I find another movie and turn it on, propping my feet on the coffee table. Her legs tangle over the top of mine, and her breath evens.
When I’m sure she’s asleep, I stroke her face and kiss the top of her head. And then I don’t move a muscle, even when I remember the laundry in the washer. Not when I decide I have to pee and should really check on Nikolai.
I don’t move because Natasha needed this cuddle, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to wake her up and take it away.
Natasha
I jerk awake with a gasp.
No, that wasn’t my gasp. I lift my head in the dim light to peer at Dima. We’re still on the sofa, our bodies intertwined. I must’ve fallen asleep during the last movie, which is obviously over now because the television is off.
“Izvinyayus’,” Dima mutters an apology, and I realize it was a sharp movement from him that woke me.
“Did you have a bad dream?”
“Da.” He hasn’t switched to English yet. I understand Russian perfectly. I can speak it perfectly, too, once I’m in the mode, but I prefer English. After Pamela’s in-school rejection, I made a choice. Dima was right, I Americanized myself completely.
I press my hand over his heart, not surprised when I find it racing. “What was it?”
“You and Nikolai and A-” He breaks off, shaking his head. “Just… people I care about dying. Because of me.”
“What happened to Nikolai wasn’t your fault,” I tell him, pulling away to sit up straighter.
His gaze drops to my left breast, which has come out from the blanket. A muscle jumps in his jaw, and he scoots away from me.
“No, it was Alex’s fault, and I will make him pay.”
He’s back to being grumpy-Dima, and it all becomes perfectly clear now. His anger toward me was a redirection of his own guilt. He’s suffering over this-he told me that outside in that puddle.
It’s not the first time he’s nearly died because of me.
“What if it all just… was? What if it’s nobody’s fault-just a series of events?”
Dima scoffs.
“I mean, we assign meaning to things. Death is bad. Birth is good. But is that really true? If no one ever died, the planet wouldn’t survive. Leaving Russia was bad, trying to integrate into school was bad, but was it really? I don’t regret who I am today. What if there was no right or wrong. No good or bad. No one to blame.”
Dima scrubs his hand over his face.
“I’m sorry Nikolai’s suffering, but… I’m not sorry I had this time here with you-even the bad parts.” I shrug. “It is what it is.”
Dima meets my gaze and holds it. “You’re wise for your age.”
“I just want you to be free,” I whisper hoarsely, and we both know I’m talking about more than his guilt over Nikolai.
Before he can shut me down, I stand, pulling the blanket up to my armpits. The towel I was originally wearing tangles around my legs and falls. “Spokoynoy nochi.” I say good night as I walk away.
“Spokoynoy nochi.” His answer is soft and full of regret.
Dima
“I just checked on Nikolai, and he’s fine. Bingeing Netflix. Want to go for a walk?” Natasha leans a hip against the office door frame, looking like sunshine itself. Yesterday Ravil sent Adrian here with clothes and necessities for both of us and more groceries, so at least she’s not driving me insane in that tiny t-shirt and my boxers.
Not that the halter top and short-shorts are any better.
I had Adrian bring her expensive gourmet chocolate bars, too, which made her look at me in a way that seared my insides.
It’s been two days of us being friends, which is the best and worst thing ever.
For one thing, it’s way too easy. Too comfortable. Almost like we shot past the tearing our clothes off around each other straight into the sweetest long-term marriage minus the sex.
She’s sweet as pie, doing things like making pancakes and coffee. She makes jokes and dazzles me with her quick, easy smile. She stands behind me at the computer and massages my neck with those magic fingers of hers. I had to refuse her offer for a full massage, knowing we’d be right back in the clothes-tearing territory.
I’m not even sure how I keep from going there now, except by holding onto the pain and defeat I’d felt after I let myself have her out in the mud. I keep that bite of sadness with me everywhere. Like a talisman I rub every time my gaze starts to wander over her luscious body.
Say no. Say no.
I want to do the right thing. I could tell her to go on her own. I stopped acting like her warden after our roll in the mud.
But resisting her doesn’t feel like the right thing anymore, either.
So I push back from the office chair and stand. I might as well take a break. I’m still no closer to figuring out what the FBI is after, nor what secret Alex holds, although I feel certain there’s more to him than I know. Is it about Natasha? Or the bratva? That’s the part I can’t figure out.
I shove my feet into my shoes.
“I’m so happy to have my sneakers here,” Natasha says as she pulls on her red Chucks.
“I’ll bet.” I touch her back as I reach past her to open the back door. “Heels really aren’t you, are they?”
Her laugh is chagrined, and she ducks her head. “No.”
I stop myself from asking if she’d worn them for me, as well.
Outside, the light has taken on the first color changes of sunset-an orange swath cutting across the top layer of the trees. We follow the path from the cabin that leads to the road.
It feels so natural to take her hand-so natural that I yank my fingers away the moment they brush hers, shocked at the instinct.
Friends.
Friends.