The Arena Laughed at My Milk, So Four Hockey Men Kept Me novel · Chapter 20 of 24
Chapter 20: Taras's POV
Taras's POV
At three in the morning I had flour to my elbows and a shutout behind me, and I was making varenyky for nobody.
We had beaten Prince Albert two to nothing on their ice.
I had stopped thirty-one shots, and the bus had pulled in at half past two.
Everyone else went to bed.
I came into the kitchen, because I can't sleep after a shutout.
My baba's recipe is the only thing that stops my hands shaking.
I was rolling the dough out thin on the table, talking to the dough.
"Look at you," I told it. "You're nothing but flour and water, and you're doing better than the second line."
"Is it working?"
Katja stood in the doorway in my gray hoodie, with her braid down and her feet bare.
It came to her knees.
"Is what working?"
"Talking to the dough."
"It's the only one that listens," I said. "Come in. Sit. I'm making you the good ones."
She hopped up on the counter beside the stove.
I mashed the potato with cheddar and fried the onions in butter until the kitchen smelled of them.
I cut the rounds with a glass.
I filled them, and pinched them shut with my thumbs, and dropped them in the boiling water, six at a time.
"You know my baba pinches each one seven times," I said. "She counts. If one bursts she says it's because I'm thinking of a girl."
"Are you?"
"All the time. You're ruining my dumplings."
She laughed, and I put a plate in her hands, with butter and onions and sour cream, and I watched her take the first bite.
Her eyes closed.
"Taras," she said.
"I know."
"That's the best thing I've ever eaten."
"I know," I said. "I've been trying to tell you for three months."
She ate four.
I stood at the stove with my back to her and rolled the next batch, and talked, because I always do.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of The Arena Laughed at My Milk, So Four Hockey Men Kept Me are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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