Page 78 of The Primary Pest
Things had to be all right.
They must, if only because now he and Dmytro had each other.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Dmytro
Dmytro rested his eyes.He floated lazily now, free of his boots, free of the jeans that pulled him down, all the while waiting for something to happen. Though there were clouds on the horizon, the sea seemed calm and the water passed them by in swells, not chop.
He clung to Ajax. Sometimes only his hand. Sometimes Ajax wrapped him in his arms, like when he’d been unconscious, using the ring-shaped float to save his energy.
Cold water sapped his strength. The brilliant sun baked them both dry. The few bottles they found with trace amounts of water in them would not hold them. They were being brined, literally salted from the outside in.
“Did you ever go swimming in the ocean so long you got pruned?” Ajax’s thoughts must have run along the same lines. “My fingers look mummified.”
He lifted Ajax’s hand, and indeed, his fingers were wrinkled like raisins. “Someone will find us.”
“You don’t know that.” Ajax’s mood had begun to swing between optimism and defeat.
One minute he was sure he heard a plane fly overhead, and the next he said how grateful he was to have had the chance to say goodbye to his parents.
Dmytro kissed him often. In his heart, he pined for his girls, but he knew Liv would be there for them. With Zhenya’s help, with insurance money and his pension, she would be able to give them the best of everything. And she loved them. That was important. She wasn’t their mother or father, but she loved them as much as he and Yulia had, and that was enough. She was always there for them, which was more than Dmytro had been.
Now his place was there with Ajax.
“What? What’s that look for?” Ajax swiveled like an otter, turning his back on swells that threatened to come over his head. Dmytro swam like a rock—as Ajax accused soon after he’d come to. “You’re getting a look on your face.”
Hard to shrug in the water. Hard to speak without slurring his words. His head hurt so badly. “Thinking about Sasha and Pen.”
“You think ghosts might be real?” Ajax asked morbidly. “Like, maybe we can hang around our families still, even after we’re gone?”
“I doubt it.” If ghosts were real, the men Dmytro had killed would have driven him out of his mind long ago. “I believe… this is all we get.”
“I’ll bet you regret taking this job. I’m so sorry, Dmytro. I—”
“I don’t.” Dmytro bicycled his feet as much as he needed to cup Ajax’s jaw one-handed and kiss his red, chapped lips. “I will regret not seeing my girls grow up.”
“But you wouldn’t be in this—”
“I wouldn’t change a thing.” He kissed Ajax’s nose tenderly, then his lips again, speaking between kisses. “Except I’d kill Peter. Throw Chet to the sharks.”
“Shh…” Ajax’s laughter warmed Dmytro’s cheek. “Don’t say the S-word.”
“I regret trusting them.” Dmytro let his smile grow against Ajax’s ear. It made him dizzy, talking this much, but Ajax needed it. “But I’d never change us, little mink. I thought my heart was buried with Yulia. I thought I’d live the rest of my life for Sasha and Pen’s sake.”
“But that’s—”
“I would have beensatisfiedwith that. But now, how could I?” He shook his head. “We could make a life together, Ajax. You are the heart I believed was lost. I know my girls would love you. Liv would love you.”
Ajax shook his head. “I doubt that.”
“She’d welcome you if only because…” He dragged wet hair off his face. “She says I never smile anymore.”
“She’s right about that. When we first met, I thought youcouldn’tsmile.”
“I’ll plan to smile more.”
He felt something brush past his leg and didn’t mention it. If it didn’t touch Ajax, he certainly didn’t need to know.
