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I feel my appetite take a hit as I start overthinking.
Then Kolya sighs. “What are you worried about now?”
I swallow the bite of food in my mouth. “You gotta admit, this is kinda unusual.”
“Eating?” he asks with disdain. “Eating is unusual?”
“In this context, yeah. We’re in a meadow straight out ofThe Sound of Music, with a light summer breeze and the smell of lilacs in the air. I half-expect the birds to start doing showtunes.”
Kolya rolls his eyes. “We just hiked for an hour, June,” he says. “You’re pregnant. I brought food. That’s all there is to it.”
I repeat the words to myself in the same clipped, no-nonsense tone he used.I’m pregnant. He brought food. That’s all there is to it.
“Thanks anyway,” I mumble softly.
He nods dismissively and finishes his sandwich in two more wolfish bites. Then he pulls out a can of soda and starts downing the contents. With his head knocked back and his eyes turned away from me, I take the opportunity to observe him.
His Adam’s apple bobs up and down, and I feel a strange sensation of heat spread through my arms and legs. The moment the soda can leaves his lips, I turn away quickly before he can catch me gawking.
He might not notice. But I do.
Shut up,I snarl to Adrian.No one asked you.
“Do you ever hear him?” I ask aloud on a whim.
“Excuse me?” Kolya asks, his eyes hauntingly blue.
“Or maybe not hear him, but like… think about him. Adrian, I mean. About what he’d say about… stuff.”
“Not unless I have to.”
I feel my eyebrows pull together. “When do you have to?”
“When you ask me questions about him, mostly.”
He doesn’t look particularly annoyed, but there’s this vein at the side of his forehead that I’m beginning to notice more and more these days. It thrums like it has a life of its own. “Does it bother you that I talk about him?”
He grunts something that sounds like “no,” but I can’t be sure. Then he lies back against the grass and his expression is completely lost to me. I want to edge closer, but I can feel a prickly, don’t-touch-me energy radiating from him. So I sit there, trying to catch a glimpse of his face, pretending like I’m not doing exactly that.
29
KOLYA
I’ve honed my skills over the years. I always think ten steps ahead. The result: I never make mistakes twice.
The trick to never repeating a mistake, however, is admitting you made one in the first place. And I’ve always been good at that.
Like right now, for instance.
This picnic was a bad fucking idea.
I realize that the second she pulls off her thin sweater to reveal the tight tank she’s wearing underneath. There’s enough perspiration on her body to turn it clingy and slightly see-through.
She gathers up her hair and ties it up into a high, messy bun on top of her head. All that serves to do is bring my attention to her long, slender neck.
It’s the first time I notice the scar. It’s tiny and sickle-shaped, tucked just beneath her jaw. A curl of dark hair falls from the bun and temporarily hides it from view.
“Where’d you get the scar?” I ask. Before I can stop myself, I sit up, lean in, and run my thumb across the mottled surface of it.
