The shower runs hot enough to fog the mirror, and I’m sitting on the edge of the bed in nothing but Roman’s black button-down, watching steam curl through the cracked bathroom door while my husband hums something low and Russian that I don’t recognize.
We are alive.
Forty-three hours since Roman pressed his forehead to mine and told me he wasn’t letting go.
He hasn’t.
“Anya.” His voice carries over the water. “Stop staring at the door and come here.”
“I’m not staring.”
“You’ve been staring for six minutes. I can feel it.”
I smile even though he can’t see it, and the expression pulls at muscles I forgot I had. My face hurts. My throat hurts. Every inch of me aches like I’ve been thrown off a building.
“Your bandage needs changing,” I call back. “You shouldn’t even be showering. The wound is going to get infected if you keep—”
“Then come change it.”
“Roman.”
“Anya.” He draws out my name, three syllables of low heat that curl through the steam and settle somewhere behind my ribs. “Get in here before I come get you, and I promise you won’t like the mess I make dragging you across this floor.”
“You can barely lift your arm.”
“I can lift you just fine. Want to test it?”
I don’t answer, but I’m already standing, already crossing the worn carpet toward the bathroom door, already feeling my pulse pick up speed because apparently, almost dying just makes me want him more.
The steam hits my face when I push the door open. Roman stands under the spray with water streaming down his chest, his head tipped back, his eyes closed. The gauze I taped over his ribs this morning is soaked through and peeling at the edges, and the skin around it is angry red in a way that makes my stomach twist.
“You’re going to give yourself sepsis,” I say.
He opens his eyes. Gray and steady and fixed on me with an intensity that hasn’t dimmed since the night he signed our marriage contract.
“Then save me, doctorushka.”
“I’m a toxicologist, not a surgeon.”
“Close enough.” He reaches out, water dripping from his fingers, and hooks two of them into the open collar of my shirt. His shirt. The one I stole from his bag because it smells likethe warmth of his skin, and I needed something to wrap around myself while he slept. “Take this off and get in here. I’ll let you play doctor all you want.”
“Your wound—”
“Can wait five minutes.” He tugs, gentle but insistent, and I step closer because I can’t seem to stop stepping closer, can’t seem to remember why I ever wanted distance from this man. “I almost lost you twice in two days. Let me feel you breathing.”
My fingers find the buttons. I work them open slowly, watching his eyes track the movement.
“Mishka called while you were sleeping,” I say, because I need words or I’m going to dissolve into the steam. “He wants to know when we’re coming. He’s been practicing his Russian so he can talk to you without me translating.”
Something shifts in Roman’s expression. Softer. Almost vulnerable in a way I’ve only seen twice before—once when he played his mother’s violin at three in the morning, and once when he held me in the water and told me to kick.
“What did you tell him?”
“That we’d be there soon. That you’re—” I hesitate, the shirt sliding off my shoulders to pool on the wet tile. “That you’re looking forward to meeting him.”
“I am.”
“He’s nervous. He thinks you’re going to be scary.”
