Huh.
I take another bite.
“Good?” he asks without turning around.
“Yeah. Actually.”
“Good.”
I watch him cook. Watch the way his shoulders flex when he moves. The focused look on his face. Like making eggs is a mission he’s executing with precision.
“You’re different in the mornings,” I say.
“How so?”
“Quieter. Focused. Less… murder-y.”
He huffs. Almost a laugh. “Murder-y.”
“It’s a technical term.”
“Is it?”
“Very scientific.”
He plates his own omelet—this one loaded with peppers and cheese because of course his stomach isn’t staging a rebellion—and sits beside me.
We eat in silence for a minute. Comfortable. Easy.
Then I say, “What else?”
“What else what?”
“What else do you do that I don’t know about?”
He considers this. Chews. Swallows. “I read.”
“Everyone reads.”
“Poetry.”
I almost drop my fork. “You readpoetry?”
“Sometimes.”
“What kind?”
“Russian. Pushkin. Akhmatova.”
I stare at him. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not.”
“Anton Malikov, mafia enforcer, reads romantic Russian poetry.”
“It’s not all romantic.”
“But some of it is.”
