Chapter 12 #2
It was almost as if they'd forgotten Nikolai was there, which was fine.
He enjoyed their relaxed interaction. It was something they'd never had in his home.
He didn't think he'd had a conversation with Dimitri that wasn't fraught with tension.
It had been there before Nikolai realized he liked boys and only boys, but afterward, every conversation was like crossing a minefield.
With everyone in his family.
He'd tried. Had tried to be straight. It hadn't worked. He'd tried to be nothing, to be without attraction and intimate relations. It had worked for a little while, but the thing with attraction was it sometimes snuck up on you.
He'd stuck to one-night stands, never getting to know his hook-ups. If he never learned their names, all the better. He'd distanced himself from his family but had still tried to be what they wanted him to be.
Then there had been Julian.
Julian, he'd been willing to change for. He'd wanted the world to know Julian was his, and for a few years, he'd been happy. He'd fitted in his skin. He'd been where he was supposed to be.
Until Julian didn't want him anymore. Until his work got to be too much. Until the things he saw during working hours followed him home, and Julian got frustrated with him.
"Hey."
Nikolai jumped at Frode's voice. It looked as if he'd tried to reach him a few times.
"Sorry." Nikolai rubbed a hand over his face. "I should get going too."
* * * *
Frode watched Nikolai. First, he'd been annoyed with him for not leaving with Hjalmar, but when he'd returned to the TV room and seen the faraway look in his eyes, he'd stopped to study him. Sadness clung to him. Or maybe it wasn't sadness, but misery and maybe regret.
"Nikolai."
No reaction, his eyes focused but unseeing.
"Hey."
Nikolai startled. "Sorry." He rubbed a hand over his face in a motion of exhaustion. "I should get going too." But he made no motion to get up.
"Are you okay?"
A ghost of a smile. "I was gonna ask you the same thing. You're fine being here on your own?"
A shiver danced down his spine. Maybe he should get a dog after all. "He only kills women, right?"
Nikolai scrunched his nose. "Appears so."
"So the likelihood of him coming here is non-existent."
He nodded.
"Are you okay?" He didn't care if Nikolai fucking Nesterova was okay, but he'd never seen him like this. He looked lost, and it was so unlike the cocky, annoying man Frode knew him to be.
"I'll be fine, pet."
Asshole. Frode spluttered, and Nikolai grinned, but it lacked the sharp edge it most often held. Something wasn't right with Nikolai today. He was softer, more vulnerable. Had something happened in his private life? Had his family done something?
"Why did you move back here?" Frode did his best not to think about Nikolai, to not be near him, to not remember things Hjalmar said about him, but he'd cut his family off.
"There was a job opening."
Frode shook his head. It wasn't the reason. There were jobs all over the country. Moving back to Berg wasn't a career move.
Nikolai sighed. "My fiancé broke up with me, and I needed to...get away, I guess. But starting over with nothing when you're forty-one sucks. I guess I wanted something familiar."
Frode gaped. "Fiancé? Holy fuck, you were engaged?"
The smile was more like a grimace. "I was. Julian Colby. I was gonna become Nikolai Colby in October. Julian wanted a fall wedding."
Shit. Frode hadn't known he'd had a boyfriend. He walked over to the armchair across from Nikolai, the entire length of the coffee table between them. "Were you together for long?"
"Eight years."
Frode swallowed. Eight years. Nikolai fucking Nesterova in a committed relationship. He never believed he'd see the day. "What happened?"
Nikolai snorted. "I'm not entirely sure, but according to Julian, it was my fault."
On a normal day, Frode would've agreed wholeheartedly, but the anguish wrapping around Nikolai made him bite his tongue. "How's so?"
Nikolai shrugged. "I work too much. I missed one too many dinner reservations because I was too wrapped up in a case, and he got tired of waiting.
" A humorless laugh. "I can't say he's wrong.
I didn't forget about him, and I never left him sitting waiting in a restaurant or anything along those lines.
I called or texted to let him know I wouldn't be able to make it.
I wanted to spend time with him. I loved him.
" He looked into Frode's eyes as if willing him to believe him, and right then Frode did.
He hadn't been sure Nikolai was capable of love--or that was untrue.
He loved Hjalmar. It was clear as day. But Frode hadn't been sure he'd been capable of a romantic kind of love. Clearly, he'd been wrong.
"But when I was closing in on a killer, I couldn't make myself switch off the desk lamp and go sit across from him in a cozy restaurant and flirt.
" He shook his head. "I tried, but he could always tell when my mind was elsewhere, and he'd get angry and think I was disrespectful for not giving him my full attention. "
He rubbed his hand over his face again.
"I can't say he was wrong. And I wanted to give him everything he ever wanted, but lives were on the line, killers walking free while I was wining and dining my boyfriend."
He huffed and threw his hands in the air. "And now you've turned the night into a therapy session."
Frode opened his mouth to ask more questions, but Nikolai spoke over him. "Are you okay? You feel okay being here alone?"
Aww, how sweet. "Had there been any danger, Hjalmar wouldn't have left." He hoped it was true.
"Okay. Call me if you feel unsafe." He got to his feet. "I'll check in tomorrow. I assume the composite drawing will be in--"
"There are two." Frode stood too.
"Two?"
"Yeah. The guy I think is the killer, and a man who touched the rug right before he touched it the first time."
"The first time? You can tell how many times someone's touched something?"
"No. I only see them several times if someone touches it in between. If you'd have touched my remote ten times in a row, I'd only see you once, but if you touched it, and then Hjalmar touched it, and then you touched it again, I'd see those times."
Nikolai nodded slowly. "And you had Yeager draw the man who touched the rug before the man you believe is the killer."
"Yeah. He might be the one who sold it to the killer. If the man who touched the rug before and after the victim but before the forensic team is the killer and not someone who only visited the crime scene."
Nikolai studied him. "Can you come in tomorrow? To talk about the drawings, not to touch anything."
Frode wanted to object. He didn't work cases. He touched things, then pointed at photos or worked with Yeager. It was all. He didn't speculate, didn't investigate, didn't hypothesize. But then again, he normally didn't have his neighbors killed. "Sure. What time?"
"I'll call you when Yeager forwards the drawings."
Frode nodded, and Nikolai took a step closer. "Thanks for the food." He reached out and caught a strand of hair between his fingers. Frode held his breath as he placed it behind his ear. "I like the hair up."
Then he stepped away, and Frode let out the breath he'd been holding. What the fuck?
* * * *