“You look good, Arnold,” she says quietly.
“So do you, sweetheart.” He squeezes her. “Thank you. How’s your grandmother?”
“She’s good. She said she’s working on her chess game so she can beat you the next time you come to Seattle,” Kat tells him.
“Tell her ‘she’s on’,” he smiles. “Now come on, let’s get you all inside before you freeze.”
As we step inside, Moose comes barreling around the corner, nails scrabbling on the hardwood.
“Moose.” I bark. “Gentle.”
He skids to a halt, tail wagging furiously, then sniffs Roman’s tiny snow boots.
Roman shrieks with glee. “Dog.” Or something close to that.
“Yep,” I say. “That’s Moose. Moose, this is your new human. Protect him with your life.”
Moose licks his mitten. Roman squeals louder. Katerina laughs, and the sound wraps around my ribcage like a bandage and a brand all at once.
Yeah. This. This is what we fought for.
Later that night, the house is quiet in the way all family homes are once the kid is finally down.
Roman is asleep in the old crib my parents dug out of storage, clutching a battered stuffed moose Luka sent as a joke. Moose the dog is snoring at the foot of the bed like he’s on night watch.
Mom and Dad went to bed an hour ago. They pretended it was because they were tired. We all know it’s because they want to cuddle without an audience.
Katerina and I are out on the back porch with mugs of hot chocolate, watching the snow fall with our breath puffing like smoke.
She’s wrapped in one of my old hoodies under her coat, legs tucked under her on the porch swing. I’m beside her, one arm stretched along the back of the swing so she can lean into me.
“I could fall asleep out here,” she says softly.
“I’d carry you in,” I say. “Like a gentleman.”
She gives me a sideways look. “You always say that, and we always end up running into a doorframe.”
“That was one time.”
“And the dresser.”
“That dresser had it coming.”
She laughs, the sound drifting up into the cold air.
For a while, we’re quiet. Just… breathing. Listening to the creak of the swing, the distant hoot of an owl, and the muted sounds of the house settling.
“Do you ever think about it?” she asks suddenly. “About… if things had gone differently. If I had gone back to Moscow. If your father had never gotten the spot. If—”
“Yeah,” I say. “I think about it. And then I think about how we’d still be fucking idiots in love, just long-distance and miserable.”
She smiles faintly. “You were never very good at letting me go.”
“Still not,” I admit. “I tried for about… fourteen minutes once, and it almost killed me.”
She rests her hand over my heart. “You forgave me too easily.”
I catch her fingers. “I forgave you exactly as much as you earned. You tried to break your own heart to save my family. That’s not something I’ll ever hold against you.”
