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“Sounds like pure Chinese.”
“ ‘Chinese’ isn’t a language.”
“And ‘I’m sorry’ isn’t a word, it’s a phrase,” I say sweetly.
“Just when I thought I missed you …” Nix hauls herself to her feet, a long way from the ground to her full height.
“Don’t miss me. Come back to school with me. It’s miserable without you.”
“I’m happy here,” Nix says simply.
I can see that for myself. She seems perfectly at home with Rafe’s family, and happy in America, though it’s six thousand miles from what she knew before.
The Petrov ring glints on her left hand. Ivan gave it to her, a placeholder until Rafe could buy her an engagement ring. But Nix doesn’t want a diamond. She likes the family ring. She wants to be accepted as a Petrov, as one of them.
She isn’t afraid to uproot her life and change her plans at a moment’s notice.
Is she braver than me? Or only more certain of what she wants?
“You want to go down to Seaside?” Nix asks me. “There’s an arcade by the pier.”
“Sure.” I shrug. “I like games.”
“Me too.” Nix grins, already alight with competitive fire. “I wanna play you at Skee-Ball.”
* * *
Rafe jumpsat the chance to take Nix to the arcade. Adrik agrees with the same level of nonchalance I was attempting, but he shoots me a look with so much heat that morning sunshine feels weak and watery by comparison.
As we climb in the backseat of Rafe’s Mustang, I spy a pair of my underwear crumpled up on the floorboards, from when Adrik and I borrowed the car to “go for ice cream” the night before. I kick the black lace thong under Nix’s seat, hearing Adrik’s soft hiss of amusement as he catches me hiding the evidence.
“Remember when we used to playSuper Smash Bros?” Rafe says to Adrik, resting his arm across the back of Nix’s seat so he can turn and reverse down the long, winding driveway through the thickets of spruce shielding the Petrov mansion from view of the road.
“I still play with Andrei and Hakim,” Adrik says. “It’s an easy way to remind them who’s boss.”
Andrei and Hakim are two of Adrik’s Wolfpack—he’s got five in all living in his rented house in Moscow. The only one I know is Jasper Webb, and only by reputation.
“You should try playingHaloagainst Zima,” Rafe says, naming the youngest of Ivan’s men, a skinny guy who speaks his own pidgin of English slang and rapid Russian, who never wakes up before noon, then works late into the night on the Petrovs’ security systems.
“I loveHalo,” I pipe up.
Adrik looks at me, interested. “We should play at the arcade.”
“Sure.” I shrug.
I’ve been playing video games with Leo and Miles since I was old enough to hold a controller. You have to bring your A-game to match Leo’s reflexes or Miles’ strategy. I guess that’s the one advantage of being younger—I’ve been sprinting to catch up all my life.
Adrik’s hand rests on the bench seat, his fingers inches from my bare thigh. The sun beats down on us in the open backseat of the convertible, the fresh salt air whipping against our faces as Rafe pulls onto the main road leading down to Seaside.
Adrik’s black hair ruffles in the wind, long and shaggy, so thick that when I sink my hands in it, all my fingers disappear.
I want to touch him now. Sitting this close is like lurking around the kitchen when you’re starving. Every time I catch his scent it makes my mouth water.
The edge of his pinky brushes against my thigh.
The sun is hot and his hand is hotter.
I let my thighs fall open so my leg rests on the back of his hand. Each jolt of the car sparks our skin together, rock against flint.
