Page 36 of The Fire Beneath the Frost

The cab smelled like coffee and cigarettes.Dimitri sat beside me, legs spread slightly apart, his shoulders sinking slowly against the worn leather seat.We said nothing since leaving Novye Khudozhniki, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence.Just sleepy.Full.

I hated spending the money on a taxi.God, I hated it.It was practically half a week’s groceries just to shave forty minutes off the commute.But we both had to be up before the sun, and I couldn’t stomach the idea of standing in the freezing wind waiting for a tram with our heads full of dreams and no time to sleep.

I glanced over at Dimitri.

He yawned again.This time he didn’t even try to hide it, just leaned his head back and let it out with a soft, rumbling sigh.He looked… Jesus.Adorable.His face was flushed from the warmth of the cab, his curls a little wild, his eyelashes casting shadows on his cheeks.

There was something boyish about him when he was tired.Something soft and unguarded.And I didn’t want this night to end.

I wanted to fall asleep beside him.Wanted to press my face to his chest and feel it rise and fall.I wanted, just for a few hours, to pretend we had something that resembled peace.

And then it hit me.

Vera was with Mira tonight.

I sat up a little straighter, running the mental math faster than I probably should have with this little sleep.Pavel and Nina would be home, sure, but their work didn’t start until later.They slept like corpses on weekdays.If we were very quiet…

I licked my lips and leaned toward him.

“Hey,” I whispered, nudging his knee lightly with mine.“We have to be up so early.Why don’t you just sleep at my place?”

He blinked at me, slow.“What?”

“Vera’s with her friend Mira tonight,” I murmured, keeping my voice low in case the cabbie was nosy.“We’d have the room to ourselves.We’d just have to be silent.Nina and Pavel are home.But they don’t get up until late.”

His brows lifted slowly, confusion shifting into something else.A smile, wide and lazy, spread across his face like honey slipping down warm bread.

“Are you sure?”he asked, almost like he couldn’t believe it.

I nodded.“Positive.”

He gave a soft chuckle, the kind you only hear when someone is so exhausted they’re floating, and leaned his head slightly toward mine.“Then yes.I’d like that.”

I turned to the cabbie, who hadn’t looked back once—bless him—and tapped the back of the seat.

“Change of plans,” I said.“Pod’yem 47, Kvartira 3.”

The driver grunted in acknowledgment, and the car turned down a different street, the tires whispering against the slush.I felt the tug of excitement again, hot and a little dangerous.

This was stupid.Maybe.But it also felt… right.

Dimitri reached over and rested his hand on mine, just for a second, a quick press of warmth between us.

And I let him.

As the cab turned down my block, I leaned toward Dimitri again and whispered, “Once we’re inside, we can’t speak.Not even a whisper.Okay?”

He nodded, already catching the tone of this new game we were playing—one where the stakes were real, where every creak in the floorboards might cost us more than a night’s sleep.

We stepped out into the cold.The chill hit our faces like a reminder of the world we’d briefly escaped.I paid the driver, careful not to wince at the amount, and we stood for a beat under the dim streetlamp, looking up at my building like it might swallow us whole.

Then we went inside and began the long climb upstairs.

The stairwell smelled of boiled cabbage, the same as always.My legs ached, but I couldn’t feel anything through the pounding in my chest.Each step sounded like a gunshot in the cavernous stairwell, even though we moved as quietly as shadows.

At the landing, I pressed a finger to my lips and looked over my shoulder.

Dimitri was behind me, his lips curved upward in something close to mischief, his breath fogging softly in the stairwell.

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