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“Likely story, Blackwood. You just wanted to make sure we’re as far as possible from the rest of civilization when the countdown ends so nobody could steal my first kiss of the year.”
“I’m a reasonable man,” Zach says. “I would prefer it to be me, but if you wish to give your first kiss of the year to somebody else, by all means, Theodora darling, do. But you know your destiny for the year will be tied to whomever you choose, so choose carefully.”
“If I kiss you, then will it mean I’m stuck with you for the rest of the year?”
“Would you rather be stuck with anybody else?”
No, I want to say.I want to be stuck with you for the rest of the year—for the rest of my life. Because being around you is like standing in sunlight and because I don’t believe any harm could ever come to me when I’m by your side. Because parting ways with you is going to feel like having the heart torn out of my chest, and every rending heart-string is going to be a death of its own.
“I suppose not,” I breathe.
We drink in silence for a moment, watching fireworks coruscating in the air beneath the canopy of white stars. The alcohol warms me up from the inside, strong enough to give my mind a pleasant buzzing sensation but not strong enough to make my head spin.
“Are you going to make resolutions for next year?” Zach asks.
“Only one. To win the prize at the end of the Apostles programme and finally prove my intellectual superiority over you.”
“You’re already doing better in literature than I am.”
“That’s not a guarantee of anything. You’re going to manage to catch up somehow.”
“I appreciate your confidence in me, my darling nemesis.” He presses his lips to the top of my head in a fleeting touch, almost as if he didn’t realise what he was doing. “What if my New Year’s resolution is also to win the Apostles prize and assert my intellectual superiority over you?”
“Then I suppose we’ll do what we’ve always done: pitch our wills against one another’s and let fate decide on the victor.”
“Yes, I suppose so.” His voice is low and thoughtful. “What an honour it has been, Theodora Dorokhova, to be your adversary. If I had made you myself in a laboratory, I couldn’t have created a more perfect opponent.”
The earnestness of this sudden declaration reminds me of the first time I saw him, the way he reminded me of the icons of saints in Smolny Cathedral.
Maybe it’s this association that makes me suddenly blurt out, “I lied to you. I never kissed Luca.”
He turns so suddenly that my head almost falls off his shoulder. In the distant glow of fireworks, I see his eyebrows shoot up.
“You never kissed Luca?”
“No. I lied. I was being… alright, I was being petty.”
He’s silent for a moment, slowly shaking his head. “Did you ask him to lie about it?”
“No—of course not. I don’t trust him. I don’t like him at all, in fact.”
“He corroborated your lie, though.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. I thought he might.”
“It doesn’t surprise me either.” A smirk dawns on Zach’s mouth, slow and with an edge of wickedness like the glint of the knife’s blade. “Oh well, he still deserves what he got.”
“What did he get?”
“What was coming to him.” Suddenly, Zach sets his glass down and turns to face me completely. He takes my cheeks in his hands, pulling me to him and peering into my eyes. “Does that mean that was your first kiss—that time in the library?”
“Yes,” I breathe, my heartbeat quickening.
“And did you like it?”
“I loved it.”
His hands slide down my cheeks to my neck. His palms are surprisingly warm given how cold the night is. “Did you want me? Back when I kissed you?”
