22. Ariel
22
ARIEL
ONE WEEK LATER
How many hours of staring at the same ceiling does it take for a person to go insane?
Asking for a friend.
I’m lying on my back because that’s all I do these days, looking up at shadows dancing across the stucco as another storm rolls in. The ceiling has exactly one hundred and forty-three cracks, in case anyone was wondering. I’ve counted each and every one of them. The particularly interesting little fellas get names.
Crack Johnson.
President Andrew Crackson.
Snap, Crackle, and Pop.
The lights flicker again. Storm number four this week wails against the window. It feels like they’re getting worse. Each storm inevitably knocks out the power for a minute or two, dropping us into a breathless dark until the generators perk back to life.
Not that it changes much for me. I’m stuck here whether we have power or not.
Sasha took the doctor’s orders to heart. He wasn’t kidding about not letting me lift so much as a finger. Since we got back to the villa after one night’s stay at the hospital, the man who once ordered hits without blinking now fusses if I so much as reach for a glass of water. Yesterday, I caught him arguing with Jasmine about the proper way to fluff my pillows. It would be funny if it wasn’t so surreal.
Almost as surreal as him being here at all. I’d wondered for six months how it would feel for the husband chair in every exam room to be filled.
It’s filled now.
Sasha shows no signs of vacating it.
I, surprisingly… don’t hate it? It’s hard to hate something you find yourself longing for in idle moments. Sure, I tried to replace Sasha’s face with someone else’s in my fantasies, but I dunno—Chris Hemsworth’s jawline just never quite looked right when I superimposed it onto Sasha’s body.
I guess I’m just scared of letting myself start to rely on it. On him. On that chair being filled, every time I look.
You emotional little dreamer , I tell myself when the monitors sync with his snoring. You’re pathetic.
Right on cue, there’s a knock at the door. “Lunch,” Sasha announces.
I take a look at the tray he’s holding and grimace. “I’d rather chew the bedpan than eat another salad.”
“Unfortunately for you, while the bedpan is high in iron, it severely lacks in B-complex vitamins.” He sets the tray on my bedside table and settles into the chair where he’s taken up residence these days.
“I’m gonna turn into a huge ‘B-complex’ if you keep force-feeding me rabbit food.”
“Eat,” he growls, “or I’ll strap you to the bed.”
“That would change literally nothing. I’m here anyways, aren’t I?”
Sasha grins. “Now, you’re starting to understand.”
He spears some greens with a fork and holds it out to me. His face says, I dare you to say no.
“I can hold a damn fork, you know.”
“Prove it.” His smirk sharpens. “Move your arm without wincing.”
Bastard. The muscle strain from the fall still burns, but I’d rather swallow live bees than admit it. So, with no other choice, I part my lips. The fork’s edge presses against my tongue.
His eyes never leave mine.
“Happy?” I ask around the tang of radishes and carrots.
“Getting there.” The room dims as thunder rattles the villa. Sasha’s head snaps toward the window, shoulders tensing.
“It’s just a storm,” I remind him.
But he doesn’t relax. Shadows carve his profile into something feral, beautiful. A guard dog waiting to lunge.
The lights die.
I feel his weight shift before I see it—his body curving over mine, one arm braced against the headboard. The generators hum to life seconds later, revealing his knuckles white on the fork.
Only when his eyes meet mine again does he ease back into his chair.
He thrusts the next bite at me. I take it, defiant, even as heat pools low in my belly. Teacup steam fogs his scar when he offers it. Our fingers tangle on the porcelain. He strokes my wrist—once, fleeting—before retreating.
“I really am fine, you know. It’s basically been a week. I could get up and?—”
“You’re fine when I say you’re fine,” he snarls.
The words would sound tyrannical from anyone else. But I’ve learned to read the undertones of fear in Sasha’s voice, the way his growl roughens when he’s worried. It makes me want to simultaneously soothe him and smother him with a pillow.
“Sasha. Seriously. I’m okay. Let me at least feed myself.”
He glares at me for a second. But then he sighs. “Fine. But when I come back to get that tray, it better be gone.”
I throw him a sloppy salute. “Sir, yes, sir. And when you say, ‘Jump,’ I’ll say, ‘How high?’“
He returns my salute with a one-fingered salute of his own. Then he turns to leave, though not without a last, meaningful glance at the salad.
When the door clicks shut behind him, though, I immediately abandon the tasteless shrubbery and pick up the journal from underneath my pillow. Page one has a list I’ve been working on all week.
Pros of Letting Sasha Ozerov Back Into My Life:
Obnoxiously good-looking.
Very tall.
Like, very tall.
My pen hovers. The page blurs. All the things I can’t bring myself to write down go spiraling through my mind’s eye.
His forehead pressed to my hospital bed rail as he prayed. Desperate mutters in Russian. A palm spanning my entire belly and the two worlds contained within it when he climbed in beside me, all restrained strength, like he could shield us from the world with just his ragged breath.
I shiver and redirect my attention to the other half of the page.
Cons:
Lied about Jasmine.
Violent.
Like, very violent.
It’s a stalemate.
Outside, warm rain slaps the courtyard tiles. Sasha’s voice slices through the storm, arguing with Kosti about how to repair the sputtering generator. He leans against the villa’s crumbling fountain, one hand pressed to his ribs. Even from here, I see the tension in his jaw, the damp sheen on his temple.
Stubborn protectiveness , I write in the Pros column, then immediately scratch it out. That’s not necessarily a good thing—his overcautious hovering drives me crazy half the time. The sad little salad at my side is proof of that.
Sasha’s voice raises up over the wind. “—said ‘generator for everything we could ever need.’ Does that not include actual fucking power, Kost?—”
“—told you I haven’t been here in years! I’m not a damn electrician, son. I barely know how to dial?—”
Jasmine tugs Kosti’s sleeve to pull him away from his rant. “Let Sasha play handyman. We need groceries before the roads flood anyway. You and I can take the trip into town.”
The engine of the Peugeot coughs to life. Sasha starts to head inside. But just before he disappears from sight, he pauses and looks up at my window. He stands there, silhouetted, soaked shirt clinging to the hard lines of his back.
The pen squeaks in my hand.
I should resent this. The performative martyrdom. The way he’s grafting himself into the infrastructure of my survival, one repaired fuse and forced beet salad at a time.
But all I taste is hope as he limps down into the cellar.
I make a few half-hearted attempts at the salad before I give up, lean over toward the open window, and scrape the whole thing out into the courtyard. Maybe that asshole rooster will choke on a beet.
The empty plate comes back wet as the storm rages on. I’m fishing for my journal again when suddenly, with a mournful wheeze, the power goes out. And when the lights die this time, they don’t come back.
I count sixty-three heartbeats before I decide, Screw this.
My legs wobble when I swing them over the mattress. An oversized robe hangs from the bedpost. I cinch it around my belly, fabric straining over the growing swell. The floorboards creak as I shuffle toward the door with one hand braced against the wall for support.
Darkness clusters in the hallway. I know these turns by now—right at the crack in the plaster, left where the grandfather clock ticks. Thunder snarls as I reach the stairs from the second story to the ground floor.
A faint, guttural Russian curse rolls up from the shadows.
“Sasha?”
No answer. Just the rasp of labored breathing.
I descend step by step, palm slick on the railing. When I reach the ground floor, I pause and listen. For a moment, there’s nothing. Then I hear it again.
“ Motherfuckinggoddamnblyat’blyat’blyat.”
I suppress a smile. I take it that generator repair is not going so well.
Shuffling my way blindly over to the cellar door, I start the hike downstairs. It’s slow-going in the dark and the stairs are old, so I’m extra careful. But when I reach the bottom, there’s some light.
A flashlight lies propped up in one corner. Its beam catches Sasha crouched against the wall, shirt abandoned to reveal fresh blood seeping through his bandages.
The generator’s guts spill across the floor like it’s just as broken as he is—wires severed, parts scattered. Sasha’s knuckles drip onto a wrench.
“I didn’t know they made handymen so foul-mouthed out here,” I remark.
There’s a clank and another curse as Sasha extracts his head from the mess. “Someone has to do it.”
I can’t help giggling. “Hero complex acting up again?”
He scowls at me. “It’s more useful than your martyr fetish.”
“Says the man who’d rather bleed out than ask for help.”
“This generator is going to be the one bleeding out if it doesn’t start fucking cooperating,” he spits, like he can intimidate the thing into proper working order.
“It takes a big man to insult an inanimate object to its face like that,” I say, suppressing another laugh.
Sasha remains unamused. “You’re supposed to be in bed, not down here antagonizing me from the fucking peanut gallery.”
“Bed is a lot less fun.”
A lot less visually interesting, too. Sasha’s shirtless body may be a wreck, but it’s a beautiful one. His muscles flex as he wrestles a rusted bolt. Sweat glazes the scarred planes of his back, tattoos shifting with every motion.
“And yet, for at least—” He checks his watch by the glow of the flashlight. “—sixteen more hours, it’s the only place you’re allowed to be. Besides,” he adds with a devilish gleam in his eye, “I can think of plenty of ways to have fun in bed.”
That rasping edge in his voice makes my insides squirm in a way I haven’t felt in six long months.
“Stay over there,” I warn him. “The generator is a lot more likely to let you stick your hands in it than I am.”
Sasha laughs. “You weren’t all that hard to convince, if I remember correctly.”
My jaw falls open. “Asshole!” I look around for something to weaponize. Finding a bundle of wires by my feet, I chuck them at his head.
He ducks and keeps laughing. Then it fades into something more serious. “I mean it, though, Ariel. This isn’t me being a control freak; I just want you and the babies to be safe.”
Dammit. Unfair tactics win yet again. It’s criminal that he keeps getting away with this.
“But if you insist on disobeying,” he says, “I’ll carry you upstairs myself.”
Again, something low in my belly quivers in a way that’s not at all unpleasant.
“Fine.” I turn and start the slow trek back to the stairs. That nice heat stays simmering the whole way. It occurs to me how easy it would be to let bygones be bygones. Kosti and Jasmine will be gone for a while yet—maybe hours, if the rain keeps them stranded in town. I could stay down here and take what I want from Sasha. A quick, breathless romp in the dark. No one would have to know. I could pretend it never happened. My hormones, if nothing else, would be extremely pleased.
But I can’t do that. Some bridges can’t be uncrossed, and that’s one of them. I need to remember where the lines are and why I put them there.
It’s for the best this way, I tell myself. Just go back upstairs and climb into bed. Hell, maybe even take Sasha’s suggestion to heart. A little fun in bed all by your lonesome and you can kick that horny can down the road for a little while longer.
That sounds like a much better idea. Once I’m upstairs, I can let myself be transported somewhere else entirely. I’ll dissipate all these unwanted feelings and get back to my grim, unwavering focus on the nine weeks left until the rest of my life begins.
As I reach the top of the stairs, I find that there’s only one problem with that plan.
The door won’t open.
The handle doesn’t budge when I twist it. “This cannot be real.” I try again, but it’s even more stuck than it was before. “Fuck. Fuckity fuck. Uh… Sasha? Can you help me, please?”
The wrench clanks. Sasha’s boots thud up the stairs behind me. His heat presses close as he reaches over my shoulder to try the knob.
“Move,” he growls.
“Wow, so helpful?—”
The door groans but doesn’t budge. Sasha curses again. The flashlight wobbles underneath his face.
He steps back, fingers flexing like he might try to punch through solid oak. I grab his wrist. “Don’t you dare,” I snap as he prepares to turn himself into a battering ram. “If you hurt yourself again, we’d be stuck here until Kosti and Jasmine get home, and who knows how long that’ll be?”
“Goddammit. Fine.” Darkness swallows his smirk. “I guess the fun stays down here for now.”