"It’s true," he says, and there’s the faintest shift in his voice—like the boy he used to be is standing closer to the surface than he likes. "Seventeen boys under the age of ten. We ran feeding schedules. Lookout shifts. Like we were running a goddamn intelligence operation."
I’m laughing now, fully, and he watches me like he’s pretending he doesn’t enjoy the sound.
"How did you get caught?" I ask because, of course, this ends badly.
"The litter box," he says flatly. "Three months in. That’s what finally gave us away."
"Oh my God," I wheeze, wiping at my eyes. "You had a litter box in an all-boys dorm? You really are full of surprises, Popovich."
He shrugs like it’s obvious. "He was our responsibility."
My heart stutters at that. Luka Popovich was the kind of boy who would risk punishment for a stray cat and then call it responsibility instead of kindness.
It has me wondering what happened between then and now that made Luka who he is today?
Then the number catches up to me.
Ten.
He was ten years old at a remote all-boys boarding school, running "lookout shifts" like a little soldier because that’s what life demanded of him. No home to go back to at the end of the day. No soft place to land. Just rules and discipline and a system that taught him early that need is weakness.
It connects too many dots at once—why he’s obsessed with control, why he sleeps like he’s ready to bolt, why he looks at kindness like it’s a trap.
He watches me for a beat. "What about you?" he asks. "Have you always been this… mouthy?"
"Only when I’m being terrorized by a six-foot-four hockey player in a ski village," I say, still grinning.
His mouth tilts again—barely.
And the fact that I got that out of him feels like a win I shouldn’t want as badly as I do.
His eyes narrow slightly. "If I recall, I didn’t force you here. You came of your own free will."
"More like I had to chase you down."
He nods as the waiter comes by and drops off our order. "So, where in Arizona are you from?" he asks, like it matters.
"I live in Scottsdale, but I’m from Seattle originally."
His eyebrows lift for a moment as he reaches for the salt, sprinkling it on his fries. "Is your family still there?"
"My mom is. I stayed with her when I came into town. I moved to Scottsdale for college and never left."
"Why that school?" he asks, and I wish he hadn’t but he’s talking and I’m not about to slow him down.
"It's the college my father went to." I say quickly, hoping he doesn’t ask any more questions about it.
I reach for one of my own fries and plop it into my mouth. They're just as delicious as I'd hoped they would be.
"Was it important to him that you attended his alma mater?" he asks, and then takes a bite of his burger.
"I don’t know. He didn’t show up to graduation, and I haven’t talked to him in over twenty years," I answer honestly, dripping my next french fry into the ketchup.
"I don’t know anything about your father," he says. "But it looks like you’re doing just fine without him."
I nod, mostly to myself, but I don’t want to focus on myself right now. Not when he is giving up information.
"What do you miss about Moscow?" I ask before I can stop myself.
