toradora!, no longer even pretending to be more interested in the work on his laptop.

“Because he’s not ready to confess his feelings. To her or himself,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “It’s kind of sweet, in a frustrating, slow-burn way.”

“Is it?” Yom narrowed his eyes in annoyance.

And a few weeks later, he squinted even harder as the credits on the last episode of April Flower Marriage rolled.

“So they are never becoming couple, then?”

“No, they’re fully in love and happily married,” I assured him, dabbing happy tears from my eyes with my Gemidgee Animal Shelter hoodie.

“But he is never kissing her! Or even holding her hand. They are only ever bowing to each other.”

“I mean, I guess that was kind of the culture in 1920s Japan. Subtle.” My mouth quirked upward at the irony of Yom complaining about a male character from a josei anime not being super-clear about his intentions. “I guess not everyone’s as romantic as you?”

He went very still, and his stormy-gray eyes met mine.

“You think I am being romantic to you?” His voice was low, serious, and too close for comfort.

“I, um…” had no idea how to answer that. Without asking a whole bunch of questions. Which wasn’t allowed.

My breath hitched in my throat. The room felt suddenly smaller, warmer, and charged with something I didn’t know how to name.

“I mean, you…” I faltered, my words tripping over themselves. “You seem like the type who would go all out—like, be totally all in when—if you cared about someone.”

I peeped up at him. All the questions I was forbidden to ask sparking in the air like static electricity.

For a moment, he didn’t say anything. Just kept looking at me, his intense gaze making it impossible to breathe.

Then, without a word, he stood, grabbed his laptop, and went upstairs. Leaving me to stew in my own confusion and the soft, secret emotions blooming inside of me.

The next night, I put on the first episode of Attack on Titan, a decidedly unromantic anime filled with giant man-eating monsters and near-constant chaos. I wasn’t allowed to ask questions, and I didn’t think my confused heart could handle another conversation like that.

As the season came to a close, Yom’s mornings were filled with practices more often than not, and his weekends were spent traveling or drilling plays with the team. Still, he managed to make it to most of our weekday lunches with a reliability that gave me a quiet kind of joy.

He didn’t even complain about Trish and Merry making a habit of crashing our lunches. Even when we had to move from the booth to a larger round table because of Trish. In a fit of flirting, she insisted that Rina join us instead of lurking on the sidelines.

I cringed at Trish’s persistence. By that point, she knew that I’d already floated the idea to Rina of asking my best friend out—with several voice texts’ worth of “encouragement” (read: highly detailed and specific guidance) from Trish herself.

Rina’s flat, one-line response: “Dating is a distraction from my goals.”

Still, I noticed that Yom’s goal-focused second bodyguard didn’t inform my best friend about the consequences of her actions. Her loudly insisting on Rina joining meant Stepan had to be called in to take up her formerly covert post, which had been perfect for keeping eyes on the perimeters at all times.

Trish seemed much clearer about where she stood with Rina than I was with my former bully, which frustrated me more than I’d like to admit.

As much time as we’d spent together, Yom barely talked about himself outside of his obligations to the team and his homework requirements for passing his classes. But I did manage to dig up some background on him—and by dig up, I mean fall into a hyper-focused, hours-long internet dive on his family.

I found a novella-length Epoch Quarterly article titled “THE RUSTANOVS: The Powerful Russian Family Behind America’s First Female VPOTUS” and pulled it up on my laptop so the computer could read it back to me.

“With Eva Rustanov St. James stepping into the spotlight as the first female vice president of the United States, accusations regarding her husband’s family’s “murky shadow wealth” have resurfaced. It’s been a tumultuous year for the once-feared Russian oligarch clan, and close family associates and critics alike suggest gaining a toe-hold in American politics might just be the tip of the iceberg for ‘The Rustanati.’”

Ooh, paydirt! I pulled out the basket of laundry Pesya insisted on handling for me—even though I repeatedly told her I could manage it myself. I suspected she knew my version of “handling it myself” was letting it gradually pile up until I was down to a ratty sports bra and a single pair of bikini bottoms, forcing me into a days-long cycle of starting, forgetting, and rewashing my laundry until I finally got a load of clean clothes through the dryer stage.

Either way, I was grateful, and the least I could do was put away the slightly perfumed clothes she’d washed, dried, and beautifully folded for me while I cyberstalked my… Housemate? Landlord? Captor?

No idea, but each option left me feeling even more uncertain about where we stood.

Which was why I was more than interested in hearing what the “Samantha” Siri Voice had to tell me about the American branch of the Rustanov family at 2x speed.

The article mentioned that after Eva Rustanov rose through the political ranks to become the vice presidential nominee, she was advised to revert to her maiden name. She became Eva Rustanov St. James—more commonly, Eva R. St. James—to make herself more appealing to the American public and to distance herself from her husband’s powerful Russian family.

The American branch of the Rustanovs had done much to distance themselves from their Bratva oligarchy origins in 20th-century Russia. Still, despite presenting themselves as billionaires, they carried what one contributor called “murky shadow wealth,” which earned them the nickname “The Rustanati” and led some financial reporters—who didn’t necessarily come off as conspiracy theorists—to accuse them of being trillionaires.

I didn’t care about Yom’s wealth, but the Rustanati tag sent a chill down my spine. It matched his controlling master-manipulator vibe perfectly. I couldn’t help but think back to that conversation at the first lunch Trish and Merry had crashed. Yom had explained his reasoning for always having eyes on me outside the lake house.

But he hadn’t actually denied Trish’s accusations.

Honestly, the internet search didn’t tell me much more than I already knew about his family after the wall-to-wall TMI of the last election cycle. However, there were a few lines about how all the Rustanov males on both sides of the Pacific were pretty much conscripted to two paths in life: sports or business. This was because most Rustanov patriarchs had been raised by old-school U.S.S.R.-era fathers back in their motherland.

Yom hadn’t been born here but in Russia, right? If he’d had a similar upbringing to Alexei Rustanov, the American branch’s main patriarch, that would explain a lot about his cold exterior.

After I finished listening to the article, I abandoned my laundry project halfway through to pull out my phone and do another deep dive with its Safari app.

And… yep, I was right. Yom and his brother, Cheslav “Chess” Rustanov—who’d just left the Boston Hawks to sign with the South Carolina Charleston Knights for a record-breaking amount of money—had both been born and raised in Russia. But they had different mothers, and their father, Mikhail, had only married Cheslav’s mother, who was still alive.

Yom’s mother was a famous model, but she wasn’t exactly Heidi Klum—especially after she quit for a few years to raise Yom. Though, I noted that she never became Mikhail Rustanov’s wife. Had she been his “pet” then?

I tried to root it out, but everything I found on her was either vague or in German—which is where my attention span completely conked out. Still, I did learn enough to understand why Yom came off so harshly.

Just not why he’d been so sweet with me that night in Berlin. Or what exactly our relationship status was now.

Soft feelings fluttered again in my chest like a secret garden taking root. Was he growing them, too? Even after everything that had gone down between us? How could I know without asking?

“Lydia, this is a reminder. Tomorrow is Galentine’s Day!” Nyla, my GoNoTo smart device, informed me out of the blue. “Lydia, this is a reminder. Tomorrow is Galentine’s Day!”

Sometime in the vague past, I must have set—then promptly forgot I set—a February 12th reminder to pick something up for Trish and Merry for Galentine’s Day, which we’d been celebrating on February 13th ever since bonding over Trish’s Unpopular Opinion Reddit post about Parks and Rec being way better than The Office.

But the voice of my smart device jerked me out of my speculations about Yom’s motivations.

And it sparked an idea—one that might help me figure out exactly where I stood with Yom Rustanov.