2: two men in a cramped room, talking through the ugly math of survival.
The door has barely closed behind us before I clock that something’s off.
Zeke is in the kitchen, standing over the sink with his back to us. The faucet is running, but he’s not washing anything. Nor is he moving at all. In fact, his shoulders are bunched up around his ears and taut with tension. I get the impression he’s trying to retract his head into his ribcage like a turtle.
“Hey there, Z,” I say. “Everything okay?”
He doesn’t turn around. “Peach-like.”
Eliana frowns. “You mean peachy?”
“Sure. That. Whatever-the-fuck fruit you wanna call it, that’s how things are. Apple-ish. Orange-esque. Banan-ical.”
Eliana’s hand grabs my forearm, her fingers pressing a quick Morse code into my skin.I’ll give you two some space.
“I’m gonna go check on Yas,” she announces. She sets her cane down next to the door and goes down the hallway.
I wait until I hear the door to Yasmin’s room click shut before I approach Zeke. The water is still running. I reach past him and twist the faucet off. “Talk to me,” I say. “What happened?”
“Women. That’s what happened. They’ll be the death of me.”
“Not if Aleksei is the death of you first,” I say.
Normally, that’s the kind of black humor that would at least get Zeke to crack a smile. But he doesn’t budge. Just shakes his head in disgust.
“She’s pissed,” Zeke finally says. He turns around and leans against the counter, arms crossed over his chest. “Like,reallypissed. Nuclear-level pissed.”
“About what?”
“We were talking about everything last night, and I made the mistake of suggesting that maybe she should reconsider this whole ‘stay and fight’ thing.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “I wasn’t saying I was going to abandon her, man. I was just... I don’t know. Thinking out loud. Wondering if there’s a safer way to do this that doesn’t involveallof us potentially ending up in body bags. If she was just safe, then…”
I lean against the opposite counter. “And Yasmin took that as...?”
“A knife in the back, more or less. Proof that I’ll always pick you over her.” He laughs bitterly. “She said I’m ‘loyal like a mutt’ and that I ‘can’t think for myself’ when you’re involved. Which is bullshit. Total bullshit.”
“Is it, though?”
His head snaps up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m just saying that you’ve stuck by me through a lot of shit, Z. More than anyone should have to. I wouldn’t blame you if you said you’d had enough.”
“That’s not what this is about,” Zeke says, but there’s a waver in his voice that tells me he’s been wrestling with exactly that question. “I’m not abandoning anyone. I’m just... Fuck, Bash. I watched you get buried. Or I thought I did. I cried in front of half of Chicago.”
“Nice to know you’re still a cupcake.”
Again, he doesn’t laugh. His jaw clamps down further. “And then you just show back up. It’s a lot, that’s all. I’m just trying to figure out my place in all this. And Yas is currently… less than understanding.”
I push off the counter and move to the fridge, pulling out two beers. I crack one open and slide it across the counter toward him.
“It’s eight in the morning,” he says dubiously as he eyes it.
“That’s never stopped us before.”
With a sigh, he shrugs, picks it up, and clinks the bottom of his bottle against mine. “True that. Bottoms fuckin’ up.”
We both take a sip and settle back against the corner. “She’s scared,” I say. “Yasmin. That’s what the anger is. You know that, right?”
“Of course I know that.” He takes another long pull from the bottle. “Doesn’t make it easier to hear. Especially after what happened.”
