Page 14 of Your Sharpest Edge
Milk sprayed all over my black T-shirt, and the room filled with the happiest sound of laughter. “That is foul, Alex.”
She kept laughing, and I couldn’t help but join in.
“That is such a dirty thing to say.”
The corners of my lips twisted into a smirk. “A lot of dirty words come out of this mouth, Anastasia.”
The redness spread from her cheeks down to her neck as she averted her gaze, as if my television suddenly captured her attention.
“No girlfriend,” I finally stated.
She whipped back around on her stool. “Yeah, I figured that out after that comment.”
“What’s that mean?” I asked jovially and then winked at her.
Unlike when she had visited earlier in the day, she was dressed in sweats and a plain T-shirt, and a part of me wondered if it belonged to him. Her bright blonde hair hung loosely, cascading past her shoulders. Her face bore no makeup, also unlike earlier in the evening, yet her eyes appeared slightly sunken, almost as if a purple ring was forming around the lower part of her eyes.
She reached up to her face and winced briefly before turning away.
I realized I’d been staring uncomfortably long and urgently needed to change the subject. “You didn’t go out with Dimitri tonight?”
Uncertain if this was the appropriate direction for the conversation, I thought discussing her new husband might be something she’d want to engage in. After all, from my experience, people who had recently experienced major lifechanges, such as getting married, having babies, or adopting pets, were eager to share their excitement.
But she remained facing away, staring into the living room, and a heavy silence blanketed the air before her hand drifted down to rest on her hips. She shook her head. “No. It was a guys’ night.”
That struck me as odd because . . .
Oh, no.Dimitri’s words echoed in my mind, his desire to go out and hook up with other women. Damn it. She had no clue, and I couldn’t tell her. It would devastate her, and I wasn’t even her friend. We literally met this evening. It couldn’t be me.
“Oh, I see. That makes sense,” I replied, attempting to keep my tone casual.
I wished she would turn back around so I could see her reaction, but when she didn’t, I leaned over the countertop, trying to appear relaxed.
“You didn’t go?”
“Nope. I was tired,” I responded truthfully.
Unspoken words hung heavy in the air between us. So much remained unsaid. Despite the fact we had just met and that she was married to my teammate, I found myself feeling a fondness for her, a shared understanding born of our mutual status as strangers in a foreign country. We were both new here, so maybe we could keep our loneliness company for a change instead of letting it fester inside.
“Do you want to watch a movie?” I finally asked, breaking the silence that had settled over us.
It was a simple offer, but it felt like extending an olive branch, a small gesture of camaraderie in the face of our shared isolation.
She hung her head low and then grazed her fingers over her hips before she finally turned around on the stool.
“I’m married, Alex. I just meant to come by and drop something off. I was up all night baking and I was lonely and Dimitri is...”
I held up my hand to stop her. “Stop, Anastasia.” I sighed before I gestured to the couch. “Sit. Let me at least tell you why I’m a decent human.”
The corners of her lips furled upward. “Okay.”
We walked over to the leather couch where she sat on one end and I sat on the other, but we turned our chests in to face each other.
“My parents,” I started. “They were horrible to each other.”
“Are they still married?” she asked, and I nodded.
“Unfortunately.”
