“I’m going to feed the pigeons and reflect on my life choices like a true New Yorker.” I turned back around, and each second I struggled with this lock, the frustration beneath my skin inflated and inflated, until it felt like I would burst.
“I didn’t get home until after three last night. I didn’t want to wake you.”
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“No.” His voice was vehement. “This isn’t over.”
I’d thought he had wanted to end this, and now, the deepness and intensity of his voice warmed my heart with relief and elation. But there wasn’t enough room for all these overwhelming feelings, and they all exploded like a tripwire.
I faced him, leaving my key stuck in the lock. “Listen, Christian. All of this”—I gestured between us—“is too much drama for me. I swear, I’ve gained at least five pounds from the stress! And I am not giving up chocolate, dammit!”
His jaw tightened as he watched an angry tear run down my cheek. “There won’t be any more drama, Gianna. This is exclusive now.”
It wasn’t lost on me that I’d just told him I was ending this relationship and he’d countered with making it more serious.
I blinked. “Exclusive, just sex?”
He shook his head, something sardonic passing through his eyes. “Whatever you want it to be, malyshka.”
I swallowed. “You’re leaving any day now, Christian. Let’s just call a spade a spade. This isn’t going to last forever.”
“I’m moving back to New York.”
My heart dropped. “What? Why?”
His gaze touched mine as he said, “I missed the city.”
Oh.
“You called me flighty,” I breathed.
“I meant perfect.”
I stood there with a bag of bread in my hand, my key stuck halfway in my lock, while this man I used to despise ran a thumb across my cheek.
What an odd sequence of events.
But I had to say, something about it felt undeniably right.
He fed the pigeons with me. Well, he didn’t actually pull off a piece of bread and toss it—menial labor, I guessed—but he did sit on the bench beside me. I’d insisted I didn’t need an escort to the park, but was cut off by, “Knowing you, you’ll get arrested. I’m coming,” and that had been the end of that.
I joked about taking a selfie and wondering if he’d even show up in the picture. He told me he showed up just fine while fucking me in front of the bathroom mirror.
I asked him what moya zvezdochka meant. He said it meant, my little star.
He asked me what the scar on my chin was from. I told him a lack of self-control and the chickenpox.
I asked him if he kissed all his neighbors or just me. He looked me in the eye and said, “You’re the only woman I’ve ever kissed, malyshka.”
I stopped asking questions after that.
Because everything inside me had tilted on its axis.
We walked back to the building while I teased him about wearing a designer suit to the park. He got a good jab in about my galaxy leggings, telling me he must have missed hearing about the Star Wars convention coming to town.
He was cool, icy control.
But something burned hot beneath the surface.