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“Danke, kleine Engel,” he murmured.
Dmitri looked at him, then smiled just a bit. “Little angel, right?”
Raphael didn’t have any more words to offer, so he shuffled a bit closer, still not touching, and he let them exist in that moment. It would be a tough journey ahead, but some day he’d learn to fall out of Dmitri’s orbit. Someday, he’d be able to put him in a place where he knew he’d get to keep him.
It would hurt, but God, it would be worth it.
6
It washard to believe a year had passed. That twelve months had rushed by in the blink of an eye, and both nothing and everything had changed. His twenty second birthday had crept up, nipping at his heels, and Dmitri was starting to feel the weight of his life, which had amounted to nothing apart from his growing friendship with Raphael. But other than that, his life was still water, and it felt like he was drowning.
Staring down at the paper in his hand, Dmitri tried to focus on the words instead of the oppressive weight of the decision it would require to fill it out—and the fact that he always had one of his existential crises around his birthday. Typically, they were small, pointless little things, but this one felt bigger.
And maybe because twenty-two felt, in some strange way, momentous, but he couldn’t ignore the unsettled feeling in his gut. Or it might have been that the year before had been spent in a wholly unexpected way that landed him a friendship he didn’t think possible with a long-time crush who was now one of his best friends.
Or something like it.
It had been one full year since Raphael spent Dmitri’s birthday with him, stargazing on the hood of his car. Just under a year since the afternoon Dmitri spent sitting in Wilder’s apartment watching Raphael recover from a seizure.
He still struggled with understanding what a man as bright and beautiful as Raphael got out of spending time with him, but Dmitri wasn’t going to push his luck and ask him to examine his choices. And the crush hadn’t lessened, but it had settled into something manageable and soft. He was resigned to the fact that Raphael would never love him back, but it didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things because Raphael loved him in the only way people were capable of loving him.
And maybe even a little more, because Raphael was stingy with his feelings and only a few people were on the receiving end of them. Dmitri cupped his hands protectively around what they had and would fight to the death to keep it.
The reality of his crisisnowwas that he was tired. He wasn’t the sort of man who couldn’t find contentment in monotony. He didn’t want to change the world or make waves. If his kindergarten teacher presented him with the little outline of an apple that read,When I grow up, I want to be…it would sit sad and blank.
When he grew up, he wanted to be loved—in the crushing, romantic kind of way, but he wasn’t brave enough to say that out loud because every time he did, he had to face the consequences that came with his sexuality. And it wasn’t that he fell into the trap believing that any queer, asexual person would end up alone, but the little bubble of Savannah offered him so little in the way of understanding. He came to terms with it, or at least, he was trying. But it wasn’t easy.
Dmitri had been so lost in his own thoughts, he didn’t hear the bakery door open, and he jumped half a foot and crushed the paper when fingers tapped his shoulder. His head whipped up to see Wilder there, a frown creasing his brow.
His right hand formed a Y and tapped his chin. ‘What’s wrong?’
The lie tripped off his fingers a little too easily, the circle under his chin flung out like it didn’t matter. ‘Nothing.’ And really, itwasnothing. Wilder didn’t need him at Whipped anymore. He had two other part timers, and he had Luca, who made everything flow smoothly. Dmitri needed to pay bills, but he didn’t have a fire in his belly to make people happy with cakes.
Coming to work at three a.m. for prep was hell, and he resented every sunrise he watched through the shop window. He loved Wilder, of course, and Luca now that he’d made himself home in Savannah. And of course there was Raphael who was unfailing in his attentions whenever Dmitri needed him most.
But it wasn’t enough.
“What is that?” Wilder tapped his finger on the edge of the paper, and Dmitri swallowed thickly.
‘Nothing,’ he signed again, but Wilder touched the back of his wrist with his first finger letting him know he could read the lie in his signs. ‘Job application.’
He watched the faint hurt flare to life in Wilder’s eyes, and he hated himself a little bit for it. “Did I do something?”
Dmitri groaned, passing a hand down his face as he leaned against the table and first checked to make sure Wilder’s hearing aids were on before he leaned in closer and pitched his voice so his boss could understand him better. “Roman’s hiring. Raphael mentioned that he wanted to retire in the next two years, so I thought I’d…” He stopped and tried not to look down at all the qualifications he didn’t meet. “It’s stupid. I mean, he won’t hire me. He wants someone to take over, and they need a degree, and there’s not enough time for me to do that.”
Wilder cocked his head to the side. “Is that something you want to do?”
“Are you angry?”
Wilder’s brow furrowed. “Repeat that.”
‘Angry,’ Dmitri signed, finding it easier on his fingers. ‘Are you angry at me?’
At that, his boss laughed. “What? Why in the world would I be angry? Dmitri, I didn’t expect you to stay here forever. I just didn’t know you’d be interested in something like that.”
And the truth was, being a park ranger wasn’t interesting. Or, at least, he didn’t know if it was. He didn’t know what the hell Roman did on the day to day, and he’d only been by his side once, years back, to work off his community service for his reckless driving. He and Roman had talked a lot, he’d cleaned out the cabins, and he’d organized files. They went on a trash hunt, and then they had to haul a deer carcass off the hiking path.
It was mundane and pointless, and he’d felt oddly relaxed out there in the middle of nowhere. And after that day, that Roman always said hi to him whenever Dmitri passed him in town or at the supermarket. They weren’t friends the way Roman was with everyone else, but he thought maybe Roman found him worth a little something. Maybe something enough that he’d give him a chance if he found the courage to apply.
