Chapter 38
NINA
My voice echoes down the hallway.
I don’t know if he’s here — the place is too quiet, the lights off in every room. Like a ghost of the house that I left, silent and echoing. Familiar but foreign.
I had to go past Vanya’s quarters to get here, because I didn’t take a key to Art’s place when I left. She grinned like the old witch she is, with this unnerving look in her eye that said she’d expected me to come back at precisely this time, in this way.
“You’ve got some sun,” was all she said. “And so have you, darling.” She bent down to scoop Ava into a hug.
We find Art in his study, slumped over his desk, wearing a black t-shirt and sweatpants.
I’m so used to seeing him wear a suit that I didn’t even know he owned a pair of sweatpants. The bottle of whiskey on the desk is half-drunk, the screwed cap off.
He raises his head as I come in and looks up at me, a dazed look in his eyes. Even in the low light, I can see the dark shadows beneath his mismatched eyes. As I meet his gaze, he sits bolt upright.
“Nenoka?” his voice rasps.
“Look at me.” I click my fingers in front of his eyes. Even in this state, it’s a relief to see him.
He reaches a hand out to feel for my face, as though checking I’m really here. As soon as his fingers reach my skin, it’s like he wakes up.
His eyes widen and he glances at his hand as though he’s touched a flame.
“Ava’s here too, Art. Your child. Remember?”
“Bongiorno Daddy!” She hugs his leg and won’t let go. He pats her back clumsily, his face scrunching in confusion at the Italian.
“Ava. Nina. You left…” he loses his train of thought before he can even form a coherent sentence.
I don’t know if I’ve seen Art this drunk. He’s always in control. Especially recently, he’s been unwilling to let himself lose a sliver of power.
“You don’t drink a lot usually, do you?”
He shakes his head sharply, his golden hair tousled and messy.
“You don’t like it when I drink,” Art slurs. “I stopped drinking for you. Not tonight, though. Tonight I did drink. Tonight was two weeks since you left, so I decided you weren’t coming back.”
He stopped drinking for me.
I don’t know if anyone’s ever put me before their own desires before. I didn’t think Art would. Maybe Lisette was right — maybe we do mean more to him than I thought.
“You idiot. You’re going to feel awful tomorrow.”
I place a hand against his forehead and bring him a cool flannel once I’ve put Ava to bed. She wanted to read to Art, thinking he was injured and drowsy like when he had a gunshot wound, but I told her it was bedtime.
“Come to bed, Art.”
He grabs my hand as I lead him towards the bedroom.
“I wanted to say…” he pauses, thinking about it, his voice deeper than usual and raspy from the alcohol. “I‘m sorry, Nina. I should have told you the truth. It wasn’t fair.”
I don’t know if this is the alcohol talking, but the apology lodges under my skin. I nod at him, too choked up to reply.
Please let him mean it.
His face is covered in stubble. There are dark circles under his eyes. What have I done to this man?
“Nina? You’re back?” he croaks in the morning when I hand him a glass of water and aspirin.
“I’ve been back for a while. I think you might have been too drunk to notice when we arrived last night.”
“Fuck, I’m sorry,” he rasps as I hand him a glass of water. “I feel like death.”
“Half a bottle of whiskey’ll do that to you.”
“Especially when it’s the first drop of alcohol in five years.” He winces when I open the curtains.
Squinting at the window, he turns back to me, his face shifting into something like amazement. “You’re really here.”
I hold my hands out and gesture at him. “I didn’t think you’d…”
“Stop functioning completely? Start abusing substances?”
“Any of that, Art. I had decided you wouldn’t really care if we left, with everything else going on. I guess I was wrong.” I perch on the edge of the bed and play with the fringe on the comforter.
“Wrong? You were out of the ballpark, Nenoka.” He slams back the glass of water and aspirin.
“Was it this bad last time that I left?”
Art gives a mirthful laugh, his eyes flashing. He looks broken. “It was so bad that I don’t remember parts of it. Minus the alcohol, minus any kind of distraction or coping mechanism. This time, I think I expected it. Last time, there was no warning sign, you were just gone.”
“You said that last night… that you stopped drinking for me.”
He heaves a sigh. “I stopped drinking. Just in case you came back, Nenoka. I liked to think that you’d be impressed, when you found out. I guess the fact that I was already drunk when I told you ruined the effect of that one.”
I rest my head on his shoulder, looking up at him. “No. I liked it, anyway.”
He strokes my back, then takes my hand, looking at the rings I’m still wearing.
“You’re still wearing your ring. What are you about to say, Nenoka?”
I take a deep breath. “Art. I came back because I think we can make this work. But I need you to fucking listen to me, okay?”
Art’s throat bobs. He nods his head and looks down at me, his uneven eyes blazing into mine. “Whatever you want to say, you can say it. I can take it.”
“I’m deeply in love with you, Artyom Petrov. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to love anyone else.”
Art starts to speak, a smile breaking across his face for the first time all day, but I shut him up with a raised hand.
“But.”
“But?” He tilts his head, his golden curls falling to the side, the light fading from his eyes.
“But none of that fucking matters, Art, unless you can be open with me. Unless you can let me and Ava be a part of your life — your real life, your family, not just the parts that you want to show us. Unless you can be honest with me about the danger and the risks and everything else that’s going through that unfairly handsome head of yours, I can’t do this. ”
“I know I should have told you more, Nenoka. I was just so damn scared that if I did, that if I let you see the truth, you’d leave me. You’d see that this wasn’t a family, it was a toxic cesspit.”
“Well, I don’t care if you come from a toxic cesspit. As long as you know that we need to be better than that, for Ava.”
“I’ll be honest with you, Nina. You can know whatever you want to know. On one condition.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Okay?”
“Never leave me like that again.”
I roll my eyes. “No promises, but I’m not leaving again.”
“I regretted it the second I said you could go, Nenoka. I considered interfering with the Pakhan’s private jet to stop you leaving.”
I huff out a laugh as Art snakes his arm around my waist. “You should have.”
Art ducks his head to my neck and inhales, crushing me against him. “Either way, we’re never doing that again,” he murmurs.
I nod my agreement as his mouth opens in a possessive, claiming kiss against my neck. “I promise.”
I call in to Middlefield to announce my return while Art sleeps off his hangover. When he’s recovered that evening, Art loops his arm around my waist.
“Your freckles,” he smiles. “There are more of them. It suits you.”
“There was sunshine in Italy. You should have seen the amount of sunburn I went through to get here.”
“And you still came back to this.” He points outside at the rain.
“To you.”
I stroke my hand over his cheek and fix his face on mine, so we’re staring straight into each other’s eyes.
“Because it killed me being away from you again. The second that plane left, I wanted to come back to you.”
His full lips part and his eyes heat on mine as he traces a finger over my left cheek. “Cassiopeia. It’s still there, even amongst all these new freckles.”