Her Rustanov Bully: the (possibly romantic?) tale of how I pucked around and found out
Her Rustanov Bully: Chapter 32

Yom.

Yom Rustanov was here, standing right beside me with a possessive arm around my waist. I could barely breathe, only goggle up at his sharply handsome and extraordinarily well-structured face. Apparently, he’d not only managed a tuxedo but had found time to shave again since I saw him last.

“Artyom Rustanov.” Yom extended a hand toward Brick Swain. Like someone who had been invited. Someone who was actually supposed to be here. And not back in Minnesota where I’d left him.

Why is he here?

My heart thundered, and my mind swam as Brick heartily shook Yom’s extended hand with both of his.

“Oh, no need to introduce yourself! That was one hell of a season you just played. Broke eggs all over the Big Ten Conference.”

Yom gave Brick an answer that might as well have been in Portuguese—I understood not a word of it.

Brick heartily agreed, though.

“That’s what I’ve been saying! The USCA has to let our Minnesota hockey teams…”

More Portuguese.

Okay, so Yom was not only here but also talking to former-Governor Swain about Minnesota hockey at my brother’s swanky Chicago party. Normally, this would be the point where I checked out, but my dad—who I hadn’t seen or heard a peep from since I landed at O’Hare—appeared out of nowhere.

“Lydsie, there you are!” he said, pulling me in for a hug.

Well, as much of a hug as he could manage with Yom’s arm wrapped like a steel band around my waist.

As usual, he smelled of cigars and expensive cologne, and like Yom, he also wasn’t wearing a slim-fit tuxedo. In fact, the vest under his double-breasted jacket appeared to be serving as a girdle to contain his sizable gut.

“People prefer doing business with jolly fat men,” he once assured me after convincing Weiss Fox, a beer company headquartered in Guadalajara, Missouri, to open up a second Midwestern factory on a parcel of land he happened to own just outside of Gemidgee. “Makes them feel like they’re giving money to Santa Claus.”

“Hi, Dad,” I said, giving him an awkward one-armed hug back. “This is Yom. Yom, this is my dad.”

“Mr. Carrington. It is honor to meet you,” Yom said, extending his hand.

“The honor’s all mine. I’ve been telling Lydia to bring you down to see us in Excelsior.”

With an inward sigh, I settled into Dad Translation—one of my favorite games for keeping my mind occupied at events that somehow managed to be both overstimulating and boring as hell. It was basically my version of the YouTube classic Honest Trailers.

Dad: I’ve been telling Lydia to bring you down to see us in Excelsior.

Dad Translation: I’ve been inundating Lydia with text messages about how committed you were to going to the Indiana Polar. And then, when she told me “completely,” I badgered her with more questions she had no idea how to answer. I never once told her to bring you down to our house.

“Though, from what I hear, our little lake house in Minneapolis hardly compares to yours in Gemidgee,” Dad said with a jovial laugh. “How many acres did you score up there? Four? Five?”

Dad Translation: I wouldn’t move to a small town like Gemidgee in a thousand years. But I like beginning every conversation with an ego stroke.

“Only three,” Yom answered, as if that number were oh-so-humble.

“Well, we weren’t even able to get up to two for our place in Excelsior. They’ve got us packed in tight over there.”

Dad Translation: My mansion size is directly correlated to my ego, and I’m still upset that the “King of Commercial Minnesota Real Estate” can see his next-door neighbor on one side of the house.

It took all of my mom’s society training to keep my eyes from rolling.

Speaking of which…

Mom swooped into the conversation, alighting like a perfumed crane in a red evening gown at Dad’s left side.

“My darling, why didn’t you tell me your boyfriend would be coming?” Mom shot me one of those kittenish pouts that only rich ladies of a certain age could pull off. “You know your father and I have been dying to meet him!”

Mom Translation: I asked Lydia about the boyfriend rumors exactly once at breakfast, then said, “I assumed that was the case. No offense, darling, but why would a Rustanov choose you over a Tri Kappa sorority girl? When I attended UMG, we were the only choice for men from his sort of background,” after she answered that you two were only housemates.

Not going to lie—her accepting my explanation for the boyfriend rumors so easily kind of stung. I didn’t know whether to feel vindicated or annoyed over Mom switching gears faster than a race car before she stepped forward to introduce herself to Yom with a, “Abigail Carrington. So lovely to meet you.”

Yom once again stuck out his hand like a cyborg who’d read a single book about how real humans behave.

Mom bypassed his palm to give him an air kiss, which I imagined would make for a great image for the party’s photographer and videographer, who’d just so happened to follow her over here.

The photographer’s camera clicked in the background as she said, “Thanks for coming down to Chicago for Paul’s little soiree.”

“I know it must have been hard to squeeze us in with the Big Ten coming up,” Dad added in that affable way that made him seem like a teddy bear when he was really a shark.

“Yes, this party is hard for me to squeeze in,” Yom agreed in his exact opposite, super-direct way. “Perhaps you will tell me when Lydia’s party will be in three weeks? Her birthday is during spring break, nyet? And we now have many practices scheduled for then.”

My parents traded an uncomfortable gaze, and Dad looked away first, leaving Mom to explain, “Oh, we usually don’t do anything for Lydia’s birthday. As you said, it’s during spring break, and she doesn’t have nearly as many friends as Paul.”

My parents had saved me from a childhood that would have otherwise been spent in foster care. I didn’t mind them never throwing me a stupidly expensive birthday party. But that “not ever good enough” feeling still knotted in my chest whenever my mom compared me to Paul—especially knowing what he was capable of when he got angry, desperate, or resentful.

Still, I could only watch my poor mom flounder for so long.

“Big parties aren’t my thing,” I said, stepping in to save her from any further explaining. “I’m more of a nice dinner with Merry and her mom kind of girl.”

The frown lines I’d become very familiar with over the last month of cohabitation reappeared between Yom’s eyebrows. “You are not going home for spring break?”

“No, I usually just stay in Gemidgee. You know, I have my shifts at the animal shelter. And Merry’s mom always makes me something special.”

“Merry and her mother are not talking,” Yom pointed out. “What will you do this year?”

I winced. “Go out to a nice dinner with Merry and—ooh, Trish, too!—since this is the first spring break when she’s not dating anybody. Yay?”

I gave a little cheery wave that may or may not have matched Paul’s Black Hello Kitty accusation.

However, Yom continued to frown at me like I’d said I had spring break plans to kill Hello Kitty.

“It will be fun,” I insisted into his unnerving silence.

But Yom’s expression remained stony. If anything, his eyes narrowed like they had when I insisted Mulan and nearly all the Disney cartoon movies were worth a watch.

“You know what, maybe we could put something together for Lydsie at the lake house,” Dad suddenly offered.

“Yes, what a wonderful idea!” Mom latched onto that conversation-saving life preserver. “I could invite a few of the women from the club who have daughters around Lydia’s age. And you could invite your friends, Lydia. Both of them. You know, I told her to pledge my sorority, Kappa Kappa Kappa, her first year, but she refused, and now she barely has anyone to invite to a birthday party.”

Well, that was a record. Mom had managed to go an entire twelve hours without bringing up me not wanting to pledge her mostly blonde house of look-alike sorority girls.

“Lydia can only afford two friends,” Yom said, snagging a passing champagne flute with one hand—then handing it to me as if he knew I needed it.

“I’m not sure I’m catching your meaning,” Mom answered with a frown that would have marred her forehead if not for her dedication to regular filler appointments.

“She has too big heart. She can barely afford two friends she has,” Yom clarified. “If she had more, she would be spending all her time on them. Her studies would suffer.”

Yom was either judging me or giving me a compliment. Whatever the case, my heart stuttered a little.

“That’s right.” Dad guffawed. “Do you know, I had to make her rent a place with a no-pets policy just to make sure she didn’t adopt any more dogs? We already have two we’re still having to take care of in Excelsior.”

“I did not know,” Yom answered, tilting his head. “But I believe your story.”

“Though I do adore Princess Diana, the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel mix that Lydia brought home when she was in sixth grade,” Mom acknowledged with a thoughtful glance toward me. “I can’t bear to be without her, even for a few hours. Right now, she’s waiting for me in my hotel room.”

“I left Remington, the Sheprador she made me take in, back at home,” Dad said, rolling his eyes at his well-preserved wife. “But I swear, he’s the best damn hunting dog you’ll ever meet. You wouldn’t believe how many offers I’ve had to turn down from my friends who want to buy Remy to replace their useless purebreds. Back when Lydia was in high school, I’d have them come over for dinner—within a week or two, she’d have them fixed up with a shelter dog that was just right for them.”

“Same here!” Mom tittered. “I’ve had to bring Lydia to a few of my charity luncheons just to get my friends to stop badgering me!”

Okay, somehow, this conversation had gone from my social failings to Dad and Mom bragging to Yom about how good I was at matching the right people with the right dog. I blinked, the wholly unfamiliar warmth of parental pride replacing the sting of Mom’s earlier comments.

“Maybe you could replace me a pooch?” Brick said with a hopeful tone that didn’t seem at all put on. “It’s been a bit lonely since Meredith handed me those divorce papers.”

“Sure, she can,” Dad volunteered before turning back to Yom. “Let’s talk about it more when you two fly to Minneapolis for her spring break party. Hey, and there’s a game that day, Rustanov. Wanna come see about us Raptors?”

Not this again. ”Dad, no, he’s already committed to his uncle’s team.”

That had been one of the few personal things Yom had told me about himself during our many dinners.

“Okay, okay, sure, I understand. Indiana Polar is a great team,” Dad replied in a completely reasonable tone.

Which made me narrow my eyes, a familiar unease prickling the back of my neck. Dad only used his completely reasonable tone when he was closing in for the kill.

“But you know, that team’s already got so much star power with your cousin at the forefront,” Dad added in the next breath, confirming my suspicion that he believed this situation to be the start of a deal. “I’d love for you to come see the kind of spotlight a team in need of a power player could put on you. Also, if your brother and your cousin got all that attention just for facing off for the Stanley Cup last year, imagine what kind of marketing we could do all season around having two Rustanovs in the Western Conference.”

As someone who found talking coherently hard even on fully medicated, good brain days, I couldn’t help but be impressed by Dad’s deft transition from small talk into wheeling and dealing.

“I will not come to visit your facilities on Lydia’s birthday,” Yom answered.

But, of course, Dad couldn’t just accept Yom’s hard no. “Well, consider this, son⁠—”

“I am not your son,” Yom said before Dad could finish. “Yet.”

Ugh. Being used as leverage for Dad’s pitch made my skin crawl. I opened my mouth to tell him no meant no when it came to Yom signing with the Minnesota Raptors. But then I got hung up on that last word.

Did Yom say yet?

“I will not come to your facilities on Lydia’s birthday, but I will consider doing so the day before or after that day,” Yom amended while I tried to wrap my head around that yet. “I must check schedule, but I am open to giving your team my consideration.”

Dad’s birthday wasn’t until August, but his face lit up like it had come early.

My heart twisted. Dad was clearly thrilled by Yom’s offer, yet all I could feel was confusion. Why was he doing this? The number-one reading comprehension question from my English 101 class loomed in my head: What is this character’s motivation?

“You don’t have to do that,” I told Yom, trying to steady my voice.

“I wish to do this,” Yom threw me a half-smirk. “I like this idea of staying close to you in Minnesota. Perhaps my path has curve in it after all.”

What?

So Yom hadn’t just crashed my brother’s party. Now, he was insinuating that he might join the Minnesota Raptors. For me?

The air felt too thick, pressing in on me from all sides. I was aware that men, especially, were transactional. But this didn’t feel like a power play—at least not one I could understand.

The world blurred, canting dangerously around me.

“You alright, sweetheart?” Brick Swain asked somewhere in the distance.

“I have to…” My throat clogged with a rising panic, but somehow I managed to squeeze out, “Excuse me. I need to powder my nose.”

I could feel the burn of Yom’s eyes on me as I rushed away, pushing through the party guests to the hallway outside the venue.

Thankfully, the women’s room was empty. There was no one there to see me rush to the sink and splash water on my hot face, trying not to hyperventilate.

My dad was a shark, sure. But sharks could be avoided if you chose not to swim in the ocean.

Yom felt like a different predator—a wolf, stalking me through the dark woods of my soul.

What did he want? What was his plan? Men always wanted something. Always.

But I couldn’t figure out which box to put Yom in, and that terrified me. Not knowing made it feel like there was a cartoon bomb in my chest, its wick burning, ready to explode.

“What the fuck, Lydia?!” came a slurred voice. “This your idea of some kind of sick joke? Bringing that Russkie asshole here?”

I looked up, and my heart stopped when I found Paul standing before me in the women’s bathroom. His hands were clenched into fists at his side, and his face was beet red. From the drinking. Or maybe from the anger.

After years as his adopted sister, I still couldn’t tell.

But my stomach dropped with memories of how, by high school, I’d learned never to be in the same space as him when he got like this.

Yet here I was. And my drunk, angry brother was standing between me and the door.