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“Then why did you get up?”

“Because he was going to make you say it again tomorrow. And the day after.”

I peer up at him, and my heart picks up the beat that I’ve already come to associate with Nikolai. If I could, I would erase the brief conversation with Daniel from my consciousness, start the evening over, press my body against Nikolai and kiss him till neither of us can breathe. I hate that Daniel has spoiled tonight for me. I hate that I let him.

“Who is he?” he asks.

I swallow. “My ex-husband.”

His expression doesn’t falter.

“I ignored the advice of everyone I knew and married Daniel the summer after high school because he was funny and certain, and nobody else had ever been certain about me. We lasted twelve months and three days. Then he proved everyone right and left me one Thursday for a woman from his gym, and I found out on Friday when the rent bounced. I was twenty when the divorce was finalized, and Galina was the one who made me eat.”

Nikolai watches me without moving, though I can see his throat pulsing as though he’s holding back whatever it is he wants to say.

“Three years later, while I was in nursing school, Galina got sick,” I say. “I left school to take care of her. She’s been gone for eighteen months now. And I still come here every morning at four because Rosa needs me and I need somewhere to be at four in the morning.”

Nikolai listens. “How long has he been messaging you?”

“Three days.”

“May I see?”

I hesitate. Then I unlock my phone and hand it to him.

He scrolls through the messages slowly, all the way down. Hey V it’s me. New number lol. Just want to talk. I came by last night, you didn’t come down. You used to answer me. Five minutes. You owe me five minutes.

He reads that last one twice. “Why do you owe him five minutes?” His eyes lock onto mine, and I feel the heat rising up my neck and into my face under his stare.

“I don’t.”

He hands the phone back. “You told me you were fine,” he says.

“I was handling it.”

“You don’t have to handle it alone.”

Nobody has said that to me in a long time. Probably since Galina. I don’t know what to do with it, so I do what I always do: I paste on a smile and say, “I should finish making coffee.”

His hand closes gently around my waist, and the heat from his palm travels straight down to the sensitive area between my legs. “Vera, I want to be here for you.”

I stop.

I don’t want to make him coffee. I don’t want to be in this room with Daniel’s cologne lingering near the entrance. I don’t want Nikolai to put on his coat and leave me with the phone and the door and the soft, reasonable knock.

“Stay,” I say, my voice thick with all the words I haven’t said aloud. “Tonight. Upstairs. Just stay.”

He goes very still. “Tell me that’s what you want, Vera.” His voice is gruff.

“It’s what I want.” I peer up at him, and tears prickle my eyes. “I just want you to hold me.”

For a second he doesn’t answer, and I think I’ve misjudged it. Then his thumb moves once across my knuckles. “I’m yours, Vera. Whatever you want, I’m right here.”

I settle my hand inside his, turn off the counter lights, and lead him through the swinging door and the dark kitchen into the staff room, past the lockers and the place on the tile where he bled, to the narrow door in the corner.

I unlock it, and go up first, and I listen to him follow me, one careful step at a time.

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