Page 72 of Forged By Sacrifice

RAISA: We will be flying in to D.C. on the fifteenth.

ME: I can’t wait to see you.

RAISA: I cannot wait to meet your sexy roommate.

I flushed, hoping Mac hadn’t read the text. When I looked up, he had his eyes on Troy who had pulled his straw from his juice box and was trying to suck up peas through it.

ME: Don’t plan on it.

RAISA: You just don’t want us to tell him about your awkward stage.

ME: What awkward stage?

RAISA: When you cut off all your hair and looked like a boy.

I smiled.

ME: He met me for the first time when I had my hair cut off.

RAISA: No! And he still has the hots for you?

ME: No one says hots here.

RAISA: I will be the judge of that when I am at Stanford. You have been too old for too long to know.

ME: I’m only twenty-eight.

RAISA: It isn’t an age, moy dorogoy.

ME: Gotta go. I’m with a group of people. But I can’t wait to see you.

RAISA: Love you.

ME: Love you, too, malyshka.

I was excited to see my siblings. We didn’t have the banter that Mac and his family did, but Raisa and I came close. We loved each other, and I wanted to believe that was all that mattered. But I wondered, for not the first time this summer, if my siblings would have any number of agencies following them once they arrived in the States, and that had me worrying about Mac and Dani and their family all over again. It renewed the sudden bitterness I’d been feeling toward my parents and the effect they had on my life, and it would have lodged into anger if I hadn’t been surrounded by the laughter and charm of the Whittaker clan. Instead, I was dragged into games of poker where tales of Mac were flung about that could only bring smiles to my face.

Mac

NEW DAY

“Standing in the rain with nowhere to go.

Laughing and we're spinning and I hope that you.

Remember this day for the rest of your life.”

Performed by Robbie Seay Band

Written by Tolhurst / Smith

After dinner, I played Uno with my nephews like I promised but was pleasantly surprised when Georgie sat down with us. I was relieved when that game lasted a whopping thirty minutes before they were taken to bed, because, while I loved my nephews, they were exhausting.

I turned to Georgie, rubbing my hands together, and said, “Ready for the real game now?”

She chuckled, having no idea how deadly serious I, or my family, would be about the game. I led her into the dining room where Mom had the poker chips out, and everyone was focusing way too somberly on their Texas Hold ‘Em cards. We both bought into choruses of grumbling because we were joining late and would have more chips than those who had already been losing. I gave them all the stink eye.

“Be nice, we have a guest,” Mom chided.

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