Don’t be a coward. How bad can it be?
He grabbed the phone and pulled it off the charger, then went to his voicemail.
“It’s me, Henri. I’m sorry about how that went. With my uncle. I’m not part of this, it wasn’t my idea, I’m sorry. I’m not sure how to go from here. I didn’t mean this to happen, Nikolai. I didn’t . . .” His voice was hushed as if he feared he’d be overheard, “I didn’t sleep with you so you’d get on our side. I know I suck a mean cock, but I’m not that good.” A self-conscious laugh. “Please, Nikolai, answer the phone. Or call me back, anytime. Don’t just leave and hate me for the rest of your life, please?” He gave a sigh, a hint of resignation creeping in. “Anyway, if you get this, and want to talk at all, just call me back. I’ll explain. Or at least apologize, and that’s much easier in person. Let’s not . . . don’t make this end this way. Please.” The message ended. Two more after that, same number, but no more words, just silence serving as toneless exclamation marks after the first message.
On an impulse, Nikolai hit the call back button.
“Henri LeBeau speaking.”
“Hi.” Nikolai turned away from the door. “Krasnorada here.” As if his last name was any protection against that twinge high up in his chest. “Got your message and your email.”
“Nikolai. Th-thanks for calling me back. I appreciate it.” Except for that first small stutter, he was more composed now, as if he were flipping through his rolodex at his desk. Not the frantic mess who’d left the message. “How are you doing?”
“I’m good. Calmer now.”
“Good. That’s . . . yeah, that’s good. Listen, I probably didn’t make much sense, I was starting to—No, I was really upset. I know what you’re thinking, but that was not why I did what I did. I might be an asshole, but I’m not an asshole who sleeps with somebody for a business advantage. I’m not that corrupt. Besides, my uncle would never think of using a guy like that, that guy being me. He’d use every other trick in the book and out of it, but he wouldn’t send the heir to the throne to sleep with a guy. Or maybe not in this price range, I don’t know. Maybe if it were a big-ass merger with another large company, but even then I wouldn’t do it.”
“You didn’t get much of an advantage, either, for that.” All you did was make me vulnerable.
“No, that’s right. I just wanted you to know that.”
“Thanks.” Nikolai peered out into the shared living room. Vadim was using the area in front of his bedroom for push-ups, and he turned away. “Well, I guess you’re busy, so . . .”
“Not too busy.” Henri was clearly trying to hang onto the call. “Where are you? Back in Armenia?”
“No, New Zealand. Wellington. My father emigrated here, so I’m just catching up with him.”
“Staying in a hotel, or locally?”
“A hotel. Museum Hotel, modern art. My father is into all that. We’re going to see Te Papa and the maritime museum and some other places around here. Should be fun.”
“Sounds good. Maybe, if you’re coming back to Toronto . . .”
Time to shoot him down. He hated to stomp on Henri’s hopeful tone, but it was better for both of them. “I don’t think I will. I really don’t. You’re a nice guy, even more when you’re out of that tailored suit, but there’s no reason for us to meet again. Get somebody who fits you better, get a boyfriend, hell, even find somebody you can love. My father did, and it worked out fine for him. You’ve got a lot going for you, so don’t shortchange yourself.”
“Nikolai, please, you have to—”
“I have to do nothing. I’m not what you’re looking for.” Nikolai blew out an irritated breath. Shit, this hurt and he wasn’t even sure why. He liked Henri, and he didn’t like him begging, and casual sex and random blowjobs were not what Henri should be doing. “Please don’t call me again. There’s much better than me out there for you.”
“Can we be friends?”
“Based on what? You guys are going to fuck over my oldest and best friend. I have my loyalties, and LeBeau Mining doesn’t even begin to figure on that list.”
“Okay.” Henri’s voice was thick. What on earth had been going through Henri’s mind? This sounded like real hurt, real pain, and that was wrong on so many levels. “If you ever reconsider . . .”
“No, Henri. Please go, be happy. I won’t be in touch.”
In touch. A Freudian slip is when you say one thing and mean your mother.
“Okay. Okay. Yeah. Sorry, I was presuming . . .”
“I’m going to end the call now, Henri. Take care.” Nikolai lowered the phone and pressed the end call button.
Wow, that had been hard, but as he backtracked, he didn’t think he’d made a mistake. He’d been gentle, he’d been nice. Lots of casual relationships ended in his life, some after weeks, others after months, though it had always been women with him before, and even those who stuck around when he moved to the next job usually dumped him when something in their routine lives went berserk and he wasn’t there to help. That was when they’d work out that having a long-distance, once-every-few-months relationship wasn’t really a relationship at all. He was just a stranger dropping in for sex and shopping.
There was simply no way the thing with Henri could work out. He liked the guy, but he’d liked other guys without ever fucking them. And he wasn’t gay. More than merely curious, sure, but maybe just open-minded? Whatever the case, Henri deserved a guy who was with him one hundred percent.
He sat down in the living room, where Vadim was stretching his shoulders with the calm and methodical air of somebody who kept himself in peak condition out of habit after a long career of fighting and war. And damn, but he was flexible.
“How do you stay so bendy?”
Vadim lifted an eyebrow. “Physiotherapist told me to do yoga and Pilates for my back.”
“Oh Lord. So you’re the only huge ex-military tough guy in courses full of women in their mid-fifties? How do you survive?”
Vadim snorted. “There are two more guys in there.”
“Both gay?”
“I think one might be straight. I never asked.”
Nikolai chuckled and then rubbed his neck. “What now? Want to go out for drinks or something?”
Vadim shook his head. “For me it’s an early night, but the bars around here are pretty good. Jean and Solange loved Cuba Street.”
Normally he’d give it a go, but tonight he didn’t feel up to being friendly to strangers. And if he met a woman, that would be even more awkward. The last thing he wanted was another messy thing. He was going to devote the time to his father and thinking and resting and nothing else. Maybe he’d even rustle up the courage to talk to Vadim about everything. Vadim must have heard part of that call, but Nikolai was endlessly grateful he didn’t ask for details.
“I don’t think I’m in the mood. I . . . just had a call.” Oh what the hell, get it over with. “Do you have time?”
Vadim settled on the couch. “Yes.”
“Okay.” Nikolai rubbed his face, then folded his hands, and then put them flat on his thighs. “You know I’m in gold exploration. I’m one of the partners of a company called Cybele, and we’re sitting on a few million ounces in Armenia. It’s kind of a big deal. It’s a lot of money, but we need a partner to get the stuff out of the ground and actually start production. So Ruslan—that’s Ruslan Polunin, the CEO, old, old friend of mine, I mean, we go way back—sends me to pitch to LeBeau Mining. They’re Canadians and have done a fair amount of post-conflict mining, so they’re a perfect fit for us. But the CEO is being a dickwad, and says he doesn’t like Ruslan and is going to put his nephew in charge, Henri LeBeau. Henri has experience with a similar setup in Malawi, and if they own us, they can put anybody in charge. Obviously, that’s not what we want. It’s Ruslan’s baby. He’s worked so hard for that company, you’d struggle to find anybody who’s more deserving. Handing him a pile of stock options and kicking him down to a senior consultant or something i
s just a fucking bitch move.” He realized he was getting angry, not only from the cursing, but the pounding in his throat. He breathed deeply a few times. Vadim was merely watching, doing nothing, not a touch, not a smile, not a nod. Just absorbing information.
“So I tell them that’s really unlikely, and the uncle goes, ‘Well, then we’ll just do a hostile takeover and get you anyway.’ I told Ruslan we’re kind of screwed unless he can do a deal with somebody else. I mean, we can probably get the cash in debt from a few banks, but people are so nervous about investing right now. I mean, how much safer can you get? It’s gold.”
“But that’s not what has you worked up so much.”
“No. I wish it were.” Nikolai blew out a breath. “I had sex with Henri.”
Vadim frowned and leaned forward. Thank God he didn’t betray disappointment or offer some shoulder-slapping “welcome-to-the-brotherhood” sentiment. Nikolai could count on Vadim to leave emotions outside the door in crucial moments. “What happened?”
“He was flirting and I got turned on, and he offered a blowjob, and I took that offer. Idiot that I am.”
“With the right amount of alcohol and in the right mood, many guys would accept, though.” Vadim shook his head.
Offering me an escape. I was drunk. I was horny. The mood was right. They played our song on the radio. Nikolai rubbed his face. “Yeah, well, next day I screwed him. It . . . I just went with the flow, you know? Just didn’t think. I don’t know. He’s a good-looking guy, I guess. It was shockingly good.”
You did think. You thought a great deal.
“I won’t judge you for that. These things happen.”
“Did you ever have sex with a straight guy?”
Vadim’s lips tightened. “I did.” Something in his eyes warned Nikolai to proceed with utmost caution now. There was something predatory in Vadim’s eyes, a glimmer of something dark. “Once, Katya and I shared a lover, a man she would have left me for if he hadn’t died.”
Your father was a pilot who crashed in Afghanistan and died. A special friend of my father, and our mother nearly left Vadim for him, but he died before it happened. You were some kind of memento, but that’s it, Nikolai.
Some kind of memento. Nikolai shook his head. So this was it? That dirty family secret? “Would you . . . tell me about him? How did he . . . even get there?”
Vadim frowned. “Sasha was a brave man, a comrade, maybe one of the best men I’ve ever known.”
And how was it that those words held so much emotion when they were just clichés? But to Vadim, clearly, they weren’t. Maybe it was understandable that he hated Afghanistan—considering it had killed Sasha, and God knew how many more.
“He was confident, and he had an easy smile. There was no darkness in him, I don’t think. He was in over his head with Katya, and with me. We both encouraged him, and Katya could be very persuasive.”
“So it was a threesome rather than an affair?”
Vadim’s face darkened and closed down. Suddenly, his body held a great amount of tension, and Nikolai noticed the same tension in himself, that of alarm mixed with compassion. The absolute last thing he wanted was to trigger Vadim into another flashback. However much he wanted to know, however much he was grasping at this elusive father thing, it wasn’t worth making Vadim suffer. “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me.”
“Things would have gone differently, Nikolai. She’d have left me much earlier. I think in that case, I wouldn’t have survived that country.” He stared off into the distance, and Nikolai came over and sat on the couch next to him. “There were moments in Afghanistan when the only thing that kept me alive was my family. I wanted to be there for you, all three of you. So whatever was happening—exposure, captivity, pain—I came out on the other end for nothing but you.”
Nikolai felt tears sting in his eyes. “You’ll never tell me what happened in that country?”
Vadim frowned, didn’t look at him. “My therapist made me write everything down. I’ll leave you the diaries when I go.”
“Why don’t you give them to me now?”
Vadim shook his head. “Too much darkness.”
“I can handle darkness.”
Vadim’s lips moved into a sad smile. “I prefer you think of me as a good man, Nikolai. The things I did are not the deeds of a good man.”
Nikolai took Vadim’s hand—a tight fist—and tried to pry it open when it didn’t relax. To no avail. Vadim’s steel core was very visible and brooked no argument. “Did Sasha have family?”
“Parents. I expect they are dead now.” Vadim shook himself, but the tension never subsided. “Every pilot I went to retrieve . . . every corpse I located in the mountains, I always thought of Sasha. He shouldn’t have been there. He could have gone on to do other things, greater things. I was made for war. He wasn’t. I survived. He didn’t.” He squeezed out a breath. “He would have been a good husband and father. You would have had a much better father with him.”
“You can’t know that.” Nikolai shook his head. “You made the decisions you had to make at the time. I’m all right. I came out all right. It’s not the people who were absent that messed me up. If anything, it was the people who stuck around. It’s not your fault, Vadim. Any of this. Nobody could ask you to give up your life to stay in a marriage that wasn’t good for you. Or, you know, authentic.”
Vadim glanced at him warily.
“I mean it. You followed your heart. If you had stuck around, and grown angry or resentful, do you think we wouldn’t have noticed? How long can you play a role that isn’t you?”
How long, Nikolai?
Nikolai shook his head. “I won’t respect you any less if I know what happened.” He reached out and put his arm around Vadim’s shoulders, pulled him close. Well, that didn’t work. His father could have been a marble statue. “I’m trying to understand you, and what happened. So maybe I can understand myself. I don’t know. It’s my only shot.”
“You’re not my son, Nikolai.” It was delivered calmly, with absolutely no emotion, which could only mean it was tearing Vadim up inside. The less emotion he showed, the more he seemed to feel it.
“I know. Anya told me a few days ago. She said it was Sasha.”
Vadim stood, freeing himself from the touch. “You still came to see me?”
“I needed to talk to somebody. Yes, about that, too. I was just stunned, but I guess it makes a lot of sense. I don’t look anything like you. Though, hell, I wish I would.” He laughed, a miserable sound even to his own ears. “I don’t even know what I’m feeling. The last week has just been one nightmare.”
Vadim’s head whipped around and he saw Nikolai. Really saw him. “I never told you because I didn’t want to lose you. I did not want to make you agonize over Sasha. Mourning a man you never knew, that’s not easy. Or making peace with the dead. I still haven’t managed.”
“You know, if you respected him like that, I believe he must have been a good guy. And he and Katya might even have been happy. Who knows. It didn’t happen. And we’re both still here.”
Vadim came back to the couch, took Nikolai’s hands, and Nikolai stood, uneasily. “Honestly, Vadim. I . . . don’t actually care that much. So we’re not related, but we still kinda work on this father-son thing. I think it’s been going well. It’s good to have you in my life. Hell knows my girlfriends never stay around; it’s good to have family.”
Vadim hugged him then, tightly, and for a long time. And from his breathing, Nikolai could tell he was fighting tears. Well, so was he. In a weird, twisted way, like father, like son.
They’d just come in from a hilariously hot curry at an Indian restaurant. The kind of curry that made you afraid to breathe so as to not spontaneously combust. Vadim didn’t deal too well with that level of hot food, and had gone on to order “the same, just edible now.” Nikolai wished he’d been less macho and followed his father’s example.
“Well, it does clear out the sinuses,” he’d joked, still wipin
g away tears.
“I’m getting too old for self-inflicted damage,” Vadim had shot back, and they’d laughed.
The way back to the hotel led through Cuba Quarter, by Kiwi standards a lively area full of bars and people out on the street. Nikolai noticed one establishment with rainbow flags and nodded to Vadim.
“I think that was the place where Jean raised hell the last time,” Vadim explained.
“Solange okay with that?”
“Oh, she knows. She’s not stupid.”
They reached the foyer of the hotel and Nikolai paused. One guy, in the far corner, reading The Economist. Henri. Or his long-lost twin brother.
“Oh shit.”
Vadim turned toward him, and immediately connected the man with Nikolai. “Who’s that?” Not: You know him?
“I told you about Henri LeBeau, the guy who’s about to screw my best friend? That’s him.”
And you told him where to find you, too, you idiot.
Vadim’s gaze turned toward Henri, and Nikolai noticed a sudden weight and heaviness in the room. Henri looked up and glanced in their direction. A brief, impulsive smile faltered when he seemed to take in Vadim. Nevertheless, he stood, tossed the magazine on the table, and walked over.
“Hi, Nikolai. I’m—”
“Dad, this is Henri LeBeau. Henri, this is my father, Vadim Krasnorada.” Keeping up appearances, being polite at least, though he was still reeling from Henri’s sudden appearance.
Vadim nodded, but didn’t raise a hand to shake Henri’s. Henri didn’t press the matter, merely stood there and smiled a little nervously, as if thrown off his game. Vadim looked around the room, doubtlessly taking in all exits and the distribution of people in it as well as the likely way they’d bolt if the situation became threatening. He had a supremely tactical mind, and Nikolai these days knew how to read him. He smiled at the thought of one aging Spetsnaz doing a tactical analysis while everybody else was completely unaware. “I think we might go to the bar. Henri?”
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