Page 7 of Kept in the Dark
She leans closer, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “Do you think the rumors are true?”
“What rumors?”
“That Matt’s family has ties to the Russian mob. That’s what my dad said. Or, they don’t call them mobs, do they?” she continues, distracted now as she whips her phone out of her wristlet, pulls up a browser, and types in her request. “I forget what he called it… brat-something. Bratwurst?”
“That’s a sausage.”
“Bratvas,” she says triumphantly, turning her phone around to show me the Wikipedia page.
I grab it from her hand and scan through the first couple of paragraphs. “Organized crime… dissolution of the Soviet Union… Known for illegal sales of weapons and drugs, money laundering, prostitution, and human trafficking… This says they were a huge threat in the 90s. You weren’t even alive then.”
“Yeah, whatever,” she shoots back, plucking her phone out of my hands. “It says that as of a few years ago, the FBI classifiedBratvasas a ‘criminal superpower.’ There are a ton of branches… it’slike families in the Italian Mafia. And they’re not just in Russia; they’re all over the world, apparently. So, Matt’s family couldtotallyhaveBratvaties.”
I’m about to wave off her concern when I notice someone’s head turn as she says the wordBratva. Honestly, you really never know. I’ve seen enough gang violence victims in inner-city hospitals to know better than to write off organized crime as a possibility anywhere.
I lean in, keeping an eye on the man whose attention we seem to have caught. “Wikipedia maybe isn’t the best source for this kind of thing, huh?”
“True,” she says slowly. The music dies, and the band announces their next number, causing Emma to perk up. “Ooh! This is me and Nat’s song! Come dance!”
“Maybe later. Have fun.” I wave her off as she whirls onto the dance floor and tugs her girlfriend out of the line for the bar.
I watch them, smiling. After a moment, the table shakes again, but this time I have to swallow down my irritation at who fills the seat next to me.
I have to admit that Kyle is a handsome guy in his dark suit and contrasting tie that sets off his light eyes. He has slicked back his light brown hair, which makes his forehead look higher and somehow creates the illusion that he’s taller. He’s in good shape, and a bit shorter than me, even when I’m not wearing these ridiculous heels.
At first, I was honestly a little flattered when it seemed like he was seeking me out—offering to get me a drink at cocktail hour, sitting next to me at dinner, finding me in the hallway on my way back from the bathroom. But he hasn’t made a ton of effort to actually talk to me, and every time I try to make polite conversation, his eyes scan the crowd like he’s searching for a better option, or he doesn’t care about what I have to say.
I’ve decided he’s the kind of guy who pretends to be taller than he actually is on a dating app, and hisAbout Mebio says, “just ask lol.”I don’t mind a short king, but in my experience, if they lie about it, it means they’re self-conscious. And who has time for boring men with fragile egos?
At an even six feet tall myself, I have always been several inches taller than every man who lists his height as six-foot in his profile. Funny how that works.
Growing up, I felt monstrous, unfeminine, even goofy around my friends, who giggled with each other about the boys they crushed on, who could pick them up and carry them around. And as I grew and didn’t stop, I resigned myself to never feeling—to never being—a small girl.
But I don’t need to be; I am more than just my body. And I know that the only way to live in it is to do so unapologetically.
“Bet it looks like fuckin’ zebra stripes when they scissor,” Kyle jokes, eyes on my cousin and her dark-skinned girlfriend as they laugh and twist around each other, dancing together.
“Excuse me?” I demand.
He rolls his eyes. “It was just a joke; loosen up. Here,” he says, holding out a drink and shaking it until I reach for it.
I try not to frown at it or him. Earlier, when he asked if I wanted anything, I said no. It’s a clear liquid, and if it weren’t for the tiny bubbles, it could just be water. “What is it?”
“Vodka soda. Girls drink those, right?” he asks, leaning back on thechair and throwing his arm over the back of mine. His leg knocks into me, jostling me and making me spill some of the drink I didn’t want.
I place the glass on the table and grab my napkin. “I’m not much of a straight vodka/flavorless mixer kind of girl.”
“Maybe you should be,” he counters, letting his eyes drop as I pat at the small wet mark on my dress.
This time, I do frown—what doesthatmean?—but when I glance up, the look on his face is odd, hard to put into words. Not anything so extreme as disgust or desire, but somewhere in the realm of making an assessment, like he’s trying to decide what he wants to do. The closest comparison I can come up with is the look on someone’s face at the end of a date before they pop the “wanna come back to my place” question.
When he sees that I’ve caught him, he wipes the expression clean and offers his charming smile—all teeth and lips. “What do you do again?”
We already talked about this. I know he’s an insurance adjuster, and he hates it. “I’m a travel nurse, mostly working in ERs.”
“Oh, sick. And you live around here? You said you’re new to the area, right?”
“Yeah.”
