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I reach up and twist my pendant between my fingers. For reasons I can’t explain, I feel like the floodgates have opened. I want to talk, even if all he does is sit there silently and drink champagne and watch me with those molten eyes.
“I’m being a little dramatic. I’m only homeless for three more nights. Then I get to move into a shitty little studio apartment on Elston Avenue and start a shitty little job at some shitty little company.”
“Crash on a friend’s couch until then.”
If only.“You say that like it’s easy. I… lost touch with my friends over the years. Anthony was all I had by the end.”
“Then I offer you my condolences. Life without friends is a lonely endeavor.”
I eye the champagne bottle where it sits on the bar. Misha follows my gaze and, without asking, rises to go retrieve it. I’m about to protest that he doesn’t need to do that, but I get a little caught up in watching him move.
Some men move in a different way. He’s one of those. It’s graceful and brutal at the same time, if that makes any sense. His muscles rippling, the firm cheeks of his butt, the swoop of his thighs, the breadth of his shoulders. His scent—cologne and musk—follows him like a shadow.
I have to blink myself back to reality when he sits back down and sets the champagne between us. I’m half-inclined to chuck the glass over the railing and just chug straight out of the bottle.
But abusing alcohol was always Mama’s move, not mine.
“I had friends,” I say defensively, twisting the stem of my empty glass between my fingers. “But then Anthony wanted to start the business, so we were both working two or three side jobs to raise the initial cash. Once we had it, we had to work overtime to get it up and running. All my friendships just sorta… fell by the wayside.”
When he doesn’t respond, I glance up at him. The dog tag on a thin silver chain around his neck catches my attention, though the inscription is too small for me to read from here.
“I like your necklace,” I say, changing the subject to move the spotlight off of me. “What does it say?”
It feels like a simple question, but Misha’s expression grows strangely distant. “Why do you keep touching the pendant you’re wearing?”
I drop my hand from my throat like he stung me. The silence in that moment is taut with an unspoken agreement:You don’t ask about my necklace, and I won’t ask about yours.
Fair enough.
I turn away, studying the bejeweled skyline of the city below. Like always when I get a panoramic view of the city, I feel small. But for the first time in a long time, it’s in a good way. The way it used to feel when I first got here and I thought I’d left the trailer behind for good.
I tell myself now what I told myself back then: life works out for most people. They hit bumps and setbacks, but they recover. I’m “most people,” aren’t I? So maybe things will be okay for me, too.
“I should go,” I mumble.
Misha shrugs. “If you want.”
I sit up a little straighter and fix him with a curious gaze. “You’re not going to protest?”
He cocks his head to the side. “Do you want me to?”
I’m quiet for a while. I drain the rest of my champagne. Touch my necklace. Look up at the stars one more time, so close I could graze them with a fingertip.
Then I look back at Misha. “Yeah,” I say quietly. “I do.”
7
PAIGE
Misha nods, his expression unreadable. “Very well then. Stay with me tonight, Paige.”
My heart gallops in my chest as he gets to his feet and holds out his hand. I’m not one hundred percent sure exactly what I just agreed to, but I find myself taking it and rising. Blame the champagne, blame the desperation, blame a lifetime of bad choices, I don’t know.
But whatever the cause, I take his hand.
That’s what seals my fate.
He coaxes me against him. It’s not harsh or violent, but it’s utterly inexorable. He doesn’t have to try hard to let me know that there is only one way forward now:his way.
