The jet bridge is narrow, dimmer than the terminal, humming faintly beneath our feet. Katerina walks beside me in silence for six steps.
Then she whispers, “Your wife?”
“It worked.”
“Mrs. Sokolov?”
“For the next several hours.”
“I did not agree to that.”
“You were about to tell airline staff the gate had split into two.”
She considers this. Then, with as much dignity as a drunk woman in a torn coat can manage, she says, “Itdidlook suspicious.”
I look ahead. Because if I smile, I’m finished.
At the aircraft door, another flight attendant greets us.
Katerina lifts her chin, trying very hard to look sober, respectable, and married.
It’s a terrible performance.
It’s also, somehow, the most charming thing I’ve seen in years.
I guide her into first class before anyone can question it. Our seats are together, enclosed enough to give her privacy. She sinks into hers with a soft sound of relief and immediately tries to buckle the seatbelt backward.
I crouch in front of her.
“Stop fighting the aircraft.”
“I know how a seatbelt works.”
“Clearly,” I chuckle.
She glares at me while I fix it. Her perfume surrounds me again. For one brief second, my knuckles brush the curve of her waist.
She goes quiet. So do I.
Luggage compartments close. Flight attendants murmur in English and Russian. Outside the small oval window, the city lights smear gold against the dark.
But in the private hush of her seat, there’s only her.
Katerina looks at me through her lashes, cheeks flushed from vodka, eyes bright with too many things at once. Anger. Shame. Exhaustion.
And something else. Something I should not answer.
“You’re very good at this,” she says.
“At seatbelts?”
“At taking over.”
I let the belt go and sit back on my heels. “Someone had to.”
“I was managing.”
“No, you were not.”
