Hadn’t my brother asked me to keep an eye on Alexi? I was only being a good friend.
A friend who wanted to be more, but a friend nonetheless.
I followed him to the bar, where he insisted on buying the next round of sodas and a couple of burgers.
“I’m so addicted to these. I need to figure out where the campus gym is before I can’t fit into my clothes.” He took a large bite of his burger.
“You’re fine,” I chuckled.
“Let’s meet in six months and see if you still agree.”
There was nothing I would ever not like about him. He could be skinny or chunky, tall or short. The sweet, somewhat innocent but life-weary Alexi had gotten to me when we’d first met, and I hadn’t been able to let go since.
“Tell me more about your obsession with arcade games,” he said.
“At first, I just loved playing with Wren. I thought it was the coolest thing to hang out with my big brother. When Wren moved to San Diego to play football, I was so upset I threatened to run away to go live with him.”
“Did you ever try?”
I laughed. “Yeah, but you can’t get far when all you have is a couple hundred bucks and you live in a small town where the bus service is as reliable as a chocolate teapot. Besides, my parents were called as soon as I tried to buy a ticket to San Diego. I genuinely thought I could take just the one bus.”
“Oh my god, that’s adorable.”
I finished my burger. “No, it’s not. It’s brave and adventurous.”
“Sure, sure.”
“Anyway, my parents bought me my first computer so I could play those games at home and on the internet with Wren. Soon, the fixation was about how they worked, the software and programming.”
“You’re graduating this year, right?” I detected a little tension in his voice.
“Yeah.”
“What are you going to do once you graduate?”
“I’m…not entirely sure.”
“When we met, you were passionate about building software that could change people’s lives. I thought by now you’d be a Nobel Prize winner,” he said. “Or at least work for the CIA or some other security organization.”
“I’ve thought about it. Sergei offered to put me in touch with the head of national security in Lydovia. He thinks I could help them.”
Alexi stilled. “You’d…move to Lydovia?”
“Yeah, I guess I would.”
“Just for the work experience, right?”
“Don’t know. If there was a good enough reason for me to stay, I would.”
Alexi looked down at his empty glass, his skin turning a pretty shade of pink.
If he hoped he was a good enough reason for me to move to a different country, he’d be right, but I couldn’t tell him that.
Fuck knew what was holding me back. We were two adults, and we’d known each other for years. My original excuse had been that we were young and he had just been thrust into the limelight.
I hadn’t wanted to take advantage of his vulnerability, even though I’d seen the interest in his eyes that night we’d talked. He’d needed to feel something other than an obligation to be the perfect new son for his parents.
What was my excuse now?
