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He stares at the roll.

Then he laughs so hard that he has to lean against the gatepost. It’s loud and helpless and startled, and it echoes off every clipped hedge in the street. Somewhere up in the dark house, a curtain twitches, and a part of me hopes his mother could see him be happy, even just briefly.

I let him laugh. I stand on the sidewalk in the cold, holding his hand, and I think that I’d throw a thousand bread rolls to hear that sound again.

When he finally stops, he wipes his eyes and looks at me with an expression I’ll remember for the rest of my life.

“Twenty-one days,” he says.

“What?”

“Until the deadline. That’s how long we have.”

I think about it. My sisters. A dress. Viktor and his folder. What his family would look like combined with mine.

“That’s not very long to plan a wedding,” I say.

“No.” He lifts my hand to his mouth again. “Marry me sooner.”

EPILOGUE

THEO

She weighs nothing.

That’s what I tell her when I sweep her off her feet at the bottom of the hotel staircase, and she shrieks and grabs my neck while her sisters cheer from the bar like I’ve just scored a goal.

It isn’t true. She weighs exactly what she should. Every soft, generous, perfect pound of her. The warm weight of her thighs rests across my arm, and the skirt of her dress spills to the floor in a waterfall of ivory silk. Her arms loop around my neck, pressing her breasts together until I have to suppress a groan at the sight.

I’ve carried heavier things up stairs, but nothing I’ve ever wanted to hold this much.

“Put me down,” she says, laughing. “There’s an elevator.”

“I’m not putting you down.”

“Theo. It’s four floors.” Another shriek as I begin the ascent.

“Then I’ll carry you up four floors.”

“Your back...”

“My back,” I say, continuing up the first flight, “is the least of my concerns tonight, Mrs. Nevolina.”

She goes quiet at that.

I glance down. She’s looking up at me with her lips parted and her cheeks flushed pink. Mila’s daisy is still tucked behind her ear, a fresh one, picked this morning from Kira’s garden and presented to the bride with enormous ceremony. It’s wilting now. She hasn’t taken it out once.

“Say it again,” she whispers.

“Mrs. Nevolina.”

She hides her face in my neck. I feel her smile against my skin.

I take the stairs slowly, because I want this to last. The noise of the party fades below us with every landing. Milana’s laugh. Galana and Zhenya discussing the cake. Kira’s voice telling someone to pick Pasha up before he eats a candle. Somewhere under it all, Arina and Garick, together in a corner, the way they’ve been all night.

Then there’s nothing but the quiet carpeted stairwell and my wife’s breath on my throat.

My wife.