Page 206 of Dark King Daddy

Later, when the plates had been cleared, Anton stood with his glass.

“To our fathers.”

The conversation settled. I lifted my wine with everyone else.

For a few seconds I could hear the restaurant below us. A chair moving. Someone laughing near the bar. Ksenia’s fingers slid between mine beneath the table.

We drank.

Anton sat down. His eyes met his sister’s.

“He’d have loved seeing your name on that building,” he told her.

She nodded, looking down into her glass.

“He’d have said the sign was too small.”

Anton smiled.

“Probably would have ordered a bigger one.”

“Without asking me.”

“Naturally.”

She laughed, though her eyes were wet, and leaned into my shoulder. I kissed her hair.

“You took a photograph,” she said to me.

“Two.”

“Show him.”

I handed my phone to Anton. He looked at the picture for a long time before passing it around the table.

Arkady studied it, then looked at his sister-in-law.

“Much better without the apprentice in it.”

“Everything is,” she said.

I squeezed her knee. She turned and kissed my cheek, shamelessly pleased with herself.

The evening went on. Nobody hurried it. When Sal asked for coffee, everyone ordered some, including people who had just claimed they were leaving.

Arkady told a story about Nikita getting locked out of his own apartment. Nikita corrected three details and conceded the fourth. Kiryl laughed until Yelena threatened to take his wine away purely to save the tablecloth.

I had never seen this room look so much like somewhere people belonged.

At the end, I found Arkady by the coat rack, helping Ksenia into her coat. He was listening while she told him something about Kiryl’s lamp, his head bent towards her.

Whatever she said made him shrug.

She kissed his cheek anyway.

He caught my eye over her shoulder, faintly alarmed.

“She’s been drinking,” he informed me.