Page 16 of Inked Adonis

“You are weak.Weak and pathetic and… weak!” I berate myself.

My reflection in the laptop screen silently agrees as I set aside the book I’ve been pretending to read for the past hour.

I promised myself a week ago that, where Samuil was concerned, I’d stay away from the internet. All things Samuil should be learned organically—via text and calls and post-coital pillow chats.

But sometime during the seven hours since his last text, I lost my damn mind.

I take a sip of my cheap wine and, with one eye squinted closed, type Samuil’s name into Google. The spinny wheel on my ancient computer spins and spins and then?—

“Three million hits?!” Wine splashes onto my dollar store pajama bottoms as I jerk back in shock.

Like the sleuth I am, I head straight for the “Images” tab. The sound that comes out of my mouth is somewhere between a whimper and a wolf whistle.

It’s a sea of Samuil—Samuil in perfectly-tailored suits, Samuil donating to charity, Samuil catching some foreign sun on the beach with a tank top covering some, but not all of the goods.

A few seconds of scrolling is all it takes to determine that the man couldn’t take a bad picture if he tried.

Sure, the photographs don’t do his silver eyes any justice—no camera could capture the way those silver irises burn into yoursoul. But there’s no arguing with the fact that Samuil Litvinov is walking, talking, probably-owns-a-private-island perfection.

And he’s been texting me all week.

I’m prepared to finish off this bottle of wine in celebration, but the longer I scroll, the more the drinking takes a sad, depressing turn.

By the third article pondering his relationship status and offering timelines of his many conquests, I can’t help but play a game of Compare and Despair.

The women on his arm are statuesque goddesses with designer shoes and hollowed cheekbones. Actresses, models, ballerinas—each more gorgeous than the last.

And then there’s me. Five-foot-three on a good day, with curves that wouldn’t know ‘willowy’ if it bit them on the ass.

Just when I think I’ve hit rock bottom, the universe decides to break out its excavation equipment. The last photo in the article is a grainy paparazzi image with a bolded caption beneath it:Samuil Litvinov, pictured with his then-wife.

“‘Wife’?”

He’s shielding her from the paparazzi, one hand clasped in hers while the other blocks the cameras. Her face is downturned, but the flow of her thick blonde hair and silk chiffon dress make it clear she’s just as beautiful as all the other women Samuil has ever had at his side.

One more Google search, and I could know her name, her age, her body mass index.

But my fingers hesitate over the keyboard.

Somewhere under the haze of bottom-shelf wine and self-loathing, I still have some self-preservation. What is looking her up going to do aside from kick my already deflated self-esteem?

I don’t need that. I don’t need him.

An hour later, when my phone lights up with his name, I stare at the message for what feels like an eternity.

Then I delete it without answering.

6

NOVA

It’s been eight days since I stopped texting Samuil, and five since he gave up and stopped texting me.

Which is what I wanted… right?

So why do I feel like I just walked away from winning lottery numbers?

“Rufus!” I say in my sternest voice. “Sit.”

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