10. All Of This
All Of This
Kiri
My thumb stills against the railing. “Excuse me?”
I should laugh; that’s the move. Give her a grin, say something filthy, make it easy.
Make it Bomos-shaped. Charm is useful because people mistake it for honesty if you do it well enough.
But Natalia doesn’t, that’s the problem.
She sees the mechanics under the trick. It’s irritating. It’s also, unfortunately, hot as hell.
“The bullshit,” I repeat. “Which bullshit specifically? I have a range.”
She can't hold back a smile of victory.
“The great and noble Kiri who listens to Rafe and behaves like a poor little kicked puppy? That range. I don't know which version to believe,” she says, tapping her nails on the metal. “The plans. The jokes about flying me out and meeting somewhere ridiculous so nobody would know. The way you said my name like…” She swallows, and I feel it like a punch. “It didn’t sound like bullshit.”
"It wasn't," I answer, almost too fast. She scoffs and tilts her head, narrowing her eyes. She doesn't believe me and I don't blame her.
“Was it some big joke?” She puts one hand on her hip, like she's gearing up to destroy me with whatever comes next. “Two sisters for the price of one? Rockstar package deal?”
"You were never a joke, Nat." She sighs, her shoulders sagging, her frustrated breath blown out over Seoul.
"Could've fooled me." Her eyes search for something, anything to stop the tears I can see forming every time she blinks. Her eyes find my hand gripping the rail so tight it might just break. “Why all the birds?” she asks suddenly, a deflection wrapped in the honey of her voice.
Her fingers trail the tattoos on my hand.
The ones inked across my knuckles, a murder of crows.
A quiet reminder of what I don’t say out loud, what I keep buried under them.
Her thumb grazes the edge of them, soft and tender like she’s reading braille.
I jerk slightly, because the contact feels like a jolt straight to my spine.
“Don’t,” I almost bark. “Don’t touch—.”
She doesn’t pull back. “Why not?”
“Because I’m trying to be good,” I say, and the laugh that slips out is humorless. “I promised I’d be good. Not for me, but for you.”
She traces another line of ink along my forearm until it disappears into my jacket. “You don’t look like you want to be good. Whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean.”
I don’t know where this performance between us ends tonight.
I don’t know whether I’m being good because I should be, or because I’m afraid to find out what happens if I stop.
Does behaving even count if every part of me is already misbehaving in my head?
Does restraint really matter if I’m standing here imagining her moaning my name?
I squeeze the railing tighter just to keep my hands off her. “Natalia.”
“Yes?” she echoes in a tone to imply she’s bored, like she doesn’t know exactly what she’s doing to me.
“I know you’re fucking with me, trying to see how long before I'll crack. This isn't some game, you know?”
“Oh, Kiri. When did you become so boring? You were more fun before,” she teases.
I inhale; my breath gets caught on the uptake. “You should be careful with this whole situation, with—”
“With what?” she interrupts. Her eyes meet mine, full of challenge and fire.
“With me," I say quietly, and the truth in my voice makes her still. "Because I can only stop myself so many times before I break and give in. To you. To this.”
For a moment, she softens. Then she steps even closer.
“I never asked you to stop,” she says.
I don’t realize I’ve moved until we’re almost chest to chest, the city buzzing somewhere far below us. She tilts her chin up in that defiant, stubborn way of hers, daring me to make this mistake. So I do what any idiot with blood in his veins would do. I lean in.
I huff a disbelieving laugh. “You’re driving me insane, you know that, don’t you? I’ve been hard for like forty-eight hours straight,” I murmur, letting the alcohol talk for me with a shake of my head.
“Oh I know,” she whispers back, wearing a grin almost too wicked for a face so beautiful.
I let out a short, frustrated sigh. “Rafe’s right, you know? You should run, from me, from all of this.”
She grabs my shirt.
In one glorious motion, every thought in my head goes silent.
Her nails dig into the fabric, sharp through the cotton, and she pulls me down to her like she’s done asking permission from anybody.
My body follows before my brain can catch up.
I’m weak with her this close. Who am I kidding? I’ve been weak since this started.
Her mouth is right there. So close I can feel the heat of her breath, so close I can smell the fruity gloss on her lips.
Her eyes drop to my mouth, then lift back to my eyes, and the pleased curve of her smile almost puts me in the ground.
I swear I stop breathing. Somewhere inside me, a voice is screaming that Rafe will kill us both, that her family will lose their minds, that this is the worst possible idea I’ve ever had.
That I am standing on a rooftop in Seoul with Natalia Sawadzka holding my shirt like she owns me, and if I let her close the last inch, I’m finished.
The problem is, I want to be finished. She rises onto her toes and my heart pounds hard enough to hurt.
I see it all before it happens. My hands at her waist, her back against the railing, her fingers in my hair.
That furious sound she’d make if I bit her bottom lip.
The whole city spread out behind her while she obliterates all my good intentions.
Then, suddenly, she pulls away. My mouth meets nothing but cold air and I freeze. Natalia’s smile widens. On full display, it's fucking lethal. Then she lifts one finger between us and wags it.
“No,” she says softly.
I stare at her. My brain has been unplugged. There’s nothing in my skull now except lust and the fuzzy knowledge that I've just been murdered in a way no coroner can prove.
“No?” I repeat, and my voice sounds wrecked enough to embarrass me. Her eyes flick down my body.
“No,” she says, smug now. Evil.
I let out a laugh, but it’s rough and useless, dragged out of me like she’s got her hands around my balls.
Which she does, clearly. She presses her palm to my chest and pushes me back.
I don't protest because if I don't let her, then I’m going to do something dumb. Historic levels of dumb, the kind of dumb that ends with Rafe kicking my door in and my name trending next to words like betrayal and midlife crisis. Natalia smooths the front of my shirt like she didn’t just destroy me with an almost-kiss.
“See?” she says. “You can behave.”
I drag a hand over my mouth and look away, because if I keep looking, I’m going to start negotiating with the Buddha himself for her, in every lifetime.
“I've never been less behaved in here though.” I tap my thick skull, so full of things she'd never survive knowing.
“You didn’t even touch me.”
“That's not the same thing as behaving.”
She laughs, and the sound slides under my skin, so pleased with herself.
“So what’s different now? From last year?
” she asks like my brain can function after what she just pulled.
She looks at me, the empty stare of a neanderthal, and laughs so hard she doubles over.
She grabs her stomach with those deadly nails that I imagine clawing down my back and it's so infectious I can't help but follow.
After a long while, with all that sexual tension turned into laughter, it finally eases and we both heave a sigh in unison.
I look out over the edge of the terrace, over the smear of traffic and neon below us, because looking at her is getting dangerous. Because she’s standing too close. Because every time she asks for the truth, some stupid part of me wants to hand it over just to see what she does with it.
“A lot,” I finally say. It comes out rough and vague. Useless, so I reach for more. “It’s complicated now.”
“Complicated?”
I drag my tongue over the inside of my cheek, trying to find a version of this that doesn’t make me sound like a complete asshole. I fail.
“Back then, I figured Rafe and Kasia would fizzle out. I mean, she's a doctor, he's a… poetic lunatic honestly. A genius, sure, but he's lost in this shit sometimes. Him and Rith can disappear for days in their worlds. In their heads. I didn't see it lasting, you know?”
I should stop there but I don't because I'm an idiot. Because I’ve decided to walk directly into traffic and complain about the headlights.
“That it’d be another—” I shake my head once, already hating myself. “I don’t know. You’re both hot? Into rockstars and a good time?”
The warmth drains from her face, I can see it in my peripheral vision. My eyes snap to hers, apologetic. Regret arrives a second too late. Shit.
“I see,” she says.
My stomach drops.
“That’s not—”
“No, finish, please.” She folds her arms tight across her chest. “Go on. I can’t wait to hear this.”
“Look, it's the soju. I’m saying this wrong—”
“I’m fascinated now.” Her voice has gone cold enough to make the air feel warmer by comparison. “So what? I was just someone to fuck? Just free porn because I posted a few cute pictures and messaged the wrong asshole bassist?”
My hand drags over my jaw. Take it back, you idiot.
Just take it back. But now I’m cornered, and stupid, and feeling defensive because she’s not wrong enough.
Now I feel exposed because she walked right up to the ugliest little part of it and put her finger on the truth, that maybe I didn't see a future in this, only a good time. At least, at first.
“I mean, don’t act like none of this matters,” I say, gesturing to me, the club, Seoul below us. “It's why you sent me a message in the first place.”
Her eyes narrow, so piercing she could stab me with them. That's a warning sign. A massive one, flashing red. Sirens blaring, an evacuate immediately announcement. But for some reason, I keep going anyway.
“You did act like a groupie. What was I supposed to think?
It's not like we were ever gonna get married or something.” I scoff at the idea but it's just bravado.
Pretending at being casual for the hell of it.
I don't even know what I'm doing anymore.
I guess I'm trying to commit suicide via a whirl of dyed-blonde hair and rage at this point.
The terrace goes silent, between us, everything stops. She glares at me. She looks at me like something in her has just stepped back, crossed its arms, and decided I’m not worth the heat.
Fix it, moron. What the fuck are you doing?
“Natalia—”
She steps in and jabs one finger into the center of my chest. I don’t flinch. I just stand there and take it, because I deserve it, and because if she touches me in anger at least she’s still touching me. That’s how fucked up this is.
“So, let me get this straight. You were all in when we might just fuck a few times between L.A. and Seattle, but now?” Her laugh comes out brittle. “Now, that it might mean something, now that Rafe and my sister are actually in love and not just having some fling, suddenly I’m a problem?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“It’s exactly what you meant. Don’t you dare stand there acting like you were the mature one,” she says. “Like you were saving me from your dark, damaged soul or whatever the fuck you rehearse in hotel mirrors.”
Despite everything, that one almost gets a laugh out of me. It’s accurate enough to be humiliating.
“You loved me wanting you,” she says. “You loved me saying all those things to you."
My eyes flash with the truth of it before I can stop them. Her chest is rising and falling too fast now, but her voice stays determined, unrelenting.
“But now I’m here, not just some message on your phone, and suddenly you’ve discovered morals.”
“That's not fair.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Her eyes go glacial. “Did I hurt your feelings?”
The cold whips around us, but heat pulses between us with nowhere to go. Anger has always been too close to attraction with her. Every word feels like a touch. Every insult is one step nearer to the edge.
I look away, then I turn back to her.
“I wanted it to be simple.”
“No,” she says instantly. “You wanted it to be meaningless.”
“Yes,” I snap. “Yes. Fine. Is that what you want me to say? I wanted it to be meaningless because wanting you was already a very bad idea. Because you're Kasia’s sister. Because you were online and far away. Even if you're funny and beautiful and said things that got under my skin, I could tell myself it wasn’t real enough to ruin anything.”
Her throat tightens. I step closer, then stop myself before I do something worse, hands flexing uselessly at my sides.
“And then it got real anyway… but this?” I shake my head. “Us? It can’t happen. Rafe didn’t ask me to back off nicely, you know?” The words taste like regret even as I speak them. “He told me this was off limits. He broke my phone just for talking to you.”
Natalia’s mouth parts in disbelief.
“He said you’re too young for me. That part’s true, Nat. We both know it.”
Her eyes widen. “Too young?”
“Natalia—”
“No.” She steps back like I’ve insulted her to her bones. “Kurwa. Bullshit.”
I drag a hand through my hair. “You’re twenty-three. I’m thirty-six. That’s—”
“That’s math,” she cuts in.
“It’s not just math.”
“No, it’s bullshit dressed up as math because you’re… scared.”
“I’m not scared.”
The lie is so bad even I don’t believe it.
Her laugh is angry enough I can almost feel it slap me in the face. “Please.”
My jaw works. She looks me up and down like I’ve disappointed her in every possible lifetime. That look gets under my skin faster than any insult.
“You know what, Kiri?” she says.
My expression tightens.
“Fuck. You.”
I take it because there’s nothing else to do.
She stares at me, like she’s waiting for me to become someone better.
Someone brave enough to say the right thing or who doesn’t take the worst possible route through every feeling he’s too much of a coward to name.
I have nothing, or I have too much. Same difference.
Her mouth trembles, and that kills me. Then she turns away.
I watch her walk back toward the terrace door, while every instinct in me lunges after her.
My feet stay planted. If I follow her now, I don’t know if I’ll apologize or pull her into me, if I’ll fix it or just make it worse.
I don’t know if I want to be forgiven as much as I want to hear her say my name like she did before she hated me, all those messages I replayed over and over just to hear her say it.
The door opens, spilling music and warmth around her. She doesn’t look back, then she’s gone. I stand there with the cold pressing into my skin and the soju sour on my tongue, watching the place she disappeared through even when my chest feels like it might break open at the sight.
Good job, Kiri.
Really fucking noble.