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Raphael wanted to know what the first chance was, because in the grand scheme of things, Dmitri had been a good kid. He knew a little about his circumstances, and he knew that kids like him tended to grow up rough and hardened. Dmitri wasn’t that. He was soft edges with a desperation to make people happy—maybe to his own detriment. And it wasn’t Raphael’s place to say anything about it, but he wondered who it was that made Dmitri think his life would be defined by a handful of childhood mistakes.
“I’m not offended,” he said after a beat. “I only meant to help you put it into perspective.”
Dmitri swallowed thickly and didn’t say anything until he pulled into the parking lot. He found a space close to the entrance, and Raphael wondered if he’d done it for him or not, but he didn’t ask. The silence in the car was heavy, and he wondered if maybe he’d made the man’s birthday even worse.
“I,” Dmitri started after he turned the car off. He reached for the door handle and opened it a crack to let a fresh, late afternoon breeze in. “I ruin things. I’m sorry.”
“Nothing’s ruined.” Raphael turned to him and laid a hand on his arm. “I’m glad I know you, and I’m glad you’re letting me spend your birthday with you.”
Dmitri’s eyes glinted in the setting sun, with a look in them like maybe he couldn’t believe what Raphael was saying. But in the end, he didn’t argue. He just climbed out of the car and went inside to place their order.
* * *
The night was stillwarm and humid, even after the sun had set. Dmitri parked closer to the lamp post this time, and spread two comforters and a couple of pillows for them to lounge on. He offered an unobtrusive arm out for Raphael, then helped get him situated on the hood of the car.
They laid with their backs to the windshield, faces to the sky, and the food sitting between them getting a little cold. He couldn’t really eat any of it, and Dmitri seemed more melancholy than interested in stuffing his face. Raphael had asked him to stop at the little gas station on the way, and he’d popped in to look for something—anything—that would have made the night special.
He settled for a lone, half-squashed package of Twinkies and a box of matches which he hid, twisted in a black plastic shopping bag. It was a sad, sorry excuse in place of a birthday cake, but Raphael was determined to make it a real moment for him, even if it was cheap sponge cake and bit of flaming sulfur.
Dmitri hadn’t asked about it. He just laid there quietly, staring above them.
The sky was dark, and with the stars a shower of light, Raphael felt strangely at peace in a way he hadn’t expected.
He was hardly a collector of people—whether they were friends or lovers. Luca was the first person in years to put up with Raphael’s sarcasm and attitude, and he was the first person to do more than send over chicken soup and roasted vegetables when he was taken down by his seizures.
And there was something in Dmitri that was a lot like Luca—enough that it triggered that same sort of desperate caregiver buried deep beneath his years of jaded lack of faith in people. Turning on his side, Raphael propped his head up on his elbow and offered what he hoped was a kind smile. His face muscles weren’t as tight as his hands, but they didn’t always behave the way he wanted them to.
Dmitri softened at his look, though and rolled his eyes back up to the sky with an embarrassed laugh. “I’m being boring, aren’t I?”
“I’m not remotely bored. I like sitting out here. You don’t get to see the sky as often in downtown with all the buildings and trees. It’s beautiful, but it’s occasionally…”
“Claustrophobic?” Dmitri finished for him with a breath. “It’s nice, but sometimes I want something different.”
“I always felt like that when we would drive to Berlin. We had to make a lot of trips when I was younger because I had surgeries to help keep my legs from getting too stiff.” He ran an absent hand down his thigh, then around the back of his knee where he had long, white, faded marks in the places doctors had sliced into his skin and stitched him back up.
“Where did you grow up?” Dmitri asked softly.
Raphael smiled. “A very little town nothing like Savannah—and not as friendly. Everyone there was so old, and there were too many stairs. But Berlin was so…big. There were so many people, so many buildings. My aunt would take me to this little restaurant, and we would watch all the tourists from different countries and try to guess where they were from. I never wanted to leave.”
“Why did you?”
Raphael shrugged. “It wasn’t home. Not for my mother, anyway. I ran away when I was nineteen—with a beautiful Italian woman. She lived in Berlin, in a neighborhood that in German means Little Turkey. I fell madly in love with my neighbor there.”
Dmitri’s eyes sparkled, and he sat halfway up. “You had an affair?”
At that, Raphael laughed so hard his cheeks ached. “Not that kind of love. She was in her seventies. She was the first person who took care of me that didn’t want to do everything for me. When Chiara wanted to move to Örebro, it broke my heart into pieces, leaving her behind.”
“What was her name?” Dmitri asked quietly.
“Sima. Chiara left me after we moved to Örebro, and I thought about going back and living in that flat forever and listening to Sima tell me stories of what her life was like in Istanbul before she moved to Germany.” Raphael closed his eyes and rolled onto his back, taking a deep breath. His head was starting to hurt a little, but the soft breeze off the meadow was soothing. “She was a wild girl in her youth. She lived in the city and she used to dance. She had this very old trunk, like you see in the movies, and they were full of photos.”
“Why didn’t you?” Dmitri asked quietly.
Raphael laughed again, his smile tugging a little too hard at the corners of his mouth when he thought about Cody’s soft eyes, and the little splatter of freckles over his cheeks. “A good-looking boy showed up and offered to take me away. I had been living in Örebro for just over ten years, working in a little salon. He was on vacation, and he was very…American. We spent two weeks there together, then he asked me to come home with him, so I did.”
Dmitri made a small noise in the back of his throat. “Just like that?”
Raphael shrugged. “Just like that. I knew it wasn’t going to last, but I packed up all my things and said goodbye to my former life. We broke up about two months after I got here.”
