Page 20 of Cruel Demands

The bar is louder than usual tonight, packed shoulder to shoulder with people hiding from the cold and pretending burning liquor is the same thing as warmth. Music pulses from speakers somewhere behind the bar, not quite loud enough to drown conversation but loud enough to make every voice lean closer. Smoke clings to the coats gathered near the door. The air smells like vodka, perfume, fried potatoes, and wet wool.

It feels as though all of Moscow is celebrating with me.

I got the internship. I’m going to work in a government office, doing intern things. Filing. Copying. Preparing packets. Carrying folders from one important person to another while all of them forget my name. I do not care.

I will be using Russian somewhere outside a classroom. I will see how the government functions from inside one of its own buildings, even if my contribution is keeping the copier stocked with paper.

I will have something concrete to show for this year. My mother cried when I told her. She tried to hide it. Of course she did. She did the mom thing where her voice became too bright and she said, Oh, baby, that’s wonderful. We’re so proud of you.

Then she went quiet long enough for me to hear something else underneath. Not relief that I would be sending money home. The internship probably will not pay enough for that anyway. Relief that this trip is becoming what we all promised ourselves it would be. An education. An opportunity. A beginning. Not an expensive vacation taken while my father’s restaurant dies by inches back home.

So yes. Hope is making me reckless.

Petyr slides another shot toward me. “To you,” he says, his eyes fixed on mine.

“To Taylor,” Anya calls, holding up her glass and slamming her other hand against the table.

“To me,” I murmur, staring down into the still liquor.

“You want cranberry juice, schoolgirl?” Petyr asks quietly. When I look up, he’s still watching me, his eyes gentle.

I shake my head and throw back the shot. The vodka hits harder this time. My chest burns. My eyes water. I set the glass down with more force than necessary and fight the expression trying to climb across my face.

Petyr points at me with a half smile. “You still hate it.”

“I respect it.”

“You fear it.”

I shake my head. “That’s where you’re wrong. I traveled all the way to Russia from Wyoming and got a government internship by myself. I’m not afraid of anything.”

Petyr snorts.

I point at him. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“No. Say it.”

He leans back, raising both hands. “You need fear. The only people announcing they are afraid of nothing are either lying or stupid.”

“Stupid?” I kick him lightly beneath the table. “Fine. I’m not not afraid of anything. I’m on a ledge. Taking a leap of faith.”

“You are jumping from a ledge?” Anya asks shrilly.

“Maybe it doesn’t translate.” I snicker. “Whatever. I have a government internship. I’m becoming respectable.”

“In that dress?”

I look down. The dress is not not respectable. Okay, so it is not especially respectable either. It is black and short enough that sitting requires strategy, but I am wearing a long-sleeved shirt underneath it. And tights. That counts for something. “What’s wrong with my dress?”

“You are taking ‘freeze your butt off’ to another level.”

“Great. So I’ll be assless, jumping from a cliff, and hungover at my first day of work. This metaphor is going beautifully.”

Petyr laughs, but his gaze drops to my legs beneath the table. It is not a long or particularly crude look, but it bothers me. It’s Petyr. My friend. Or at least, he is supposed to be. Maybe I’m tired of being looked at like a possibility when I’m barely keeping my own life from spilling out of my hands.

I shift my knees together and reach for the small bowl of pickles in the middle of the table.