Page 114 of Dark King Daddy

“I’m not moving.”

“You’re breathing. The panel is shifting.”

“Breathing I can’t control.”

“Breathe less.”

I submitted each plant for inspection. She held them up to the laptop screen, squinting, comparing them to the reference images with the same critical eye she used for floorboard specifications. Most were rejected. A few were accepted with revisions. One—a small cactus I had folded with surprising success—was placed in the center of the greenhouse with a nod of genuine respect.

“The cactus is good,” she said.

“High praise.”

“Don’t let it go to your head. We all remember the cabbage.”

The film reached the scene where Kiki loses her ability to fly. Ksenia’s hands slowed. She set down the tweezers. She watched the screen, her face still, her fingers resting on the last unfinished flower.

She grew tired the way a candle burns down—gradually, then all at once. Her movements lost their precision. Her head tilted. She looked at me.

“Can I lean against you?”

“Yes.”

She shifted on the blanket. Her shoulder found my side. Her head came to rest against my arm. Misha was pressed between us, the rabbit’s threadbare ear against my sleeve. I adjusted my position so she could settle more comfortably, and she did—her weight against me, her breathing slow, her hands still in her lap.

I held her through the rest of the film. The greenhouse sat half-finished on the table—four walls up, roof panels glued, a cabbage by the door and a cactus in the center and a row of ferns she had folded with impossible patience. The laptop screen glowed. Kiki flew again. The music rose.

Ksenia watched. I watched her. The fire I had lit earlier burned low in the hearth, the coals orange and quiet.

The credits rolled. The music played out. The screen went dark.

She did not move for a moment. Then she straightened. She looked at me. Her hazel-green eyes were clear. The softness was still there, but behind it the adult architecture was rebuilding — not all at once, not with the brick-by-brick urgency of the morning, but slowly. Deliberately. A woman choosing to come back.

“I’m ready to leave Little space,” she said.

“Okay.”

We put the fragile pieces aside—the unfinished flowers into the bag, the greenhouse carefully centered on the table, the tweezers and glue beside it. I brought water from the kitchen. She drank half the glass. I drank the rest.

We talked. Quietly. About the film. About the greenhouse. About the cabbage and the cactus and the ferns. About nothing and everything.

Then she took my hand.

“I’d like that kiss now.”

Her voice was adult. Clear. The woman who had knelt in the library and signed an agreement and said I consent. The woman who had kissed me at the breakfast table and pressed her knee against mine in a café and asked me to stay.

I looked at her hand in mine. Her fingers were steady. The ring caught the last of the firelight.

“Come here, Ksyusha.”

I kissed her.

Slowly. I cupped her cheek and tilted her face toward mine. I kissed her with the patience I had not been able to give her that morning, when the car horn had cut through the contact and left the rest of the day unresolved.

She kissed me back. Her free hand found my collar. Her fingers curled into the fabric and held. I felt the pull—light, steady, drawing me toward her.

I paused. Drew back an inch. Her mouth followed mine, chasing the contact, and she kissed me again. Harder. Her grip on my collar tightened. The impatience was unmistakable—in her hands, in her mouth, in the way her body turned toward mine on the sofa until her knee pressed across my thigh.