Page 23 of Cruel Demands

No McDonald’s. No mixed drinks. And no boys.

My wrist doesn’t hurt, but I flex my fingers anyway. Across the room, the stranger remains in his booth, watching me with a calm that makes my pulse jump.

Anya follows my gaze. “What do you think he is doing here? He is too stuffy for this place,” she says.

I laugh softly. “Stuffy?” I look at the stranger again. He tilts his glass slightly. An invitation.

Anya mutters in my ear conspiratorially, “Look at him. Everyone else is drinking cheap vodka, and he looks ready to attend a funeral for a president.”

“Maybe he came to the wrong bar.” I raise my glass in response. His eyes warm.

“And then decided to drink alone anyway? No, it was no mistake.”

Her voice sounds like background noise to me, the stranger’s eye contact all I can focus on as I take a sip. The drink is strong enough to tighten my throat, but it is smoother than the vodka. Warmer. Stranger.

I glance toward the door where Petyr disappeared. I should wait for him to return. I should smooth everything over. I should let the safe, nice boy who bought me a pity pastry believe he has not lost some contest I never entered him in.

Except I am beginning to understand that safe and nice are not necessarily the same thing. I did not come to Russia to manage Petyr’s feelings. I did not come here to become a smaller, more cautious version of myself. I came because I wanted to discover who I am when no one around me already knows.

And tonight, I have an internship. Hope. A badly chosen number of vodka shots. And a stranger with silver in his hair and a scar beside his mouth is looking at me as though I am not a problem to solve, but a question worth answering. I stand.

Anya catches my hand. “Text me if you leave.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“Taylor.”

“I’m not.”

She studies my face, then releases me with a sigh. “You are lying badly.”

I turn back and bend close enough to whisper, “I’m celebrating.”

“That is worse.”

I grin because she’s right, and because I’m already moving away from the table.

The rule is no boys.

What I am walking toward is a man.

5

MIKHAIL

A few minutes after having a server bring her a drink, I watch the young woman in the little black dress make her way to me like watching someone walk in a dream. It seems like the corners of the room are fuzzy, and it feels like it takes twice as long as it should. I watch the way she’s making her way toward me like an arrow on a path.

“Thank you for the drink,” she says in Russian. It has a rehearsed cadence to it that’s endearing. The American accent rounds Russian’s edges.

“You practiced that,” I tell her with a smile and sip my drink.

She lifts her chin—the gesture of an impetuous child. “Was it wrong?”

“No.”

“Then I’m counting it as a victory.”

“Small victories matter to students,” I say. She opens her mouth to say something, and I interrupt her, nodding toward her table. “You are celebrating.”