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There’s a sheen of sweat across her neck and chest, little diamonds I want to lick away. Her face is flushed and a gentle smile crinkles the corners of her eyes.
Then our eyes meet, and I realize there isn’t a single way we could be more connected.
Which is a fucking problem.
I remove my finger and pull out of her abruptly. I roll onto my back so the only thing I can see is the arched ceiling hanging high above us.
For a while—a long while—the only sound is our breathing as it slows back to normal. Then she rolls over and props herself up on her elbow so she can look down at me. I wince, bracing myself against what I know must surely be coming, the talk of feelings and love and the emotional infrastructure she thinks is necessary to keep this marriage alive.
But she surprises me.
“Thanks for the hummus. It was delicious.”
I snort, against my better judgment. “You didn’t eat much.”
“It was more than I’ve eaten all day. The nausea stopped only an hour or so before you came. Flawless timing.” She combs a sweaty lock of hair from her forehead. “You seemed distracted when you walked in, though. Hard day?”
“I had some… unexpected issues to deal with.”
“Petyr Ivanov?” she guesses. I nod and she asks, “What happened?”
“He attacked one of our fronts. A small local business that I didn’t even know he knew about.”
“Was anyone hurt?” she asks, sounding genuinely concerned.
“Two of the boys who worked there. A few broken bones and some bruises. Nothing that won’t heal.”
She gnaws at her lower lip, frowning. “Are you worried that if he knows about this front, he might know about other things, too?”
I try to hide how impressed I am. Paige may not be very familiar with this world, but she’s already thinking like someone who was born into it.
“The more closely I work with a business, the higher the risk. But the laundromat was barely on my radar. If he's hitting that, everything is at risk."
"Do you use that same logic with people? You hold the people you care about the most the furthest away?"
“Is this you trying to figure me out again?” I ask. “Because it’s very annoying.”
“Probably because I’m right on the money.” I throw her a glare and she just shoots back a sheepish grin. “I know we’re from completely different worlds, Misha. But I think we have more in common than you think.”
I’m about to tell her I doubt that very much when she reaches out and touches my dog tag. I freeze instantly.
The last time someone touched it—some nameless one-night-stand I forgot as soon as she left—I grabbed her wrist, twisted it back, and warned her never to do it again if she valued her life.
This time, though… it feels different.
Paige is gentle. Her fingers graze the surface like she’s touching a precious stone.
“Like this,” she whispers softly. “You may not call yours an amulet, but I think that’s exactly what it is. Just like mine.” I roll my eyes, and she chuckles under her breath. “Laugh all you want. Sometimes, believing in something gives you strength. Even if it’s total bullshit.”
“That’s exactly what it is.”
She doesn’t even blink. “Clara and I found this piece of metal together in the junkyard. We were used to finding empty beer cans and used condoms, so coming across this was like discovering buried treasure. Clara took it home that night and polished it up. The next day, when she came over to my trailer, she’d worked a tiny hole into it and threaded it onto some twine. She told me it was my birthday present.”
“And you’ve worn it ever since?”
She shakes her head. “No. I told her that it was magic. Since we’d found it together, we should take turns wearing it. We swapped off every week. LikeSisterhood of the Traveling Pants,you know?” She sees my blank expression and laughs, a high, tinkling sound like a wind chime. “It’s this book where—you know what, never mind. I don’t think you’ll get it. Anyway, I’m not saying the pendant is really magic, but it changed our perspectives a little. It gave us… hope. We started looking for the magic in life. Maybe, because we were looking, we found it.”
I hear my brother’s voice in my head. I can’t make out what he’s saying, but I don’t think the content of his words is important. It’s just the fact of him still lingering on the edges of my life that matters. He’s still here—if I don’t look too hard for him, that is.
