Page 75 of Hush, Little Baby

A flush starts in my face, and I can’t tell if I’m embarrassed for asking or for liking the way he talks. “It’s not bad. I mean— I like it. You sound… warm. Like you’d be good at telling bedtime stories.”

His head tips back, and he actually laughs, a real laugh that fills the whole room. “My baby is a flatterer.” Then, softer, he says, “I could read to you, if you’d like. In Greek, or English.” My hands twist the paper towel into a little damp cord.

“Would you?” The words come out small, and when I look up, he’s already smiling at me.

“Of course, sweetheart.” His voice is gentle, but there’s an edge in it, a tease. “You just have to tell me what kind of story you want.”

I can’t think of a single answer, so I duck my head and start painting bright orange lines for the sun, pretending I meant to smudge it all along. “Maybe later? I can’t think of anything right now.”

“Later it is, then.”

A few minutes pass before I set down my brush and ask, “Can you say something in Greek? Not like a story, just something short?”

Nikolaus’s eyes spark, and he straightens a little in the rocker, like this is the easiest thing I’ve ever asked of him. “What should I say?” he murmurs, but it sounds mostly like a question for himself. Then, after a second, he says, “Come here,” in English, but with a little hitch at the end, a cue, and I don’t realize he means it literally until he pats his lap.

I shuffle over, the paper towel still damp in my fist, and he pulls me up with both hands until I’m settled across his thighs, my knees drawn up and socked feet dangling just off the floor.

“Ready?” he asks, and I nod, not sure why my heart is suddenly beating so fast.

He starts quietly, at my ear. “Glykó mou agóri,” he says, the words so soft and rich I almost lose them. “Eísai to karpí mou, to fos mou.” I feel the vibration of his voice in his chest, and also in my cheek, which is pressed to the collar of his shirt.

I want to ask what it means, but I don’t want him to stop, so I just close my eyes and let him talk. When he’s done, there’s a silence, broken only by the gentle rocking of the chair.

“What’d you say?” I whisper, after a moment.

He strokes my hair back behind my ear. “I said, ‘My sweet boy. You are my fruit, my light.’” He chuckles at my face—at my eyes, probably wide as saucepans—then kisses the top of my head. “Too much?”

I shake my head, maybe too fast, and feel the heat blooming all the way to my hairline. I don’t know how to explain the feeling, how it makes my skin fizz under his palm.

“You can ask me anything, Charlie,” he adds, voice softer, like he’s tucking me into the words.

I swallow, and the next question jumps out before I can decide not to ask it. “What do you do, exactly? For work, I mean.” I stumble over the words—only realizing I might have crossed a line when I see his expression slip.

He blinks, then the smile is back, but it’s a little different. “That’s a big question, sweetheart.”

“I just um…” I can’t stop myself. “I was wondering, with what you and Constantine were talking about at lunch. And, well… you also um… took me, without thinking of any consequences, but it’s a crime? And the stuff with the gun, and you seem really, really wealthy…”

“What do you think I am, Charlie?” he asks.

I take a moment before whispering, “A mobster?”

A grin splits across his face. “Not exactly,” he laughs. “I run a business. A few, really. Shipping, mostly, and holding companies. Real estate. I buy and sell things for people who want to keep their hands clean.”

I absorb that in silence, staring at the way his hands rest on my body. Even when Nikolaus is so tender it makes my head spin, I think about how easy it would be for him to break me in half.

“I don’t really get what that means,” I say. “You buy things for people?”

He shrugs.“Some people have money and no patience,” he says, “and some people have things they can’t move through the usual channels. I connect them. Sometimes it’s art, sometimes cars, usually something a little less, ah, conventional.” He leans back against the rocker and pulls me with him, so my head tips into the hollow of his shoulder. “It’s just business. All perfectly above board, at least on paper.”

I try to picture him in a boardroom, in those expensive suits, negotiating over who gets what priceless painting.

“Is that what Constantine does, too?” I ask. “He looked up my whole life, right? Where I live, my bills, all that stuff.”

He nods, unbothered. “Constantine is my right hand. There is nothing he can’t find. That’s why I trust him with you.”

My face must be doing something nervous, because Nikolaus sets his hand under my chin and lifts until our eyes meet. “It’s not dangerous for you,” he says. “Not unless you try to leave me.” His thumb sweeps once along my jaw, and I swallow, a shiver going down my body at the threat. “But I don’t think that’s what you want,” he says quietly.

I’m not sure what I want. Not yet.