Page 66 of Sexting His Assistant

Misha returns ten minutes later with a tray in his hands and suspicion all over his face. He doesn’t do it very gracefully, but not because he’s clumsy.

Misha’s never clumsy. He can take apart a pistol blindfolded, drive through hostile traffic without spilling coffee, and once, when I was seventeen, he caught me by the back of my jacket before I fell off a balcony I had absolutely no business climbing onto.

But domestic things make him look offended.

The tray has a bowl of broth, black bread, a small dish of cherry jam, and tea with lemon. Exactly what I said. Exactly what Luka would have ordered, even though he would have done it with fewer words and more arrogance.

Misha sets the tray on the low table near the bed and looks between us.

9

NINA

I’m standing by the window now because standing at the foot of Luka Kazan’s bed felt like a decision I was not ready to make. Luka’s still propped against the pillows, shirtless under the bandage, one arm useless at his side, the other resting over the blanket. The firelight moves over him in low gold, softening nothing. If anything, it makes him look more dangerous, more unreal, like some wounded king refusing to admit there is blood in the room.

Misha notices me noticing. His eyes narrow.

I look at the tray with sudden, passionate interest. “You brought the jam,” I say.

“You said he’d want it,” Misha says.

“I said he’d pretend not to want it.”

Luka looks at me. “I don’t want it.”

I point at him without looking. “See?”

Misha snorts. “Still lying while half-dead. Impressive.”

“I’m not half-dead,” Luka says.

“You were shot.”

“In the shoulder.”

“You keep saying that like it makes you less shot.”

I almost smile.

It feels strange, standing in Luka’s bedroom after everything that has happened, listening to the two of them talk like this. Like men who have known each other so long that care has become insult. There is history in every short sentence. Years of it. Blood and loyalty and whatever kind of friendship makes one man show up furious at another man’s house and still remember what he eats after an injury.

Misha picks up the tea and passes it to Luka.

Luka takes it with his good hand, but the movement pulls at his shoulder. His jaw tightens for the briefest second.

Misha sees it. So do I.

Neither of us says anything.

Misha sits in the chair near the bed, elbows on his knees, his gaze dropping to Luka’s bandaged shoulder. “Who got in?”

Luka looks at him over the rim of the cup. “We don’t know yet.”

“That means someone helped.”

“Possibly.”

“Not possibly,” Misha says. “Definitely.”