Page 37

I look at this huge, quiet man and his carefully bandaged hand and his apartment with nothing personal in it except one photograph of a beach. I think about what Papa wrote under his name in that leather book.

Reliable.

As if that was the whole of him.

“It's late,” he says finally. He gently takes his hand back. “The guest room's made up. Third door on the left. You should sleep.”

He walks me down the hall. Opens the door. It's a nice room. Gray, of course. A big bed with crisp white sheets and a lamp already on, like he got it ready before he ever left for dinner tonight. Maybe he did.

“If you need anything...”

“I know where you are.”

He nods. Steps back.

“Goodnight, Arina.”

He turns and walks to the door at the end of the hall. I watch him go. Watch him pause with his hand on the frame, his head bowed slightly.

Then he goes in, and the door stays open behind him.

I sit on the edge of the guest bed.

I last about four minutes.

I'm not scared. I keep waiting to be. I keep waiting for it to hit me, what I did, what I am, what Papa made me. And it keeps not coming.

What comes instead is the memory of his hand on my face in the rain. The way I leaned into it before I could stop myself. The kiss on the street outside Tbiliso, when he let me decide and then kissed me back like he was starving.

I'm tired of deciding no.

I get up and walk down the hall in his socks.

He's standing by the window in his bedroom with his back to me. His shirt's unbuttoned, the bandage white against his dark sleeve. The city's lights spread out below him across the black river.

He hears me. I watch his shoulders go tight.

He doesn't turn around.

“Arina.” Very quiet. “You should go back to bed.”

“No,” I say, pushing through the invisible threshold at his door.

“You're running on adrenaline and grief and no sleep. I'm not going to...”

“Look at me, Garick.”

He turns.

His eyes go straight to me standing in his room in his clothes. Down to my feet. Back up to my face. His hands are fisted at his sides, the bandaged one and the bare one, and his jaw is so tight I can see the muscle flicker.

“Tell me this isn't because of tonight,” he says roughly. “Tell me you won't wake up tomorrow and hate me for it.”

I walk up to him.

“I've spent three days telling myself I don't want you,” I say. “I said it to Viktor, and in your kitchen. I said it at the range. I said it at dinner, and in the car, and to all four of my sisters, and I meant it every time.” I stop in front of him. Close enough to feel the heat coming off his skin. “I'm not doing this because I'm scared, or because I'm sad, or because I need someone to hold me.”

“Then why?”