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Because she’s as good as dead. And I can’t afford to start admitting how much she means to me, or how much I might actually…
No. I can’t go there. It’s too little too late.
I toss back the first shot and pray it might be the one to knock me out.Cheers.
No such luck. I’m still upright. I can still read, still think, still breathe.
I can still remember the way Clara feels in my arms. The way she smells, the way she tastes. The way her face does that cute little scrunching scowl when she hears a bad joke. Or how she’ll constantly tuck this one particular strand of curls behind her ear no matter how many times it pulls free.
How that same strand feels between my fingers when I tuck it backforher.
I rub a hand over my face and wonder if I can just go the rest of my life blindfolded. Fuck it, maybe I’ll just carve my eyes out myself. I’ve been so blind to the obvious even with my eyes firmly attached to my brain. What difference would it make to go without them?
Some asshole who can’t tell when a guy needs space sits down on the stool next to me. The whole bar area is completely empty, but this fucker chooses to get up close and personal even though I’m clearly three sheets to the wind.
“You look like you could use a drink.”
Oh, he’s got jokes. I don’t humor him with a response; I just knock back the next shot of Mind Erasers and set the shot glass down on the counter a bit harder than I mean to.
“You also look like you could use some company.”
“Listen—” I turn to tell him to fuck right the hell off, then freeze.
Shit.
A face I haven’t seen in over fifteen years gives me a very patronizing smile. I hate that fucking smile. It’s the same one he’d give me every time he knew I’d fucked up and needed his help to get out of whatever mess I created.
Because we both knew how much Ihatedasking him for help.
“I’m listening,malyshonuk.” He grabs one of the shot glasses from the tray in front of me and knocks it back, smacking his lips with his tongue as he sets it back down. “I have a feeling you’ve got quite the story to tell.”
I do, but not to him. Never to him.
“Listen,” I repeat, “I don’t know who the hell let you back into this country or what the hell you’re doing here. But I don’t give a flying fuck either way.Dasvidaniya,asshole.”
The man’s hand grabs my shoulder and shoves me back down into the stool before I have a chance to slide off toward the door. The painful squeeze he gives brings back way too many memories I thought I’dalreadyerased from my mind.
He chuckles. “Is that any way to speak to your father?”
42
DEMYEN
“You stopped being my father the day I was born.”
Oleg Zakrevsky shrugs and loosens his grip from my shoulder to pat my back. “I admit, I wasn’t always the best parent?—”
“You don’t even know what being a parentis.”
His eyes narrow at me. “I’ve had time away to think,malyshonuk. A repentant man can be forgiven for his transgressions, surely?”
Funny enough, that’s exactly what I’m dying to hear right now—from anyone but him. “You’re assuming the shit you did is forgivable.”
Oleg signals the bartender over and orders a round of vodka shots with a side of pickled eggs. He grumbles something about them not having pickled beets on the menu, but shrugs it off.
The old man always was one for more traditional fare.“A product of the old country,”he’d say in that thick accent that did start to fade throughout my childhood, but is apparently back in full force. He made sure Tolya and I bore Russian names,learned to speak fluent Russian, and our hired cooks were always experts in Russian cuisine.
Which is exactly why I do my best to speak as little Russian as humanly possible, avoid the food at almost every chance I get, and essentially Americanized the shit out of my identity.
