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Like him.
* * *
It’s been a week since I’ve seen or heard from Nikolai.
A full seven days.
After what we shared last time, I thought he would surely look for me again and wait for me at the studio. Boy, was I ever wrong. Not one sign of him this entire time, and quite frankly I feel a little offended.
He’s gone like the wind, yet here I am still fantasizing about those kisses and the way they’ve had me dripping. What am I going to do now? I’m ruined forever. Not even kisses will compare after him.
Annabella and I are waiting for her friends sitting on the barstools at a bar. I pretend to watch a hockey game and drink my frozen strawberry margarita—strawberries are my favorite—and Annie is talking the bartender’s ear off.
I spot Ilya and Dmitri, and my eyes widen the closer they get to us. As if it’s just another normal, sunny day in Florida, Ilya sits between Annie and me, and then Dmitri sits on the other side of Annie. The air thickens until it’s hard to breathe, and it all worsens when Dmitri notices that Ilya is deep in conversation with Annie.
Dmitri’s face is hard as stone, unforgiving, murderous. That glare is directed right at my best friend. She is either entirely oblivious or doesn’t give a fuck, honestly. She’s brave. I’d be folding in on myself and trying to disappear. I have the urge to do it right now, and it’s not even me he’s pissed at.
I finish the rest of my drink, which the bartender immediately replaces with a new one. I’m grateful as I try to drown everyone out and not focus on the million questions I have about Nikolai. Which surely I’ll get no answers to.
“Hey, you,” Ilya greets me. “How’s it going?”
Hmmm. What a loaded question. I fucked your best friend—my former best friend—and then found out he was actually the guy who killed my brother. Now I want him to suffer—or do I?—and that’s why I’m seeking revenge. Like the dumb bitch that I am, I decided to make him fall in love with me again—or at least fuck me on the regular—to get him to trust me and get himself killed. Oh yeah, and for whatever disturbing reason I feel like I’m a messed up person for doing this. Like I shouldn’t want Leo to kill him.
My one question is: Why do I feel so guilty? He. Killed. My. Brother.
“I’m good,” I lie, “What’s up with you and Annie?”
“You waste no time, do you?” He smirks. “Just the regular things that are always up.” Ilya winks a blue eye at me and smiles.
So they’re still fucking.
Maybe that’s what I need, to fuck someone.
“Just you two tonight?” I ask him with a raised brow, pointing at Dmitri with my chin. “The gang is missing one,yeah?” He doesn’t miss that I’ve said the word just as Nik always does.
“If you want to know where he is, just ask me.” His smile grows into a grin, which makes me feel at ease.
Can I? Will he tell me? “So where is he?”
Ilya sucks his lip ring into his mouth. “I don’t know.”
“What the fuck?” I ask him. “Then why tell me to ask?”
“So I can know if you give a shit, which you clearly do.”
“Asshole,” I mutter. “I just wanted to know?—”
“Why he hasn’t seen you in so long?”
How would he know that? Is Nikolai telling everyone about what we do together? Does that bother me? Whydoesit bother me so much? Maybe us being a secret all through high school messed with my head.
I nod in defeat. “It’s whatever, though.”
Ilya frowns, his blond eyebrows drawing in. He has a pretty boy face, unlike Dmitri, who has more rugged features. His blond hair falls over his eyes and his blue eyes shine crystal clear—almost like the lakes you see in pictures. The ones from Canada, where you can see the bottom.
“Clearly not.”
“I miss him.”
