She gasps and rolls facing me. “You’re kidding.”
“We’re hockey players.” I remind her. “We thrive in cold.”
“At fifteen you’ll freeze.” She gasps again. “You’ll kill Paul.”
“Gospodi, Tsarina,” I sigh. “He has a heater in his room and freezing is,” I stop and smile when I realize, “Celsius.”
I watch her mentally calculate, curious if she can, most Americans can not. “Sixty is too cold for him.”
“Thus, the heater,” I say.
She rolls to her side, “I can’t fall asleep.”
“I would suggest closing your eyes, perhaps counting sheep.”
“I mean, I can’t, I have to get back before… someone worries?” Her voice breaks, and with it mine.
“You live with your father and not your sisters, no?” She turns and looks at me, eyes narrowed. I shake my head. “You are what you smell like.”
“Excuse me?”
I sigh, “I saw your face glowing as I drove you to that tower of yours."
"Yet you didn’t try to stop me." She accuses?
"Why stop you?" She shrugs. "I returned the favor after Rockefeller Center, internet stalking your entourage because," I pause.
"Because why?"
“I cannot say.”
She huffs, "You wanted to bang one of them."
"Neyt." I snap. "The redhead is known by a friend. It concerns me that she would use the situation to honey-pot him."
“Honey pot him?" She laughs.
I wave it away. "Does not matter, she checked out as you said. My point. At first, it’s light. Almost deceptive. Like sunlight cutting through winter. Something bright and clean that wakes you up whether you want it to or not. There’s fruit in it, but notsweet in a stupid way. White peach, maybe. Plum. Fresh, ripe, controlled. It makes you inhale deeper without thinking. Then it warms,” I go on. “Settles. The florals come through. Smooth ones. Not loud. Jasmine, something tropical but controlled.” I glance at her, just once, then away again. “And under all of it there’s this clean skin note. Not perfume, really. More like… it stays close. Doesn’t travel far. It doesn’t seek attention. I wanted to know what you wear, so I stalked your page to see if you post it, like influencers, with each meal or spot you visit. They post, get ready with me forfuck sake." She smirks and nestles into my pillow, one that will now smell like her. "You post nothing like that." She tries not to look amused, but those emerald, green eyes are brightening again. This is good, so I keep going. "You post nothing but you and those close, you hide Savannah’s face and blur people enough so they can’t be touched. An annual family photo. You never post at the time; typically, it’s a week later. And I went back to your college years, your sorority days. You have never given more.”
“Wow, so you dug deep?" She asks, hiding a smirk.
I roll my eyes, "No answers on socials.” She looks pleased with herself. “So circling back to the goal, I want to know what you wear so I can desensitize myself and maybe, just maybe, our circles that seem to intertwine will not be disrupted."
“You won’t find it,” she says.
“You underestimate me when I am on a mission.”
She holds up two fingers, “I wear a mix of two. A tiny bit of my mother’s favorite perfume and a spritz of mine.”
“Which are?”
“Clive Christian, number one was Moms.”
“And yours?”
“Julliette’s Got a Gun, the not perfume line.”
I don’t know why that makes me smile, but it does. “So, it’s timeless beauty meets bad ass, it’s your armor.” She looks amused. “You’re clearly feeling better.”
