Smiling widely, I watched as Misha darted ahead. “I’m gonna take a bath to warm up.”
“Okay,” I called after him, following him inside. Kalina fell into step behind me.
Being the messy boy he was prone to be when he was in a rush, Misha left a trail of soggy, cold gear from the front door. His boots kicked off haphazardly to land in opposite directions. His coat flung toward a chair but missed it. Gloves dropped as he went, then socks.
I sighed, picking them up as I went to hang them dry. But once I had all his things on hooks and then mine too, I noticed Kalina passing by on her way from the mudroom space.
A chill cut through me now that my outer layers were missing. Without thinking about it, I reached over my head and wrenched my thermal shirt off.
Kalina gasped.
Fuck.
I shouldn’t have done it. I had to be more mindful of even the simplest things.
It wouldn’t do any good for her to see the scars on my body, all the places I’d been cut, burned, or shot in the years of being a Dubinin soldier, then supervisor.
But as I looked at her, catching the instant pink spreading over her face, I realized she hadn’t gasped from the hideous sight of my body, the reminders of violence I’d endured.
That rosiness on her cheeks wasn’t from the cold.
A woman only diverted her gaze like that when she was caught ogling, an appreciative glimpse cut too short.
Even… a forbidden look.
I smiled, shaking my head slightly. A small chuckle escaped me. Maybe it was wrong to be amused that she was aware of me as a man, but I had no intention to put her on the spot like this, no plan to intimidate her in any way.
“Sorry,” I said, making less of the moment by looking away and sidestepping her. The less attention I gave her or that shy look, the better.
Long after that moment, though, the concept of her being aware of me started to eat away at my patience.
That she could eventually see me not as a monster or threat.
But as a friend?
Support?
Something more?
You’re getting way ahead of yourself, moron.
Her modesty wasn’t a trivial concept, nothing to joke about in the least.
That night, though, she started to come out of her shell a little more. I knew it wasn’t her seeing me bare chested, but more because of the fun in the snow. Of being outside and free to do whatever she wanted. It was the easygoing entertainment of playing with Misha out front.
She started to maintain eye contact with me in longer bursts. She replied to Misha with more than one- or two-word answers. While she wasn’t bursting to share details about herself, there was a marginal yet noticeable shift in how closed off she was with both of us.
Over games, we got her to talk more.
Every meal, with more offers of a second helping, she began to make more choices for herself in what she wanted.
At random times, she’d speak a little further, even with me, about what she liked or didn’t like. It was usually about simple things, such as what flavors were best with hot cocoa or what we thought the burning embers of the fire in the fireplace looked like. Every additional bit of communication mattered.
It mattered so much that by the end of the second week out here, she seemed far less like a job. Not an assignment.
But like a missing puzzle piece tous. Me, Misha, and Kalina—at peace and comfortable in this hideaway up in the remote wilderness. Far from the city. Distanced from the hell she’d endured.
Like we could make a cohesive unittogether, just the three of us as she learned how to get over her trauma.
