Page 121 of Playing Her Game

I mouth, Good morning to you, too. His mouth twitches.

"Send it to me when you have it," he says into the phone. "I'll deal with it."

He ends the call and sets his phone aside. "Morning, fancy girl."

I walk straight into his arms. He catches me at the waist, and I rise onto my toes to kiss him.

"Better." I tell him.

"What is?"

"My greeting."

"You always this demanding before breakfast?"

"Only when I'm being neglected."

He looks down at me, considering. "You've been awake for thirty seconds."

"Thirty-five."

He laughs, and I kiss him again because I like the sound of it.

His hand slides to the back of my neck.

"Coffee's ready."

It's ridiculous how much I enjoy these small exchanges. There's no performance required, no carefully chosen response, no need to consider what my behavior might suggest to someone watching. I can be tired and irritable and steal the first piece of toast off his plate, and he looks at me as though this is exactly where he wants me.

He pours my coffee, and I settle onto a stool at the kitchen island. He brings it to me and asks, “How do you take you eggs?”

“Scrambled, but I can cook.”

“So can I.”

He turns back to the stove, and I watch him for a moment, then take another sip of coffee.

Today we explored the property with snowshoes; it’s fifty acres, mostly wooded. Absolutely stunning. We hit the hot tub after, and then he draws me a bath.

I do not recall anyone bathing me as a child. Not truly—no clear memory of my mother’s hands, no ghost-touch of my father’s awkward attempts at gentleness. I remember my own childhood body as perpetually armored, even in the bath—tensed, vigilant, water sloughing off as I kept myself rigid and alone. I learned early to wash myself unassisted, to police the boundaries of my own skin, and so the memory gap widens until it’s not a gap at all but the entire story.

But now, Daniil’s hands move as if they know some ancient choreography I was never taught. He cups water in his palm and pours it over my shoulder, lets it run in slow, considerate arcs down my arm. He soaps my back, the same back I keep hunched and hidden from every crowded locker room, and the touch is so careful it stuns me. He moves slower than necessity—a deliberate, contemplative slowness, as if revealing something sacred about me that only he is allowed to see. Each pass over my skin feels both impossibly intimate and impersonal; the act itself is so basic, so foundational, yet the way he does it is artful.

I am undone by this, because I am not the kind of person who ever invites help or needs it. I am not the kind who expects tenderness without payment. But here: Daniil washes me as if it is an honor, as if my body is worth the reverence he gives it. I cried in the bathtub today, and he kissed away my tears.

We leave for Austria the next day. He wants me to meet his aunt.

The drive takes us south from Munich toward Salzburg. I didn’t realize until he surprised me by showing up at the café how much I love the mountains, and as silly as it sounds, I love him behind the wheel.

Rez drives with one hand on the wheel, the other resting on mine on the center console.

I keep looking out the window.

"What?" he asks.

"Nothing."

"You've said nothing about twelve times since we left."