by Roxie Noir
“Do you have to leave?” I finally ask.
“No,” he says.
“You sure?” I ask.
“Are you trying to get rid of me?” Kostya asks.
“I just don’t want you disowned, exiled, and penniless,” I tease.
I meant to make him laugh, but instead his face goes serious and he looks at me.
“I’m just going to tell him,” he says, his gray eyes steady. “He can’t do anything. He won’t disown me. He can’t force me to marry anyone. All he can do is be angry, and I don’t care any more.”
I hold my breath and bite my lip.
“Are you sure?” I ask.
Kostya just nods.
I’m not sure how to phrase this next thing, so I take a deep breath and just let some words fly out of my mouth.
“We’ve only known each other for what, a week and a half?” I ask. “I don’t want you to ruin your relationship with your father over something that might not...”
I swallow, and Kostya’s just staring at me.
“I mean, it’s just, you know, what if I go home at the end of the month and, like, you come to your senses or something and realize that you fucked up your relationship with your dad because of some American girl?” I say, all in one breath.
“Zloyushka, what the hell are you talking about?” he asks. “I’m at my senses. However you say that.”
“What if it turns out I’m a serial killer?” I say.
For some reason it’s the first thing that pops into my head.
“Then we’ll deport you back to the U.S. to stand trial, and I’ll still have made it clear to my father that he doesn’t control who I’m with,” Kostya says.
It sounds so sensible when he says it out loud.
“I’m not a serial killer,” I say.
“I didn’t think so,” he says.
Then he lifts himself off my stomach and puts his head next to mine. He takes my hand in his and locks our fingers together.
“I know relationships don’t work out sometimes,” he says. “But I climbed up two stories of stone wall with a plant in my mouth because I thought it might make you smile. And it did. And it was worth it, because I feel like I’m the moon when you smile at me, and I would be an idiot if I didn’t at least try.”
He kisses my hand, and I don’t answer, because there’s suddenly a lump in my throat.
“Tell me now if I’m wrong about this and I shouldn’t try,” he says, his voice barely a whisper.
“No,” I whisper, swallowing hard. “I mean, no, you’re not wrong. You should try. We should try.”
Stop talking, I think.
“Good,” he says, simply. “I’ll talk to him when he’s back from Kiev.”
He pushes my hair out of my face with his other hand, and then kisses my forehead.
“Do all Americans make everything seem so complicated?” he asks.
“That was nothing,” I say.
After a few more minutes we both get out of the bed. I find him an extra toothbrush and he brushes his teeth as I get the rest of my makeup off, totally naked the whole time. As he leaves the bathroom, he puts one hand on my ass and squeezes just a little, kissing me on the cheek.
“I like seeing you naked,” he says. “I’ll be in your bed.”
He leaves the bathroom and I blink at myself in the mirror, then smile. When I get in bed he’s half asleep, and he rolls over and puts one arm over my stomach.
“Spokushki,” he says.
“Don’t let the bedbugs bite,” I say, and I’m asleep almost instantly.
It feels like thirty minutes later that there’s a knock on my door, but the sun is already streaming through the windows. I’m lying on my stomach and Kostya has one arm and one leg half-slung over me, his face buried in the fluffy white pillow.
I hear the knock again, and this time he wakes up, too.
“Who is it?” he asks me.
“I don’t know yet,” I whisper, getting out of bed. “Stay out of sight,” I say, and put on the black bathrobe that came with the room.
“You want me to hide in the closet or something?” he asks, his voice extra raspy and gravelly.
“Just don’t walk out naked,” I whisper, and close the door slightly behind me.
You can’t see the bedroom door from the front door, and it’s probably just someone who wants to know if I have any laundry, so I’m not that worried about it.
Instead, it’s my mother, and she’s in a bit of a state.
“Hazel, can I borrow your deodorant?” she asks. sweeping past me and into my rooms.
“Sure, just stay there, I can—”
She sweeps past me, into my living room, toward the bathroom.
“I know we both get the nervous sweats, so yours will probably work pretty well,” she says.
“Yes, it’s fine, let me go find it though the bathroom’s kind of a mess so—”
She’s not listening. She’s looking past me in the direction of the bedroom.
All my insides wrap themselves around my windpipe, and I follow her gaze, praying that I don’t see Kostya standing there, totally naked with morning wood.
I don’t. The bedroom door opened itself, like doors in old houses do, and lying in full view on an ottoman in the bedroom is his formal military jacket. Even from here, it’s perfectly obvious what it is.
“Deodorant’s in the bathroom!” I say, and grab her arm, trying to haul her away, like I can magically make her unsee the jacket.
“Hazel,” she says, and gives me her cut-the-bullshit look.
It’s a strong one.
“Please tell me that jacket belongs to one of the many pudgy, middle-aged generals who were in attendance last night, and not the crown prince of Sveloria,” she whispers.
I swallow.
“It belongs to a general?” I whisper back, heat flooding my face.
She gives me the look again.
“Just leave and pretend you never saw it,” I whisper. “It’s fine.”
My mother glares at the jacket.
“At least tell me it was just the once,” she says.
I open my mouth, then shut it. My face has gone nuclear.
“You’re the diplomat,” I whisper. “I’m on vacation!”
“It’s still bad form!” she whispers. “Now this has to be disclosed to the state department, there’s paperwork, you have to give a statement to the embassy. It’s a whole mess now.”
“There’s paperwork about who I, uh...”
“Unless you just snuggled all night, yes, there’s paperwork,” she whispers. “And, actually, yes, even then, so never mind.”
She glances at the door again, and I hear a slight rustle inside the room. I’m sure Kostya can hear all this.
“At least tell me you were careful,” she says, her voice dropping to an actual whisper. “You’ve still got that IUD, right?”
“Yes, and we were careful and I’m not an idiot, mom,” I say.
She looks like she might disagree, but there’s another rustle in the bedroom and we both look over.
Kostya steps into the doorway, bedsheets wrapped around him several times, very securely.
“Good morning, Ambassador Towers,” he says, nodding his head slightly, one hand holding the sheets firmly in place.
“Good morning, Konstantin Grigorovich,” she says, her tone very, very formal.
I pinch the bridge of my nose between my finger and thumb.
“Could you please call each other Eileen and Kostya and not make this any weirder than it already is, for fuck’s sake?” I say.
My mother takes a deep breath.
“Hello, Kostya,” she says. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
“Hello, Eileen,” he says. “I didn’t know Hazel would have a visitor this morning,” he says, his tone exactly as formal as hers.
“I didn’t know either,” I point out, my eyes still squeezed shut.
“You’re accompanying my father to the e
conomic summit in Kiev, correct?” he goes on.
“I am,” she says.
Kostya and I look at each other.
“Please don’t tell him,” I say. “Please, Mom.”
“I would prefer to talk to my father about this myself, when he returns,” Kostya says. “He should hear it from me.”
My mother sighs and crosses her arms in front of herself.
“Of course,” she says, her voice softening a little.
“My deepest thanks,” Kostya says, sounding very formal for someone who’s wearing my bed sheets.
We all look at each other in silence for a moment.
“I should be leaving,” my mother says.
“A pleasure to see you,” Kostya says, and I nearly roll my eyes.
“You as well,” my mom says, then looks at me. “Deodorant?”
I grab it from the bathroom, then escort her back to my front door. Kostya goes back into the bedroom and closes the door, firmly this time.
Inside the front door, my mom crosses her arms in front of her.
“He’s telling his father and I had to find out this way?” she asks.
“You weren’t supposed to,” I say.
She glances at the closed bedroom door again and thinks for a moment.
“I had some suspicions,” she admits. “We were hoping you were just flirting.”
I make an oops face.
“Everyone says he’s much more reasonable than his father, at least,” she says. Her voice softens a little. “And he’s got a cuter butt.”
I go scarlet again.
“Mom,” I hiss, but she just laughs.
Then she puts one hand on my shoulder.
“You like him for more than his cute butt?” she asks, softly.
I just nod.
“Okay,” she says. “I’ll do the paperwork.”
“Thank you,” I say. “And sorry.”
She hugs me.
“I can’t even tell your father,” she says. “The man couldn’t keep a secret if his life depended on it.”
“I know,” I say. “Thanks.”
Then she leaves. I take a couple deep breaths, standing in the living room, and then walk to the bedroom and open the door.
28
Kostya
I shut the door behind myself and stare at the bedroom. Our clothes are scattered everywhere. Hazel’s thong is on the back of a chair, my pants are half under the bed, and the used condom wrapped in a ball of tissues is still on the nightstand, even though I meant to throw it away.
We got lucky that Hazel’s mom just saw the jacket, I think, smiling to myself.
I toss Hazel’s thong from the chair to the bed and then sit by the window, opening the curtains enough to look out onto the Black Sea. It’s a gorgeous Saturday morning, and in the distance, I can see sailboats moving away from the harbor in Velinsk.
After a few minutes, the door opens and Hazel comes back in. She sits in the armchair opposite me, and curls her legs under her. The black silk robe settles against the curves of her body, and I can’t help but think about running my hands down her body through the soft fabric and wondering what noises she makes when she’s still a little sleepy.
“That could have gone worse,” she says.
I force myself to stop thinking about the filthy things I could do to her.
“She didn’t seem angry,” I say.
Hazel looks out the window at the sailboats and drums one finger on the arm of the chair.
“I think she’d prefer it if I didn’t take up with a foreign head of state while she’s serving as that country’s ambassador,” she says, slowly. “It complicates her job. But she’s not mad about you, just your title.”
She pauses again.
“I think she kind of likes you, actually,” Hazel says. “She doesn’t really share her personal opinions on the people she works with, but I think she likes you.”
It’s strange to hear that someone likes me. For most of the women I’ve been with, I was politically expedient for their parents or something to brag to their friends about. I’m useful and have an impressive title. Whether people like me rarely enters into the equation.
“I like her,” I say. “She’s good at her job and she respects your decisions.”
“That’s not always true,” Hazel says. “I’ve made plenty that she didn’t respect. She plans things for me without telling me first all the time. Every time we go somewhere here, she tells me not to wear leggings, like I didn’t learn that lesson.”
“My father’s threatening to disown me and name my brother crown prince if I don’t produce the right kind of heir with the right kind of docile, well-born, Svelorian woman,” I say. “I was fourteen when he started lecturing me about the importance of having an heir. Like I’m just breeding stock.”
“You win,” Hazel says, and makes a face. “I can’t imagine either of my parents telling me to produce an heir. Especially not when I was fourteen.”
“He didn’t mean for me to do it then,” I say. “Though he certainly meant for me to do it by now.”
She looks at me for a long moment, thinking.
“He’s really gonna flip his shit, huh?” she says.
“Yes,” I say, and shrug.
“What happens if he does disown you?” she asks.
“Then I become a royal in exile and find my fortune out in the world, like a commoner,” I say. “And come back here when he dies.”
“A commoner?” she says, totally straight-faced. “They don’t even live in castles. You’d have to pay rent instead of living somewhere that your family has owned for hundreds of years.”
“You’re making fun of me again,” I say.
“You used the word commoner,” Hazel says, her eyes dancing, but she leans forward, her voice going soft. “I’m a commoner. Of course I’m making fun of you.”
I lean forward in my chair and hold out my hand.
“You know what I mean,” I say. “I’d have to go make myself useful instead of look important and do nothing.”
Hazel takes my hand, and I pull her forward until she’s straddling my lap, her robe just starting to come open.
“Kostya, if you think that’s going to happen, you don’t have to—”
I put a few fingers on her mouth, and she hushes.
“I’m telling him,” I say. “And in case I get kicked out and never set foot in this palace again, I think we should stay here all day. Specifically, in your bed.”
She laughs, and I pull the sash on her robe until it falls open, then pull her forward until we’re face to face.
“Do you have any royal blood in you?” I ask.
She frowns.
“I don’t think so?” she says.
“Would you like some?” I ask, and squeeze her ass.
Hazel makes a face somewhere between grossed out and amused, then finally laughs.
“That’s not quite how that line goes,” she says.
We don’t leave her rooms. We barely leave her bed. I call down to the kitchen, request that food be brought to Hazel’s rooms for two people, and don’t explain why. Rumors spread like fire through the palace, so by nightfall, I’m sure that everyone’s heard that the prince has been with the American girl, in her room, all day, and I don’t give a damn.
All we do is fuck, talk, and nap. I’ve never been lazier in my entire life, and it feels wonderful to spend a whole day without anything I have to do, nowhere to go, and for once, nothing to worry about. I fall asleep with her on her side, curled around me, and I wake up spooning her tightly, my nose in her hair.
“We should get out of bed today,” she murmurs.
“We got out of bed yesterday,” I say, lazily stroking her hip. “I even took a shower.”
“You never put on pants.”
“I don’t remember any complaints.”
She rolls over onto her back and kisses me good morning.
“Maybe even out of my rooms,” she says.
�
��Ambitious,” I say.
It’s noon by the time we leave. I have to ask someone to bring me regular clothes from my own rooms, and as we walk through the halls of the palace, I can feel everyone watching us while pretending not to.
He must know by now, I think. Surely, someone’s told him already that I spent the day in her room.
The silence from him worries me more than if he called and screamed at me. I half expect that when he gets back I’ll simply be given an official document and told that I’m no longer his son, but right now, it’s impossible to worry about that.
We walk through the gardens. Hazel smells a rose, and I pick it for her, because I can. A gardener stares, so I pick another one and hand it to her.
“Okay, stop picking roses,” she says.
“No,” I say.
“How many do you think I need?” she asks.
I pick her another one, and she laughs.
“What if I don’t take it?” she asks.
“An even number of flowers is bad luck,” I say.
“You’re making that up.”
“I’m not. We put even numbers of flowers on graves.”
I hold out the rose.
“Is that the last one?” she asks.
“You’re impossible,” I say. “I’ve got a castle with an entire rose garden and you won’t take three flowers.”
“Here we go again,” she says, her eyes crinkling around the corners like she’s about to laugh. “More ‘I’m a prince’ stuff.”
“It’s impolite to tease a royal,” I say.
We walk to the massive garage. There are people everywhere on the palace grounds, and they’re all watching us while pretending that they’re not, so I ignore them.
“There are beautiful sea cliffs about twenty miles from here,” I say as we walk between the rows of shining cars, perfectly parked. “You can almost see Turkey from them, and at low tide, there are caves below.”
“Won’t it be crowded on a Sunday afternoon?” she asks.
I pause for a moment as we walk.
“No,” I say.
She sighs.
“Kostya, what’s wrong with the sea cliffs?” she asks.