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Then I go back to the christening cake, because the shell border isn’t going to pipe itself, and making things sweet is what I do best.

42

KANE

That night, she falls asleep on top of the covers.

I keep coming back to that. Not the shape of her, though I look at that, too, of course—I’m only human, only a man, and I’ve never met a woman quite like her before.

But no. It’s that she doesn’t reach for anything. No sheet dragged up over her hip, no arm folded over herself like she used to do, back when she thought I wouldn’t see all the little ways she hid herself.

She’s just there.

On her front, one leg bent, hair stuck to her cheek, mouth barely open.

Goddamn, she’s beautiful.

I sit against the headboard with my phone in my hand and watch her sleep. At some point, she stirs and shoves her face into my thigh.

“What time is it?” she mumbles.

“Late.” I put my hand in her hair. “Go back to sleep.”

Instead, she rolls over and props herself up against my ribs. Then she holds out a hand, palm-up.

“Album,” she demands.

We have a shared photo album now. She named it HOLIDAYS (DEBT SERVICE) as a joke and then never changed it. Little by little, we’ve added moments worth remembering.

The first is the coat closet kiss on New Year’s Eve, taken by a man who is currently missing two fingers.

Then Orthodox Christmas. Forty-something Makovs crammed into a frame, Lilah on my thigh with her mouth open in shock, me looking at nothing but her.

Then a bad photo of my own hands in a strawberry apron, which she took on Valentine’s Day while I was washing a sheet pan.

She scrolls to the end.

There it is. Her birthday. Her seated behind a crooked cake with Zara on her hip and thirty-two candles that pale in comparison to the bright joy in her eyes.

“Look at that,” she says. “That’s a person having a good time.”

“Sorry, who? I’m busy looking at that delicious cake.”

She laughs and punches me in the leg. “The cake was a war crime.” She zooms in with two fingers on herself, which she also would not have done in December. “I look happy, don’t I?”

I comb her hair back. “Sladkaya, my sweetness, you look the way you’re meant to look.”

She smiles, then settles back down with her head in my lap. “So I was thinking,” she says.

“Uh-oh. Dangerous activity.”

“Hush and listen. Priya’s cousin has a place in the Poconos she can’t rent out because the deck’s rotten. Which means it’s free.” She yawns. “I’ve never taken more than two days off in three years. I want to sleep for days and eat nothing but chips.”

“I’ll have the deck fixed.”

“You absolutely will not, sir. You will sit on the rotten deck like a normal man and take your chances.” She elbows me. “Also, I want to redo the front of the shop. Not the kitchen, the kitchen’s fine. But the cases are ancient and the light in there makes everything look gray. I’ve got the money now. January and February were the best months I’ve ever had.”

“Then do it.”