“She’ll go through hay like crazy. Hay and pellets are her main diet, but romaine’s what she gets excited about.”
“Fine,” he says and goes back to petting Clover.
He doesn’t argue. Doesn’t tell me I’m wrong or that he knows better. Just accepts it and adjusts. David never did that. If I corrected him about anything, he’d find a way to make me feel stupid for it. Turn it around until I was apologizing for speaking up.
Alexei just … listens.
My stomach growls loudly. “Do you want to go out and get something to eat with me?”
It comes out quiet and nervous while I chew on my thumbnail and wait for his answer.
I see it immediately when his whole body goes stiff. He stops petting Clover and looks at me with that guarded expression.
“Kelly, I already told you. We need to be careful.”
I exhale loudly because my stomach hurts, and my head’s starting to throb. I get bitchy when I’m hungry and him saying that just makes it worse. I know this thing with him is complicated, but it’s just breakfast.
“You’re angry,” he says, tilting his head.
“No. I just need food.”
“But you’re injured. You can’t really go out like that.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Okay, I know we’re still getting to know each other, but if I say I’m hungry, it’s about a thirty-minute warning before it starts becoming everyone else’s problem. I’ll pop some painkillers. I told you it looks worse than it is.”
Please just let me have this…
Let me pretend I’m okay and that David didn’t break something inside me. I’ve shoved it down as far as it’ll go, and I just need it to stay there.
He sighs and stands. “Fuck it. Get dressed. We’ll go out and get something nearby, but we need to be careful,zaychik.”
He listened. I told him what I needed, and he just … did it. No guilt-tripping me about ruining his plans. No making me feel like my needs are inconvenient.
It’s such a small thing. It shouldn’t mean this much.
But it does.
He gently scoops Clover back into her space and walks over to grab his jeans from the floor.
A weird, full-body excitement hits me. I jump off the bed and walk past him, grabbing clean boxers on the way to the bathroom. I brush my teeth and try to fix my hair. It’s a complete mess, but whatever, it’ll have to do.
I pull on a pair of faded gray jeans despite my body still aching and a brown sweatshirt, then start looking for my coat before glancing over at him.
He’s wearing dark jeans and the white thermal shirt again that makes my mouth water.
I glance down at myself, and just like that, the insecurity hits me hard. He’s so out of my league. I don’t understand what he sees in me.
He walks over to me and cups my face, fingers light on the bruised side. Kisses me hard, urgent, tongue pushing into mymouth before he catches himself. Then pulls me into a tight hug, but his hands are careful on my ribs.
He breathes in my scent, and I almost laugh because, regardless of whatever he sees in me, he clearly likes how I smell at least.
His lips find the bruise on my cheekbone. Soft. Careful. So different from the kiss a second ago.
“Come on, let’s go.”
He picks up my black coat from the floor, the one I’d forgotten I was even looking for before I spiraled into self-doubt, and hands it to me. Then he grabs a black leather jacket and shrugs it on.
We head out of the apartment. The cold air hits as soon as we step outside. We walk side by side toward a little café near my building. He opens the door while glancing at me. I step past him, feeling slightly out of place and exposed.
