Page 169 of Mile High Ruin

Her eyes move across the table, then toward the cake, then to the flowers and the small pile of wrapped gifts beside them, and the expression that crosses her face is so nakedly surprised that I feel something tighten inside my chest.

“You remembered,” she says.

Vadim stands beside me with one hand in his pocket. “I was informed.”

Mila looks at him. Then at me. Her mouth curves very slightly. “You told him.”

“I may have mentioned it.”

“You instructed him,” Marek says from behind us.

Vadim turns.

Marek immediately reaches for a glass of wine and develops an intense interest in it.

Anya runs to Mila and wraps both arms around her waist. “I helped with the cake.”

Nadia closes her eyes. “You put three strawberries on it.”

“I helped.”

“You also ate four.”

“I was checking them.”

Mila laughs. It’s quiet and brief, but everyone in the room seems to notice, even Vadim himself. His face softens in that almost imperceptible way I’ve learned to recognize, and when Mila moves toward him after Anya finally releases her, he kisses the top of her head and tells her happy birthday without making the moment bigger than she can tolerate.

The evening becomes surprisingly easy after that.

Anton appears to have been ordered into civilian clothing and looks personally offended by the concept. Marek tells a story about Vadim at twenty-two that Vadim interrupts twice to correct and once to threaten him over. Iosef brings Mila a mathematics puzzle disguised inside an elaborate wooden box, which makes Anton accuse him of giving homework as a birthday gift until Mila opens it and smiles more genuinely than she has all night.

I sit between Anya and Vadim. Anya steals icing from my plate, and Vadim catches her.

“She gave it to me,” Anya says.

“I watched you take it.”

“You weren’t looking.”

“I’m always looking.”

“That sounds creepy,” I tell him.

Anya nods solemnly. “Very creepy.”

Vadim looks between us. “This alliance concerns me.”

“You created it,” I say.

His hand settles briefly on my thigh beneath the table.

It’s not sexual. Not exactly. Just a quiet touch, his thumb moving once against my knee as though he needs to remind himself that I’m there.

That makes what I’m hiding feel worse.

I look across the table and see Mila opening another gift while Nadia adjusts the candle that keeps leaning sideways, and for a few precious minutes the Petrov photograph retreats far enough that I can pretend the evening is exactly what it looks like.

A family celebrating a birthday.