My mouth is dry.
I look at her. At the clumsy, paint-smeared wings on the page in front of me.
And before I can stop myself, I say—
“Maybe.”
The “maybe” still hangs in the air when footsteps crunch across the gravel path behind us.
Alya doesn’t look up—too focused on giving her butterfly a second butt.
But I do.
Anya rounds the hedge, looking like she’s about to interrupt a funeral. She hesitates halfway and glances over her shoulder. Oleg follows—stoic, towering, and deeply uncomfortable. He’s holding a box.
Correction.
He’s holding a bright pink box.
Alya finally looks up. “Ooooh, presents?”
Anya clears her throat. “Uh… delivery. For Mrs. Belov.”
Oleg lifts the box slightly, then immediately looks like he regrets it. “It was left at the front gate,” he says. “Marked urgent.”
The box is…vile. Neon pink. Wrapped in glossy ribbon. Big red lips on the lid, like someone let a lipstick wear a thong. Across the front, in metallic cursive, it says:
“Slut Stuff.”
There’s even a tiny sticker on the side that reads:“For the wife who’s ready to make Daddy beg.”
Jesus Christ, Elena.
My soul leaves my body. Alya’s eyes go comically wide. Mariya chokes on her tea and starts coughing so hard she has to stand up.
“I ordered it,” I blurt. “It’s—it’s mine. Online. A sale. Random algorithm.”
Anya looks like she wants to disappear into a hydrangea bush.
Oleg’s ears turn pink. He sets the box down on the patio table like it’s radioactive.
“Right. I’ll… leave you to it.”
He vanishes faster than my last shred of dignity.
Mariya lifts a brow at me—thatbrow—but doesn’t say a word. She just claps her hands once and turns to Alya.
“Sweetheart,” she says, tone brisk, “why don’t we bring the paintings inside and pick out frames for them? You can use the little hairdryer to dry yours. You like that, don’t you?”
Alya, bless her sparkly soul, forgets the box entirely. “I want the gold frame. Like Papa’s awards.”
“Of course you do.”
I clear my throat, the sound coming out more like a strangled duck than anything resembling human as Mariya herds Alya toward the sunroom like a battlefield general in orthopedic shoes.
I snatch the box.
Tuck it under my arm like a dirty secret.
