Page 8

Vera is behind the case with a tray in both hands. Her hair is coming out of its knot, and there’s a smudge of something dark, chocolate or cocoa, along her jaw that makes me want to wipe it off with my thumb while she peers into my eyes. She’s wearing a rose-colored blouse with the sleeves rolled, and a green apron, tied tight, with a pocket that someone has mended by hand.

I’ve thought about her mouth for five days. It’s worse in the light.

She doesn’t move, but I see the rise and fall of her chest as I step closer.

I put the towels on the counter. “I said I would pay for them.” Then, before she can tell me there was no need: “And I’d like a coffee, if the machine is still on. I’d like to drink it here.”

She doesn’t look at the towels. Her eyes travel from my face to my right hand, then to the way I’m holding my left side, then to the sweat beading at my hairline from twelve steps of sidewalk, and then back to my face. Men who meant to kill me have paid me less attention.

She sets the tray down on the case. For a second, her mouth does something unsteady, the beginning of a smile she wasn’t expecting, and my heart responds with a beat I’ve yet to learn.

“Sit down. I’ll bring the coffee.”

3

VERA

The bell stops ringing behind Rosa. I turn the sign to CLOSED ten minutes early and lock the front door before I can think too hard about locking myself in with him.

He sits the way people sit for the first week after having stitches. One hand on the table for support, his weight lowered by inches, then a pause at the end while whatever he’s holding in his side decides to let go. He doesn’t make a sound. He leaves his coat on, because taking it off would mean lifting his left arm, and he watches me the whole time, as though I’m the one who might need help.

I study his face, the scar cutting through his eyebrow, the moody gray eyes, the strong jawline, and I find my lips parting ready to be kissed. Maybe something else happened back there in the staff room that I’m unaware of, like he hypnotized me while I was counting his pulse, or, I don’t know, he put a spell on me or something.

Before I can slide any further down this slippery rabbit hole, I turn off the front lights and leave the ones over the counter on. The windows go from a display to a wall of fog with the street somewhere behind it. It feels like a cocoon, and I wonder if he planned it this way.

“How do you take your coffee?”

“However you make it.”

I make it the way I make it for Rosa at six in the morning, strong, with one sugar stirred in so it’s there without announcing itself.

I made the honey cake again last night. It sold out by eleven this morning. All except the end slice, which I cut off and hid at the back of the fridge, because the end is the best part, and I’ve never claimed to be a saint. I take the end slice and place it on a small white plate.

I set the cup and the plate in front of him and sit down across the table, and this is always going to be his table now.

He looks at the cake. Eleven layers, gone soft into each other overnight, the edges dark with buckwheat honey. “Is this the one?” he asks, and something in the way he says it cracks me open just a little.

“This is the one.”

He takes a bite. His eyes close. He doesn’t say anything at all, and it’s the best review Galina’s recipe has ever had.

“What did your doctor say?”

He sets the fork down, takes his wallet from his coat, slowly, with his right hand, and unfolds a sheet of paper on the table between us. The handwriting is pressed hard into the page with a steady hand. NO LIFTING. NO TWISTING. NO DRIVING, underlined twice. Stitches out in ten to fourteen days. Then a short list of reasons to call Yevgeny immediately and a phone number.

I read it and turn it back around to face him.

“How did you get here?”

He smiles. “Cab. Doctor’s orders.” Nikolai folds the list on its old creases and puts it away.

“Who did this to you?” I ask, knowing that I shouldn’t. Knowing that the answer doesn’t change anything because I’m still here sitting across from him in Rosa’s Bakery wanting to understand how it would feel if he touched me.

“I asked the wrong man a question.”

I wait. He swallows a mouthful of coffee. That’s all I’m going to get. For now.

“You read the inside of my notebook,” I say.