My older cousins: too many to name. My older brothers: Sergei, Nikolai, Peter. It suddenly reminds me that I did grow up with Sergei. More than just his absence shaped me, and I didn’t really recognize it.
I listen closely as she continues, “You were raised seeing sex as an act of pleasure. Like momentary fun. Love wasn’t a requirement. So I understand.” She exhales. “I just want to know how you do it. How do you shut off the emotional aspect in order to just get physical?”
“You want me to visually describe all of my one-night stands?” I go numb.
She sits more stiffly. “Not all of them—please, don’t give me an exact number.”
If she can’t even stomach that, then how would this ever work? I can’t even fathom sharing the details with her. I want to scrub them all right now, and she’s asking me to push them to the forefront.
I shake my head over and over. “I want to help, not cause you more pain.” She deserves to be unburdened by our past, but this’ll make her freeze-up more.
And I’m not even touching the fact that helping her means she’ll be having sex with other guys. She should be able to, the moral part of me screeches. She deserves to be free of me.
The selfish part of me yells and shouts to hold on for dear fucking life. I already gave Baylee up once. I don’t want to lose her again.
She leans back, dejected. “It was a long shot anyway.”
My mind speeds through our history, and I dump out a container of toothpicks, slowly pocketing them. “Look, you don’t need to be fixed. It’s okay if you can’t separate the emotional from the physical. Both ways are fine, and neither is wrong.”
She nods once and then hesitates, contemplating. “Maybe I shouldn’t do it like you then, but in order to do it my way, I need to figure out how to get over you emotionally. That way I can form an emotional connection to someone else and eventually be physical with them.”
I have no idea how to do that. My emotions are still completely tied around her. I’m no sooner ready to let go than she is. But really, I want to help as much as I can.
A thought pops into my head.
“You could just need closure,” I say. “Like a redo.”
Her brows spike. “With you?”
“Yeah, with me.” I give her a look and upright the empty toothpick holder. “Who else?”
“We can’t touch.” She stares off, remembering earlier at the hotel, the cab. Where I did actually touch her. More than Corporate says I’m allowed to.
I take my cell out of my pocket and set it down. “It’s not going off. No one’s scolding us by email.” I lean forward for the thousandth time. “I can touch you—outside of the Masquerade, we can do anything we want. We’ve just never tried.” There’s the risk of being caught, but it lessens outside of the hotel.
We’re older.
We have more ways to evade Corporate’s vigilant gaze than we did before. More freedoms. Simple ones: I don’t have a curfew set by Nikolai. She doesn’t room with her brother anymore.
Baylee rotates her empty coffee cup, deep in thought.
“Hey,” I whisper, “it’s up to you, krasavitsa.”
She may not be ready to mess with Corporate again, not after we were burned. Since this is our first long conversation, I don’t know where her head is at. She was only initially seeking a talk about her list and my experiences. I pushed things further.
I always do. Nikolai was right. Give me an inch, I go five feet.
I’m okay with that. (Chastise me. Sue me. I don’t care.) Bay looks up. “Let me get this straight.”
“Okay.”
“You want to go through my list and physically redo everything with me?”
“Yeah,” I say, absolutely serious.
“That really seems counter-intuitive.” She eyes me. “Sleep with you to get over you?”
Yeah. It’s dumb.
I think we’re both fighting for a way to see each other more. I’m definitely fighting for a way. It’s a narrow path, but I’ll gladly cross it. “It’s an ending. Something you didn’t get before.”
She stares off for a moment and says, “And maybe…maybe the sex and being with you will be different.”
“Different how?” I ask, nerves infiltrating.
“Well, the last time we were together, we were young. Maybe it’s all in our heads, right?” She winces at this thought. “Maybe time has changed us, and we’re not good together anymore. We’ll never know unless we try again. And then I can move on…”
Chills snake up my spine. I want to defend us, but in the same breath, she’s throwing out a rope to this half-brained idea. The only idea that’ll push us towards seeing each other outside of work. And watching her, I’m not even sure she believes we’ve changed that much.
She adds, “We’ll put a close to us. That way I can finally have sex with other guys.”
Pain flares in my gray eyes. “Or you could just be with me.” I’m a dreamer.
She’s a realist, even when it hurts. “So we’ll be together in secret forever. And you’ll never be able to kiss me in public. No one will know we’re married, and when I get pregnant, I’ll have to tell people the baby belongs to some no-named guy that looks strangely like you.”
“I’m already getting you pregnant?” I tease.
She rolls her eyes, but her face slowly morphs into a smile. “You’re unbelievable.” At this point, I’d usually pull her body against mine.
It’s killing me not to touch her—not to do something more. I want Baylee Wright. No limitations.
No one controlling us.
I want to push the table away and fuck her how she should be fucked. Until her legs quake and her mouth parts and a moan escapes. I want to give her that.
Not some other dude. Me.
I nod to Bay. “Do you have a synonym for unbelievable?”
She raises her brows, acting all grave and poised.
I smile. “I bet you’re missing your thesaurus right about now, huh?”
She throws a sugar packet at me, and we both start laughing. Bay is almost always serious, which I love because it makes breaking her New Yorker cool-as-steel attitude more fun and worthwhile.
But tension soon replaces our laughter, and we’re back to the list.
Even if we quit our jobs, Marc would still enforce the no minors policy. There are no clear answers. There are just risks we can take and safe places we can hide. One is dull, the other is full. Of love, of life.
Our future, together, may be a dangerous mystery, but we can start somewhere.
I catch her gaze. “Let’s just try to work on your list,” I tell Bay, my old best friend, my ex-girlfriend—she meant the entire universe to me. She still does.
“Say we do this,” she says, “and we basically perform my list together. When does it end?”
If the point is to bring closure to each act, there’s only one answer to that. “When we finish all the numbers on your list.” Then it’s over.
I try to push this part, this fact, so far back in my head.
She’s thinking hard.
“Okay?” I ask, but right as I do, my phone vibrates on the table. Her cell buzzes in her wrist wallet.
We both tense.
Act Twenty
Baylee Wright
I check my phone and see a new group text. Involving me, Luka, and the sender.
Before I can even read the message, Luka’s phone goes haywire, buzzing and vibrating incessantly. He can’t click into the texts fast enough.
Luka curses in Russian and shoots up, dialing a number.
“What’s wrong? Is it Timo?” It’s what always happened in New York. He’d wander off wherever his heart took him, and the Kotovas would send out a mass S.O.S. to hunt for Timofei. On occasion, I’d join the search party.
“No, it’s Kat.” He puts his phone to his ear, hand on his head and he starts speaking hurried Russian.
Quickly, I stand and unzip my wallet, about to fish out some cash for the Moon Pie and coffee. Then I freeze at the sight of my cell screen. “Wait, Luka.”
I pick up my phone. The sender in the three-way group text—it’s Katya.
What should I do?!?!?!!! I heard Dimitri + Nik talking in the living room, and D was saying how he hasn’t seen Luk since that seminar thing. D asked about Baylee’s whereabouts. N said he didn’t know but he’d ask me. They seemed mad, and I don’t want to rat you out, Luk. So I hid in the closet, and now N thinks I’m missing.