Page 2 of Bad Teammate
“Twenty-four.”
“Do you have a picture of him?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“Can I see it?”
Sheshook her head. “No, it’s a blind date, isn’t it? You’re supposed to keep an open mind.”
“Open mind,” I repeated. “Did you know that the human brain needs only a fifth of a second to determine if we are attracted to someone or not?”
Alina couldn’t help but laugh, even as her eyes fluttered into the back of her head. “Okay—that kind of thinking right there? That isthe perfect example of a mind that isnotopen.”
“But that’s my point; the mind has nothing to do with it. Attraction is primal. We’re attracted to what we’re attracted to, and we know it rather quickly, too.”
“No wonder you hate dating. You think about this stuffwaytoo deeply.”
It was easy for her to say—she had her pick of the men who pursued her endlessly. She neverhadto think about dating the way I did.
The subway car screeched and howled as it slowed into the next station.
“This is our stop,” Alina said.
***
Kirill didn’t pass the fifth-of-a-second test. From the second we met, he couldn’t keep his eyes off me—but not in the good way that made a girl feel sexy and desired. No, it was more in the nervous boy way; every time I caught him leering, his eyes quickly darted away.
And perhapsboywas the keyword of the night.
Kirill was a boy that wore nice clothes in an effort to look like a distinguished man, but ended up looking like he was dressed in his father’s business clothes. A boy who doused himself with cologne, not understanding that the point of it was to make a woman want to getcloser,not make her feel like she had to swim up for air.
Sitting next to Dmitri, the contrast between the two couldn’t be more obvious. Dmitri took charge and led the conversation all night long, while Kirill looked content to defer to his elder and more charismatic co-worker.
“Katerina,” Kirill finally said, pouncing on a lull in the conversation, “I’ve been wanting to ask you something.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“Your brother is Aleksander Nikolaev, right?”
I groaned, turning to face Alina.
“Sorry,” she whispered, “he wanted to know something about you.”
I turned back to Kirill. “Yes. He is my brother.”
“Wow.” He beamed. “What’s it like being related to a national hero?” His smile was so earnest, it was impossible to be mad at him. He was meeting the sister of his hero, after all.
“I can’t really say,” I said with a defeated sigh. “I only think of him as my baby brother.”
“That’s socool.”
I fielded all sorts of questions about Sasha from both Kirill and Dmitri before Alina finally intervened.
“Guys, Aleksander didn’t getallthe talent in the family, you know,” she said.
I jabbed her with an elbow and gave her a glare.Don’t you dare.
She ignored it. “It just so happens that Katerina was basically a child prodigy at piano.”
