All the Lies We Tell (Quarry Road #1)(73)

“You don’t have to stay here, you know.” Nikolai traced her bottom lip with his finger.

She pulled away from the tickling touch, irritated. “Sure. I know. I just have a business to run and debt to handle. And besides, where would I go, and what would I do?”

“Anything you wanted. Anywhere you wanted. You could work on a cruise ship,” he said. “You could teach English in China.”

Alicia gave him a look.

“You could do anything you wanted,” he repeated.

“You make it sound so easy.”

Nikolai smiled and shrugged. “It can be, if you want it to be.”

“I can’t just up and leave. I have the business. I have responsibilities.” She thought of the offer Theresa had made her. How tempting it would be to take it. How free she would be to do exactly what Niko was describing. She almost told him about it but at the last minute held her tongue, wanting him to ask her to go with him. To be with him. To give her that choice, at least. “I lost my chance for those options.”

“There are always options, Alicia.”

His phone buzzed. Alicia took the chance to get up and use the bathroom while he talked. By the time she got back, Nikolai was off the couch.

“Galina got a ride home.”

“How’d she manage that?” Alicia went to the window to look out. No sign of the street being plowed, though the snow at least had stopped. She wasn’t looking forward to hauling out the snowblower.

“Her ‘friend’ has a four-wheel drive.” Nikolai made air quotes. “Maybe he got so sick of her that he had to get her out of his house.”

Alicia feigned a disapproving look. “Maybe she wanted to get home, make sure you’re okay.”

He rolled his eyes. “Whatever. She’s over there now and wanted to know where I was. I didn’t tell her I’ve been here for the past two days.”

“Of course not.” Alicia took off the afghan and folded it over the back of the couch. “You should get home.”

“Yeah.” He stretched. Cracked his neck in the way that made her cringe and wince, then laughed when he saw her. “Sorry.”

There was more to be said in that moment, but she wasn’t about to start up that conversation now. She’d left it open for him to ask her to go with him, and he had not. She wasn’t going to pursue it. She walked him to the front door. They didn’t kiss there, suddenly awkward as though Galina could see them from all the way across the street, through a closed door.

“Thanks for putting up with me while we were snowed in,” Nikolai said.

She smiled a little. “You can pay me back by fixing my faucet.”

“Right. The faucet.” He made no move to leave. His phone buzzed again with a text.

“You should go.”

“This was fun,” Nikolai said.

Fun.

Nothing more than that. Fun. Casual. Fleeting. Not meant to last.

“It always is, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “Always.”

“How will you feel this time,” she said suddenly, no longer able to hold it back, “when you leave?”

Something in his eyes gave her hope, for the barest second. A faint spark. The barest twist of a smile. At the last second, everything went blank, and he cut his gaze from hers.

“I don’t know,” Nikolai said.

A thin and fruitless fury overtook her. “Can’t you even just once tell me how you feel? Can’t you even tell me you’ll miss me?”

“I will. I will miss you.”

She nodded stiffly, not satisfied, not with having to put the words in his mouth. Not surprised, after all this time and knowing him so well, but what had she expected? What was it, exactly, that she even wanted him to say or do that would make her happy? There was probably nothing, she thought as she searched his expression for something, anything at all that would give her reason not to close the door behind him and never open it for him again.

She stepped aside to let him pass and held the door open. She cleared her throat. In the absence of any further words from him, the sound of it was very loud. “Good.”

Nikolai paused to brush a kiss over her lips as he moved past her. The snow came up to his knees, and it took him a long time to push through it, across the yard and the street, marked by the path of the truck that had brought Galina home. Alicia watched, shivering in the chilly air, until he made it all the way to his house. He didn’t look back at her before he went inside his own front door, but then she supposed he didn’t need to do that, either.





CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE


Being snowbound hadn’t bothered Galina at all. Since getting home yesterday, she’d been baking. Piles of cookies. Bread. A pie. It hadn’t seemed to matter that the freezer, both in the kitchen and the ancient chest unit in the basement, were both still stuffed to overflowing with leftovers from the generosity of the neighbors after Babulya’s death. She’d covered all the kitchen countertops with pans and plates and platters.

“What are you going to do with all of this?” Niko set the toolbox on the table, which so far remained free of the burden of baked goods.

“Feed you with it.” She leaned against the countertop with one arm crossed over her belly to cup a hand beneath her elbow, the posture lacking only a cigarette that she clearly was missing.