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“That’s not what I asked.”
I line the needle with his skin and begin to stitch him up as if I know what I’m doing. I’ve cross-stitched before, but that was with yarn, not on a body.
“This would be the tenth, I think.”
I scoff. “You think?”
“That’s what it means to be in my line of work. That’s like me asking you how many books you’ve read.”
Pulling the string through his skin, I direct my attention to him. “This year I’ve read a total of one hundred and twenty-six books. Twenty-seven if I count your journal.”
“You can count it.”
My face burns with heat for some reason. I’m not embarrassed or shy, but I feel happy in this moment. Him, sitting here with me—it’s starting to be a comfort I could get used to.
I try to hurry up because I can feel the alcohol threatening to rise in my throat. “You’re all done,” I tell him a few seconds later while I gather the trash and clean up the mess he made. Once I’m finished, I begin walking up the stairs to call it a night, but his voice stops me.
“Where are you going?” he asks.
“To bed,” I tell him. “I just assumed—”
“You do that a lot.”
“I do. Is that a problem?” He didn’t even let me finish my sentence. He interrupts me all the time, and it’s the most frustrating thing.
“Did I say it was?”
“Mikhail, I’m trying my hardest not to fight you right now.”
“Try harder.” A smug smile tugs at the corner of his lips, and I want to smack it off. He’s testing me. The mind games don’t stop, and a part of me doesn’t care. It’s the toxicity I provoke.
My lips press together as I try to contain my comments. It’s proving a lot more difficult than I hoped.
“When you get flustered, your nose scrunches. Do you know that?”
I make a face at him. I have no problem with keeping my attitude to a limit, but I didn’t think that would give him an open invitation to push my buttons.
“Don’t worry, it’s cute.”
I step down the couple of steps I just took and lean my arms on the back of the couch. “Mikhail.”
“Yes,moyalubimaya?”My love.
Taken aback by his comment, I choose to look past it, because if I don’t, I’ll lie awake all night thinking about him and what we could be. “Can I ask you something?”
“Ask away,” he says, motioning for me to take a seat next to him again.
“Why was the event so important to you?”
He reaches down and takes my legs in his lap. “I already told you. That property would change my career.”
“Why just that one?” I ask as my fingers lift to his chest and trace the outlines of his tattoos. I stop the second I realize what I’m doing and take back my hand. He looks at me as if he wants to laugh, and that doesn’t help my situation.
Mikhail clears his throat and says, “Because it’ll connect my section of the city.”
I nod slowly. “Why are you so greedy for so much property?”
“It’s not that I’m greedy. I’m taking back what’s mine.”
