Page 53 of Sexting the Pakhan

The laugh dies, but not in fear. Something else moves into the quiet.

I should stand.

She has been drinking. Not enough to make her careless, but enough that I need to be careful for both of us. She’s frightened, displaced, grieving the loss of a life that was ordinary and hers. None of this is the right place for want.

And yet she’s looking at me like she wants something simple enough to understand.

“Zoya,” I say. My voice comes out rougher than I intend.

She hears that too.

“You keep saying my name like a warning,” she says.

“It is one.”

“For me or for you?”

I don’t answer.

She moves first.

Not far. She just leans across the space between our chairs, close enough that I can smell wine on her breath and rain in her hair, close enough that I see the pulse beating fast at the base of her throat.

“I’m not drunk,” she says.

“I know.”

“I’m scared.”

“I know.”

“And I’m angry at you.”

“I know that too.”

Her eyes search mine. “But I still want you to kiss me, and I don’t know what that says about me.”

“It says you’ve had a bad week.”

“That’s a terrible answer.”

“It’s the honest one.”

She looks away, hurt flashing across her face.

I catch her chin before she can retreat fully, gentle enough that she can pull back if she wants to. “I want to kiss you,” I say.

Her eyes return to mine. The truth does more to her than charm would have. Her breath changes.

“But not because you’re sad,” I continue. “Not because you lost something today. Not because you need to forget where you are.”

Her lashes lower. “What if I need to feel like I’m still a person?”

That gets under my ribs in a way I do not like.

She’s not trying to seduce me. She’s sitting in my coat, in my house, with her life broken open around her, asking for one thing that belongs to her body and not to fear.

I slide my hand from her chin to the side of her neck. Her skin is warm under my palm.