“Stay close,” I reply honestly. “Eat when I tell you to. Avoid my brother at all costs.”
Her eyes soften. “You’re upset that I stood up to him.”
I force down the rising panic from thinking about the chain reaction of events she may have unintentionally set off by trying to protect me. “No, I’m not upset. I’m impressed. Maybe even a little jealous.”
“And worried,” she adds, seeing it no matter how deep I try to hide it from her.
“Also worried,” I say. “Gavriil doesn’t easily concede.” He was raised to win, even at the cost of me. “He won’t forgive or forget anything either.”
She nods once, like she’s committing that detail to memory. “What about you?”
“Forgiveness is not a part of this life,” I say. “But gratitude is.”
The line of her mouth goes soft. “Gratitude?”
“For the coffee. For the way you said no to a man no one refuses for me,” I say. “For closing the bullet wound that day with your hands. For changing a bloody bandage without making it feel like pity. I don’t think anyone has touched me without an agenda in years.”
Alina looks at me like she doesn’t know what to do with my honesty. Then she puts her palm over my sternum again, just for a heartbeat, and says, “Thank you for keeping me safe.”
Her touch steadies something in me that I didn’t know was shaking.
I catch her wrist again before she can pull away. Not hard, just enough to keep her there.
“I’ll never let him take you,” I assure her.
“I know you would never hand me over to him,” she replies.
Our words almost sound the same, but we’re saying two completely different things.
We don’t move for a long second that stretches. Alina’s eyes are on me, her breath held. She’s too close to this and exactly where I want her. I should put distance back between us.
“Sit,” I tell her, and my voice is softer than it should be. “Eat something else.”
“I’m not hungry,” she says.
“Eat anyway,” I say.
“I could bring you something?” she offers.
“No, I’ll join you.”
I follow her to the kitchen, watching as she makes toast. Seeing her do ordinary things in my kitchen is an intimacy I didn’t expect to like so much.
I keep my eyes on the door and her, reminding myself we’re short on men, and my brother could use the moment to cause problems.
The city changes color outside the windows while Alina flutters around grabbing this and that. I could happily watch her do nothing all day. She’s calm and peace personified, and I’ve never had much of either in my life.
She slides a plate onto the table in front of me, toast, butter, an apple, and takes the chair to my left. Her knee finds the side of my chair. She doesn’t move it away. Neither do I.
“You’re worried,” she says, not as a taunt, just stating a fact.
“I don’t like waiting for updates. Waiting means I can imagine every way this could all go wrong.”
“You think they might miss something?” she asks.
“No, I trained them to act like me and miss nothing,” I say.
She looks down at my chest. Glances away. “I don’t… I don’t know how to do this waiting,” she says, and the honesty of it lands heavy. “Not being able to help.”
