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For the first few days after that night in the kitchen, Artyom kept his distance.
He was up at six, while it was still dark and the house still slept. Dressed quickly, came down the stairs carefully, testing each step before he put his weight on it. Every morning his eyes caught on the dark window across the hall.
He ran through empty streets while cold air pricked at his lungs. Back by seven, shower, then downstairs to the kitchen, where Vlad was already at the table with his phone. They nodded at each other. Spoons clinked against bowls, the coffee maker hissed. No other sounds passed between them.
At eight they drove to the university. Vlad in the passenger seat, eyes on the window. Artyom turned the music up to fill the silence.
He came home late, stayed in the library or sat in a cafe with his laptop until the lights in the house were out and the room across the hall had gone quiet.
At practice they worked together. Passes, combinations, attack drills. Boris Petrovich was pleased.
"Now that's what I want to see! Keep it up!"
The team stopped whispering. Voronov and Makarov stopped exchanging looks. It seemed like things had settled.
Off the ice, they moved through the house as if the other didn't exist. Artyom had decided this was how it would be, and he held to it. Vlad seemed to accept the arrangement. The first three days he was quiet: rode in silence, ate quickly and disappeared to his room. At practice he was focused, professional.
Artyom almost relaxed.
Almost convinced himself the worst was behind them.
* * *
Everything changed on Wednesday. The fourth day.
Artyom came down for breakfast to find Vlad already at the table, scrolling through his phone. Irina was pouring him coffee, asking something about practice. Vlad answered -- politely, with a smile. His mother laughed.
Artyom crossed the kitchen, took an apple from the bowl, and headed for the door.
"Tyoma, aren't you going to eat something?"
"Not hungry. I'll be in the car."
He didn't look back. But he heard the silence that settled behind him.
In the car, Artyom waited seven minutes. Vlad came out, dropped into the passenger seat. Said nothing. Artyom started the engine.
They made it two blocks before Vlad spoke, still looking out the window.
"Your mom asked me why you don't talk to me."
Artyom said nothing.
"I told her everything was fine. That we're both just busy."
Silence.
"She didn't believe me."
Artyom shifted gears. The light ahead turned yellow. He braked.
"And?"
"Nothing." Vlad turned to look at him. Artyom kept his eyes on the road. "Just figured you'd want to know."
Green. He pulled forward.
"I don't."
A pause.
"Okay," Vlad said. Something strange in his voice. Too even. "Got it."
He didn't say another word for the rest of the drive.
But that evening, it started.
* * *
Artyom came back from his run at around eight. His shirt was soaked through, hair damp with sweat, his lungs pleasantly burned -- the right kind of pain, the good kind. He'd gone farther than usual. Thirteen kilometers, maybe fourteen. He hadn't counted. He'd just run until his legs gave out.
He went upstairs and reached for the bathroom door handle.
Locked.
Water running behind the door, and music, loud and relentless. Heavy-beat rap that made the handle vibrate under his fingers.
The second bathroom was in his parents' room, at the other end of the hall. He couldn't make himself go there. Too private. Too awkward.
He knocked.
The music didn't stop.
He knocked harder, knuckles sharp against the wood.
"LEBEDEV! HOW LONG?"
"TWENTY MINUTES!" came back through the noise of the water.
Artyom stepped back and returned to his room. Dropped his wet shirt on the chair -- the fabric hit the back with a damp slap. Sat on the bed. The muscles in his legs twitched from the run, his skin cooling and beginning to itch.
He checked the time. 7:43 p.m.
Twenty minutes. He could wait.
Artyom lay down on his back and closed his eyes. He thought about a hot shower. The water washing away the sweat, the fatigue, the low-grade tension he carried everywhere lately.
The music through the wall thumped on. He felt the bass in his ribs.
7:48.
Fifteen more minutes.
He picked up his phone. Scrolled through his feed without reading any of it. Replied to Pasha about tomorrow's test. Checked the weather.
7:56.
The music hadn't stopped.
Artyom got up. Walked across the room. Sat back down.
8:03.
Twenty minutes had passed.
He went to the door, pressed his ear against it. Water still running.
8:09.
The sweat on his back had dried and his skin felt tight, like he wanted to peel it off along with the waiting.
8:15.
Thirty-two minutes.
Artyom stepped into the hallway. Walked to the bathroom door. Knocked, his knuckles hitting the wood hard and sharp.
"LEBEDEV!"
The water cut off.
A beat of silence.
The music stopped.
The door swung open.
Vlad stood in the doorway, toweling his hair with one hand, unhurried. Black sweatpants rode low on his hips, and when he stretched, the muscles of his stomach tightened, every line of them defined.
Water ran down his chest, over his ribs, disappeared under the waistband. His skin was still flushed from the heat, still damp, and it seemed to glow faintly in the dim hallway light. Steam drifted out with him, carrying shower gel and that damn cologne -- the smell hit Artyom in the face and settled on his tongue.
He made himself look up. At his face. Only at his face.
"What?" The corner of Vlad's mouth curved.
"You said twenty minutes. It's been half an hour."
Vlad threw the towel over his shoulder and raised his eyebrows in an expression of such exaggerated surprise that Artyom's hands wanted to do something about it.
"Really? Didn't notice. Time flies when you're getting clean."
He took a step forward, passing so close that Artyom felt the warm dampness radiating off his skin, caught the smell of soap and sharp cologne.
"Sorry, Captain. Needed a thorough wash."
His door closed.
Artyom stood in the hallway looking at it.
He knew. Vlad had done every second of this on purpose.
Artyom went into the bathroom and turned on the cold water. Straight to cold. He stepped under the stream and gasped as it hit his overheated skin.
He didn't switch it to warm.
He stood there until his body started to go numb.
* * *
The next day it happened again.
Artyom got back at half past seven, legs aching from the run, wanting nothing but a hot shower. He went upstairs quickly.
Bathroom locked. Music blaring.
He didn't even bother knocking.
"TWENTY MINUTES!" Vlad called, as if he'd known Artyom was standing there.
Artyom leaned against the wall opposite. Started timing.
Forty-three minutes.
Vlad came out in the same sweatpants, hair wet. Saw Artyom against the wall and smiled.
"Waiting again? Sorry. Lost track of time."
He walked past. Close enough that his damp shoulder brushed Artyom's arm.
Not an accident. Artyom had already worked that out. Nothing Vlad did was an accident.
On Friday, Vlad took the bathroom at seven fifteen, the exact moment Artyom returned from his run. Artyom knocked. Waited. Knocked again.
Quarter to eight -- time to leave. Door still locked, music still going.
Eight o'clock. Artyom stood outside with his fists clenched. First class in forty minutes, thirty-minute drive.
Vlad came out at eight ten. Fresh, relaxed, towel over his shoulders.
"Oh, you're still here? Sorry, got held up."
Artyom walked past him into the bathroom without a word. Showered in four minutes. Dressed in two. Out the door at eight twenty.
He was late for his first class. Economics. For the first time in two years.
The professor looked up over his glasses when Artyom walked in. Said nothing. The silence was worse than any comment would have been.
Artyom sat down at his desk and opened his notebook.
The words blurred. All he could see was Vlad's smile and that easy 'sorry, lost track of time.'
A lie. All of it, a lie.
* * *
By the end of the first week of December, something new began.
Monday. Morning.
Artyom got behind the wheel and started the engine. Glanced back to check he had everything.
A jacket on the back seat. Leather.
Vlad got in the passenger side.
"You left your jacket," Artyom said.
"Oh?" Vlad glanced back. "Yeah, must have left it yesterday. It's fine, I'll get it later."
"Get it now."
"It's not in the way."
"Lebedev."
"Alright, alright."
Vlad reached back, dropped the jacket onto his lap.
"Happy now?"
Tuesday. A water bottle in the cupholder.
Wednesday. A glove on the back seat.
Thursday.
Artyom got in the car. A pair of headphones on the back seat. Black. Vlad's.
"This is my car," Artyom said quietly. "Keep track of your things."
Vlad looked up from his phone. Looked at him slowly, taking his time.
"Relax, Sokolov. What's the difference? We ride together anyway."
"There's a difference."
"What difference?"
Artyom started the engine. Turned the music up louder than usual.
The headphones stayed on the back seat.
* * *
At practice the provocations continued, subtler now, invisible to everyone else.
Tuesday. Combination drills. The ice gleamed under the floodlights, the smell of cold and rubber in the air. Blades cutting into the surface, sticks snapping against the puck. The familiar sounds that usually settled something in Artyom.
Usually.
Voronov sent him a pass. Artyom took it, felt the familiar weight of the puck on the blade. Pushed forward, beat the defender, caught Vlad in position out of the corner of his eye. Put the puck through, clean and accurate.
Vlad took it first touch and put it in the net. Beautiful. Effortless.
Boris Petrovich whistled.
"Yes! That's the game!"
Vlad skated over to him and stopped close. Too close, close enough that Artyom felt his breath through the cage of his helmet.
"Not bad, Captain. Almost like a real player."
He smiled and skated away.
Artyom gripped his stick and followed.
* * *
He came out of the locker room and saw her immediately. She was standing by the exit in a short skirt despite the December cold. Fitted top, bold lipstick, long red-painted nails.
Vlad walked over to her. Smiled, easy and warm, as if he hadn't been pressing Artyom into the boards ten minutes ago.
"Hey, beautiful."
"Hey!" She rose on her toes and kissed his cheek. A lipstick print stayed on his skin. "How was practice?"
"Brutal. But worth it for this."
She laughed, bright and too loud for the lobby.
Artyom walked past without looking back, but he heard their laughter. Caught in his peripheral vision the way Vlad leaned to her ear, the way she laughed again and swatted his shoulder.
His stomach turned. Something sour moved up into his mouth, like he'd eaten something bad.
I don't care. I genuinely don't care. He can marry her for all it matters to me.
He pushed through the door. The cold outside hit his face.
* * *
The next day was worse.
Artyom wound up, swung, shot. The puck rang off the post and skidded away.
"Sokolov! Focus!"
He went after it, feeling the heat in his cheeks under the helmet. Not from exhaustion. From anger at himself.
Vlad caught up with him at the boards. Pulled alongside.
"Tired? Maybe you need a rest."
His voice was soft, almost concerned. Almost kind. But his eyes were laughing, and Artyom could see it even through the cage.
He didn't answer. He picked up the puck and skated away.
When Artyom came out of the locker room, Nastya and Vlad were standing together, her arms around him.
* * *
On Friday, Artyom broke.
He drove Vlad into the boards. Vlad had been carrying the puck along the edge of the ice, and Artyom hit him from the side with everything he had, shoulder into the boards. Hard, right at the edge of a penalty, but legal.
Vlad held his ground. He turned around and hit back.
They locked together, chest to chest, both breathing hard. The puck slid away somewhere unnoticed.
"Oh," Vlad exhaled against his ear, low enough that only Artyom could hear it. "Didn't know you had that in you."
Artyom shoved him off and skated away.
But the tone of it lodged somewhere. Turned over in his head all evening. The way Vlad had said 'had that in you.' Drawn out, almost breathless. Like he was talking about something else entirely.
Nastya came to every practice.
And every time it was the same: Vlad met her at the exit, put his arm around her, kissed her cheek, said something that made her laugh.
And every time he glanced over in Artyom's direction.
Quick. Checking.
Are you watching?
Artyom stopped lingering after practice. He came out of the locker room and went straight to the car.
I don't care. Not even slightly.
He told himself this every time he heard her laughter behind him.
* * *
Another week passed. Artyom counted the days to New Year's the way a prisoner counts days to release.
That evening he came downstairs at half six. The kitchen smelled of roast chicken, his mother moving busily at the stove, her hands slightly unsteady. Viktor came in carrying a bottle of wine and a wide smile.
Footsteps on the stairs. Vlad came down and sat across from Artyom. Didn't look at him.
"I have some good news," Viktor said, pouring the wine. "I've rented a cottage in the mountains for New Year's. The thirtieth to the second. Three days. All of us together."
His mother's face lit up. She looked from one of them to the other.
"Boys, it's so beautiful there! A forest, a frozen lake, a real fireplace! Tyomochka, Vlad, you're going to love it, I just know it!"
Artyom felt the floor shift under him.
"Mom, I have plans with Pasha..."
"I checked. Pasha's family is going to Sochi."
"Practice..."
"The rink is closed," Viktor said. "I checked."
Artyom looked at his mother. Hope in her eyes, her hands clasped together under the table.
"Please, Tyomochka. It matters to me."
He had never been able to say no to her.
"Okay."
She hugged him, kissed the top of his head. Artyom looked over her shoulder.
Vlad was sitting across from him, turning his glass slowly. He looked up.
Their eyes met. A second. Something dark and unreadable in those brown eyes.
Vlad stood.
"I'm going upstairs. Not hungry."
* * *
For four days before they left, Artyom barely slept.
He lay in the dark, stared at the ceiling, listened to the silence on the other side of the wall. Thought about three days in the same house as Vlad. After the wall. After the look at his lips. After his own body had betrayed him.
The night before they left he was still awake at three, watching moonlight move slowly across the ceiling.
Tomorrow. Eight in the morning. Three days at the cottage.
He rolled onto his side and pressed his face into the pillow.
Sleep wouldn't come.
* * *
He was going to back up a few days and tell it properly.
The room across the hall had been his. The door had been open a crack, a stripe of warm light cutting into the dark corridor.
He always closed that door. Always, since childhood. It was a rule, a ritual, something that didn't need to be discussed. You leave, you close the door.
His heart beat once, harder than usual.
Artyom pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Vlad was standing at the desk with his back to him, holding the framed photograph -- the one that always sat beside the lamp. He was studying it, head tilted slightly, and hadn't heard Artyom come in. Or was pretending he hadn't.
Artyom knew that photograph by heart. Could have described it with his eyes closed. A backyard rink, winter, Artyom about ten years old. His hockey gear hanging off his thin shoulders, too big, bought to grow into. His father's arms around him from behind, laughing at the camera. Both of them with red cheeks from the cold and the same smile.
The last photograph of them together.
A month after it was taken, his father went out for groceries and didn't come back. A drunk driver, a red light, the impact. The doctors said it was instant. Artyom still didn't know if that was true or if they had only said it to be kind.
"What are you doing in my room?"
His voice came out quiet. Too quiet, which somehow made it more dangerous.
Vlad turned around. He didn't flinch, didn't startle -- just turned, as if he had every right to be there. He looked at the frame in his hands, ran his thumb across the glass, then looked up at Artyom.
"Is that your dad?"
The question came out almost gently. Almost human. Which made it worse.
Artyom stepped into the room. His fists closed on their own.
"I asked what you're doing in here."
"Looking for a charger." Vlad shrugged. "Mine died. Thought you might have a spare."
"I don't have your charger."
"Okay."
Vlad set the frame back on the desk. Carelessly, slightly crooked, not the way it had been standing. As if it were just a thing. Just glass and paper. Not the most important thing Artyom still had from his father.
"I'll buy one."
He walked toward the door. Unhurried, relaxed, hands in his pockets. As if nothing had happened.
Artyom didn't move out of the way. He stood in the doorframe, blocking it.
Vlad stopped in front of him. Close. Too close, as always.
"Let me past, Sokolov."
"Stay out of my things."
"I didn't touch your things." His voice softened, almost silky. "I just looked. Nice photo, by the way. How old were you? Ten?"
Something tightened in his chest. Sharply, painfully, as if someone had reached between his ribs and squeezed.
"None of your business."
"You look alike." Vlad tilted his head, studying his face. "Same eyes. Same jaw."
"Shut up."
"Relax. I didn't do anything. I just--"
"Just looked?" Artyom stepped forward. Twenty centimeters between them now. "At a photograph of my dead father?"
Vlad blinked.
For a second, one second, his face changed. The mask slipped, and something human showed through. Confusion. Maybe something close to guilt.
"I didn't know he was--"
"DON'T GO THROUGH MY THINGS!"
His voice cracked into a shout. Downstairs, the voices of his parents went silent.
Vlad straightened. His face closed like a door slamming. The softness vanished as if it had never been there.
"Or what?" His voice went cold, hard. "You'll complain to your mom? Run to my dad?"
Artyom shoved him. Both hands to the chest, with everything he had been carrying for weeks.
Vlad stumbled back, his spine hitting the edge of the desk. The frame rocked but didn't fall.
A second of silence. Just their breathing and the distant murmur of the television downstairs.
Then Vlad shoved back.
Harder. Meaner. Artyom stepped back but kept his feet. Something bright and almost sweet flared in his chest.
He stepped forward.
"Don't start something," Vlad said, low. A warning or an invitation -- Artyom couldn't tell which.
"You started it!" He grabbed Vlad's shirt, the fabric twisting in his fist. "Since day one! You push, you provoke, you get under my skin every single day! What do you want from me?!"
"I just live here!" Vlad grabbed his wrists but didn't push him away. Held them. "And you act like I'm some kind of"
"Like you're what?!"
They collided.
Artyom drove Vlad toward the wall, pressing him against it with his whole body. Vlad twisted out of it in one movement, the way a defenseman catches a forward at the boards quick, practiced, inevitable.
Now Artyom was the one against the wall. Cold plaster pressing into his shoulder blades through his thin shirt, and Vlad was everywhere: in front of him, above him, around him.
Vlad's hands hit the wall on either side of his head. Trapping him. No way out.
Their faces were centimeters apart.
Artyom could see everything too clearly, too close. The dark lashes, long enough to brush the brows. Gold flecks in the brown eyes, like sparks in the dark. A small white scar on his cheekbone he had never noticed before. The faint sheen of sweat at his temple. His lips, slightly parted.
He could hear Vlad's breathing. Heavy, ragged. He could feel it against his chest, the rise and fall of it.
He could feel the heat everywhere their bodies were in contact. Chest to chest. Hips to hips.
And his own body, the treacherous, impossible thing that it was, responded.
A wave of heat dropped through his stomach, pooled low. Blood rushed to his face and below.
"No. God, no. Not now. Not him."
Vlad's gaze shifted. His pupils swelled, flooding the irises. Darkened. Dropped to Artyom's mouth and stayed there.
Artyom watched him wet his own lips. Slowly, with the tip of his tongue.
Watched him lean forward. A millimeter. Then another. Warm breath touched his mouth.
Time stopped.
"Let go," Artyom said. His voice was someone else's hoarse, cracked, unrecognizable.
Vlad didn't move. He was looking at him, and there was something in that look Artyom had never seen before. Something dark and hungry and dangerous. Something that stole the air from his lungs and made his knees feel hollow.
"Let go of me."
Vlad blinked. Slowly, like someone surfacing from underwater. Like a man who'd forgotten where he was and what he was doing.
His hands trembled against the wall but didn't move.
"LET GO!"
Artyom shoved him with everything he had left. Vlad staggered backward, caught the edge of the bed, barely kept his feet.
Artyom grabbed his phone from the desk, his car keys from the nightstand. His hands were shaking so badly he almost dropped both.
He threw himself at the door and ran.
Down the stairs, taking them two at a time. His heart was hammering somewhere in his throat, blood roaring in his ears.
"Tyoma?"
His mother appeared in the living room doorway, a kitchen towel in her hands. Her face, worried.
"Where are you going? It's late."
"Out." He grabbed his jacket from the hook, pulling it on while he moved, fingers refusing to find the sleeve. "Stuffy in here. I need air."
"But it's freezing, you don't even have a"
The door closed behind him and cut off her voice.
The cold hit him like a wall. Burned his lungs, dragged tears from his eyes.
Artyom walked. Fast, nearly running.
* * *
He walked without knowing where he was going. Just walked, hands shoved in his pockets, his breath coming in white clouds, snow compressing under his shoes.
The park was empty. Not a soul, just the streetlamps throwing yellow circles onto the snow, and somewhere far off a dog barking. Artyom found a bench, brushed it off with his sleeve, and sat down.
The metal burned cold even through his jeans. He didn't care.
His heart was still hammering, the pulse of it in his temples, his throat, the tips of his fingers. And lower, a heavy, insistent warmth that refused to fade.
He had gotten hard.
Because of Vlad.
Artyom pressed his face into his palms and breathed in the smell of his own skin. Tried to think about something else. Tomorrow's practice. The economics test. Anything.
But all he could see was the same image on a loop. Dark eyes centimeters from his face. Heavy breath against his mouth. The heat of someone else's body through a thin shirt. The way Vlad had wet his lips. The way he had leaned in.
The way Artyom had wanted him not to stop.
"God. This is Vlad. My stepbrother."
And his enemy. The person who had slammed him into the boards three years ago hard enough to leave him concussed for a week. Who needled him every single day, deliberately, methodically, with obvious enjoyment. Who left his things in Artyom's car on purpose and kissed Nastya where Artyom could see it.
"Why? What does he actually want from me?"
But his body wasn't listening to logic. His body didn't care about rules, or reasons, or the fact that this was wrong and painful and dangerous.
His body remembered only the heat. The closeness. The smell of his cologne. And that moment, stretched until it felt endless, when there had been less than a centimeter between their lips.
Artyom tilted his head back and stared into the black sky. Snowflakes fell onto his face, melting against his cheeks and lips.
He sat there a long time. Maybe an hour. Maybe longer. Snow settled on his shoulders, slipped under his collar, and the fingers in his pockets had long since gone numb. At some point he stopped feeling the cold. Stopped feeling anything except a dull emptiness.
Then he got up and walked home.
* * *
The house was quiet. The living room light was out, just the hallway nightlight casting a pale yellow circle on the floor. Behind the door of his parents' room, silence.
Artyom climbed the stairs, keeping his footsteps soft. His wet trainers slipped on the steps, his jacket still damp from the snow that had melted in it. He was shivering, but not from the cold.
He passed Vlad's room. Stopped for a second without knowing why. Silence behind the door. No music, no footsteps, no creak of the bed. Maybe asleep. Maybe not.
Artyom told himself he didn't care.
He lied.
He went into his room, closed the door, and leaned against it. Stood there for a moment, feeling his heart still beating too fast. Then he peeled off the wet jacket, dropped it on the floor, and lay down on top of the covers, fully dressed.
His jeans were stiff against his legs. His shirt smelled of sweat and cold air. He didn't care.
He lay on his back and looked at the ceiling and tried not to think.
It didn't work.
All he could see was Vlad's face. Those blown-out pupils. His parted lips. The warmth of his breath against Artyom's mouth.
Artyom rolled onto his side and buried his face in the pillow.
Sleep wouldn't come.
* * *
On the other side of the wall, Vlad wasn't sleeping either.
He was lying on his back with his hands behind his head, staring at the dark ceiling. His shirt had ridden up, and he could feel the cool air on his stomach, but he didn't move to fix it.
The same thing kept playing in his head. A record stuck in a groove he couldn't lift the needle out of.
The warmth of Artyom's body under his hands. The shudder he'd felt when he pressed him against the wall. The hard, ragged breathing. Those gray-green eyes with anger in them and something else underneath -- something that had dried Vlad's mouth and knocked the air out of him.
He had wanted to kiss him.
Not abstractly. Not as a thought experiment. He had genuinely, physically wanted to kiss Artyom Sokolov.
The person he had hated for three years. His enemy. His fucking stepbrother.
Vlad dragged his palm across his face and breathed out into the dark.
What was that? What had come over him?
He remembered the way Artyom had breathed out 'let go.' The voice raw, stripped, cracked. Not angry. Frightened. And that fear had done something to Vlad's insides that he didn't have a clean word for.
He had wanted to -- what? Scare him? Prove something? Or had he simply wanted?
Vlad smiled into the dark, but it came out wrong.
"Interesting, Sokolov," he said quietly, to the empty room. "Very interesting."
Behind the wall, silence. Not a sound, not a movement.
Vlad closed his eyes.
Sleep was a long time coming.
* * *
For two days after that they didn't speak.
At practice they worked in silence. Their passes were clean, their combinations sharp. Boris Petrovich was very pleased.
At home they went to their separate rooms. At dinner they sat as far apart as the table allowed.
His mother noticed. She watched Artyom with a careful, worried eye, but said nothing.
* * *
Then Viktor announced a family dinner.
Artyom came downstairs at half past six. The kitchen smelled of roast chicken, his mother moving at the stove with slightly unsteady hands. Viktor came in carrying wine and a wide smile.
Footsteps on the stairs. Vlad came down and sat across from Artyom. Didn't look at him.
"I have some great news," Viktor said, pouring the wine. "I've rented a cottage in the mountains for New Year's. The thirtieth to the second. Three days. The whole family."
His mother lit up and looked between the two of them.
"Boys, it's so beautiful there -- a forest, a frozen lake, a real fireplace! Tyomochka, Vlad, I know you'll love it!"
Artyom felt the floor shift under him.
"Mom, I already have plans with Pasha..."
"I checked. Pasha's family is going to Sochi."
"Practice..."
"The rink is closed," Viktor said. "I already checked."
Artyom looked at his mother. Hope in her eyes, hands clasped in her lap.
"Please, Tyomochka. This means a lot to me."
He had never been able to say no to her.
"Alright."
She hugged him and kissed the top of his head. Artyom looked over her shoulder.
Vlad was sitting opposite, turning his glass slowly. He looked up.
Their eyes met. One second. Something dark and unreadable in his expression.
Vlad stood.
"I'm going upstairs. I'm not hungry."
* * *
For four days before they left, Artyom barely slept.
He lay in the dark, stared at the ceiling, listened to the silence on the other side of the wall. Three days in the same house as Vlad. After the wall. After the look at his lips. After his own body had made itself impossible to ignore.
The night before they left he was still awake at three in the morning, watching the moonlight crawl across the ceiling.
Tomorrow. Eight a.m. Three days at the cottage.
He rolled onto his side and pressed his face into the pillow.
Sleep wouldn't come.
ns216.73.216.141da2
and then Add to home screen.