Page 40 of The Breath Before Forever

Jesus.

Fuck his moods.

The pain.

All of it.

She stayed still until he was next to her in the doorway. Tipping her chin up so that there was no mistaking the way she looked him in the eye, Vera asked, “What difference does it make—a trip made to Dubna once a week for Igor, or Kiril? Which looks like you’re sticking your hand in the pot that isn’t yours anymore, Vas?”

There she went again.

Making sense.

He’d deal with that, and what he wanted to do about it, tomorrow. That was the best he could do considering his current circumstances.

“I need to lay down,” Vaslav mumbled.

Noticing the unsteadiness he suddenly found standing on two feet, Vera was quick to tangle her arms inside his. Before long, his back found the safe comfort of their bed, and by the time he rolled over onto his side, already lost in the pressure building inside his head, fireworks of pain lighting up behind his clenched eyelids, Vera was on her side of the bed.

Cloaked in darkness, because he couldn’t bear to open his eyes again, Vaslav settled into the gentle strokes of Vera’s tired hands. Her lips pressed to his forehead with a kiss, and a soft breath that somehow felt cooler in temperature than the rest of his body.

“I’m here,” she assured him.

Even if he hadn’t asked or said a thing. That was the most beautiful part about her. He wouldn’t keep doing this—living like this—if he didn’t have her.

11.

“Pup,” Vaslav greeted from the top of the stairs.

At the very bottom where Kiril waited, rocking on two feet standing ahead of the passenger side of his sleek, black coupe—compliments of Vaslav’s bank account the previous year—the boy grinned back. He didn’t seem at all bothered by the deep scowl set into Vaslav’s face at the very sight of him, nor was he concerned with the way he continued to scan behind Kiril, further down the hill and driveway.

For what?

Anything.

Rocking back on his heels, and stuffing his hands deep into the pockets of his parka with the fur-trimmed hood, Kiril replied, “Hey, boss.”

Goddammit, kid.

“I’m not the boss,” Vaslav told him.

And if he had to correct Kiril too many times on that topic, one of them wouldn’t be happy. The other one would only hurt.

Kiril shrugged like it didn’t make a difference to him either way, and that stupid, silly grin on his face didn’t leave, either. “So, you had a chat with Igor this morning, then?”

Obviously.

The kid wouldn’t be there otherwise. The final words of his conversation with Vera the night before had certainly left an impact on his mind when morning came, and he couldn’t stop thinking about it. Igor hadn’t appreciated the early morning call to chat.

It was what it was.

“How’s the legal shit?” Vaslav asked instead of discussing his conversation with Igor. “A proper fuckin’ mess, the last I heard, yeah?”

“Better,” Kiril deadpanned.

“How so?”

“I don’t sleep in the same bed twice, and the cops don’t pick me up on the streets everyday for a game of Twenty Questions because they can’t keep track of me, and I just think the fuckers like messing with me ‘cause they’ve been on a first name basis with me since I was eleven. But who’s to say, you know? Otherwise, it’s fine,” Kiril explained with a delivery that said he couldn’t care less about the topic, and that was something Vaslav could not relate to in the slightest. “At least, Igor’s not all in my business when I’m sleeping with somebody new every night. Half the time, he doesn’t know where I am, either. It’s working.”