Thirteen
Caiden
By the time the bottle hits the table, my headache already has a name.
Arseny Zakirov. We’re off duty in the common room.
It’s a mess of noise, bad lighting, beat-up tables, and mismatched chairs.
Somebody’s dragged a radio in, it’s playing something tinny and too loud in Russian that everyone pretends not to notice until the chorus hits.
I’m wedged at a scarred table with four of my lads and Niko.
The tension in my body is finally starting to piss off enough that the knot between my shoulder blades loosens a notch.
I’ve spent most of the day trying very hard not to think about Ari’s hands on me.
It hasn’t worked, not even a little bit.
Every time my brain idles, it goes straight back to the spar, the way he moved, the way he pinned me, that stupid, smug, infuriating little half-smile he wears like he knows exactly what he’s doing to me.
Which, to be fair, he probably does.
Niko laughs at something one of my corporals says. His head is tipped back, and he has that easy glow to him that makes everyone within ten feet twenty percent less miserable.
“You’re cheating,” I tell him, eyeing the way his cards stay tucked close against his chest, his face giving nothing away. “There’s no way you pulled that many hearts by accident.”
“The only cheating here is your maths, Caiden. You just don’t like losing.”
“Doesn’t count as losing if you’re cheating,” I mutter.
The lads snicker, and someone tops my glass up with vodka, the decent stuff, not the paint thinner they serve in the mess.
The warmth creeps down my throat and settles in my stomach.
I’m at that fuzzy line between relaxed and reckless when he shows up.
He doesn’t make an entrance — he never does. It’s not his style. One second, the doorway’s empty, the next there he is, like the room’s been rewritten around him. Ari’s in his off-duty kit: fatigues, a long-sleeved shirt, his sleeves shoved up to his forearms.
His blond hair is pushed back, with a strand falling loose onto his forehead.
There’s a cut on his lip, probably from training earlier, and I hate that I notice it.
“Ah, no,” Mason mutters under his breath in front of me when he clocks the new arrival.
“Not him. I’m too tired for international incidents. ”
“Shut up and play your hand,” I say, without taking my eyes off Ari.
He scans the room lazily, with that same mix of boredom and amusement that makes my skin prickle and starts weaving through the tables.
A few blokes straighten when they see him.
A couple of Russians nod, and another pretends not to notice.
Ari ignores all of them.
“Look at this,” he says as he reaches us, dropping a hand onto Niko’s shoulder. Of course, he ends up at our table. “All my favourite trouble in one place.”
“You’re late,” Niko says, shrugging him off, but his grin says he’s pleased. “We started without you.”
“Tragic,” Ari drawls. “Deal me in.” He pulls a chair from the next table over with his foot, dragging it backwards and dropping into it between Niko and me.
“Evening, Sergeant,” I say, keeping my tone as neutral as possible.
“Evening, Lance Corporal,” he replies lightly. “You look tense. Is that because of the cards, or are you... uncomfortable?”
I throw a card down a little harder than necessary. “Maybe I just don’t like crowds.”
“This isn’t a crowd,” he says.
Niko sighs, swapping a card. “We’re off duty,” he reminds his brother. “Try being less you, for five minutes.”
“Why?” Ari asks. “I’m delightful.” He says it with a straight face, and somehow that makes it worse.
The game rolls on, and the room gets louder.
Stories get told — some true, some stretched beyond recognition — and laughter sparks and dies in pockets.
Niko leans into my space when he’s telling a story about some idiot who tried to jump a ditch and ended up face-first in a frozen stream.
“And this one,” he says, jabbing his thumb toward Ari, “is laughing his head off on the bank instead of helping.”
“I was assessing the situation,” Ari protests.
“You were wheezing like you were going to need a medic yourself,” Niko snorts. The whole table laughs, including me, which is a problem because when I laugh, I let my guard down, and when I do, I hear things I shouldn’t.
Like Ari’s breathing next to me.
His knee knocks into mine under the table and doesn’t move away. Heat rushes up my leg, and I tell myself it’s the vodka. He leans in to reach for the bottle, and his shoulder brushes my arm. Then, absolutely deliberately, his breath ghosts my ear.
“Relax, detka,” he murmurs so quietly that no one else hears it. The pet name, whatever it is — the way he says it, it’s as if he’s testing how much he can get away with in plain sight.
My brain fumbles, buffer overflow, error, error.
“You miss a go or you just like looking at your cards?” Mason asks. My hand is still fanned out, practically untouched.
“Keep your shirt on,” I mutter, playing a card.
Ari hums a little pleased sound beside me like he’s filed something away for later.
The bottle makes another round, and Niko throws in a story about a joint exercise in Germany.
One of my lads answers with something from Bosnia, and the radio crackles through a static-filled chorus.
But you can barely hear it over someone at the next table shouting dares.
It’s noisy, messy, and human. It should be easy to drown in and forget the man sitting a few inches away, but he doesn’t let me. Whenever I start to relax, he’s there. For everyone else in the room, it probably looks like we’re just shifting in our seats. But I feel every single point of contact.
Our knees bump under the table, the inside of his foot grazes mine when he crosses his legs, then his fingers brush the back of my hand when he reaches for the bottle I’m holding. Each little touch is nothing by itself — a glitch, almost an accident.
Put together, it’s a campaign.
Little whispers in Russian slip out of him between conversations. He throws a comment in Niko’s direction, then mutters something else just loud enough for me to hear as he brings his glass to his mouth.
“Tak napryazhenno,” So tense, he purrs, his lips barely moving, and my stomach drops. “Mnogo mysley v etoy golove, da?” There are a lot of thoughts in that head, yes? He’s doing it on purpose, he has to be. No one uses that tone by accident. What he’s saying doesn't even matter.
God, I wish I knew Russian.
I try to ignore it and focus on the cards, on the pattern, on the game, on anything that isn’t his damn mouth and the curl of those syllables wrapping around my spine.
It works for about thirty seconds.
The hand ends, I lose again, and Niko laughs at me. The sound of it would have made me blush a week ago. Now it just makes my chest tighten with something like affection and grief shoved together. “Another?” Niko asks, gesturing to the deck.
“I’m in,” Mason says.
“In,” one of the Russians adds in accented English, grinning.
I should say yes, sit here and sink another couple of hours into pretending I haven’t got electricity under my skin. “I’m out. I’ve got enough of a headache already.”
“Are you okay?” Niko asks, frowning.
“Fine,” I lie. “I just need some air.”
Ari’s gaze flicks sideways at me. “Air?” he repeats.
“I’m going outside,” I say, pushing my chair back. “I’ll be back in ten.”
Mason squints. “You want—”
“No,” I cut in. “Stay. Win my money back from these lot, yeah?” He shrugs and lets me go. Niko watches me leave and looks at me like he’s trying to decide if he should follow. He doesn’t get the chance because I’m already moving to the door. “Don’t cheat while I’m gone,” I toss over my shoulder.
“Learn to play better,” Niko shoots back, his laughter following me out of the door.
The corridor is a slap of cold and quiet, and I head toward the back of the building, away from the bunks, the warmth and the noise.
I don’t go outside; it’s too exposed out there, with too many eyes even in the dark. Instead, I cut left, down a side corridor, and toward the equipment sheds. They’re not exactly private, but they’re less public, and that’s enough for me.
I find one that I know is kept unlocked, and the handle gives under my hand. Inside, it’s dark and cold, and I step in, shutting the door behind me, letting my head fall back against it with a soft thunk.
I exhale slowly, curling my hands into fists until my knuckles ache. “Get a grip,” I mutter. “He’s just a bloke. A deeply irritating, beautiful bloke who can break you in half and knows it, but still just a bloke.” Saying it out loud doesn’t help.
I scrub a hand over my face, resisting the urge to actually smack myself. The movement drags my shirt up enough that cold air licks my stomach, and I shiver.
Then the door shifts against my back.
I go still, my breath locking in my throat. The hinges creak, light slices in for a second as the door swings open, then narrows again when a body slips through and the door clicks shut. I don’t need to see him; my whole nervous system identifies him before my eyes do.
“Jesus Christ,” I hiss. “Do you not know how to leave people alone?” Ari’s silhouette resolves in the gloom as my eyes adjust, the little bit of light from the vents outlining him in the dark.
“Not really, no,” he says calmly. “You left the room abruptly. That’s suspicious.”
“And you touching me every thirty seconds isn’t?” I snap.
“Was I?” he asks, and I hate that my insides respond to the sound of his voice. He takes a few steps closer, and the shed suddenly feels a lot smaller. I back up, and my back hits a metal shelving unit, sending a muffled clank through the space.
“Go away, Arseny,” I say. “I came out here to be alone.” He ignores that completely.
“What’s wrong, detka?” he asks, his voice dropping into that lower register that slides under my skin. “Too much noise? Too many people? Too much me?”
“Not everything is about you,” I bite out.