Page 128 of The Last Inch Of Ice
“That tomato is not for you! It’s for your grandmother!”
“It’s okay.” Nazar brings it to his mouth, takes a deliberate, massive bite. Juice runs down his chin. He grins. “There are other tomatoes.”
“You absolute—” Kai lunges for him, but Nazar dodges, still grinning.
“Not as big though.”
“I’m going to kill you. I spent twenty minutes picking out the perfect—”
Kai stops mid-sentence. His outrage melts away, replaced by a look of triumphant smugness Nazar knows immediately he’s been played.
“Yes, Rykov.”
Kai reaches behind the small gazebo fence and pulls out a basket. Two massive tomatoes sit inside, even bigger than the one Nazar just bit into. “I anticipated this. I picked out the best ones in advance.”
“Oh, yes, Rykov.”
He reaches behind the small gazebo’s lattice fence and pulls out a woven basket. Inside, nestled on a cloth, sit two more tomatoes—impossibly large, glossy, and a deeper shade of red than the one Nazar holds. “I anticipated your… lack of self-control. So I picked theactualbest ones in advance.”
Nazar stares. “You set me up.”
A slow grin spreads across his face. Before Kai can react, Nazar plucks the basket from his grasp. He holds it up, just out of Kai’s reach.
“Hey!” Kai lunges for it, but Nazar is taller, easily keeping it away. “Give it back, you thief.”
“I don’t know. This looks like the finders keepers.”
Kai scoffs, but a smile plays on his lips. He can’t hide it. “Don’t be an asshole.”
“Fine,” Nazar says, lowering the basket just enough to be tempting. “A trade. One taste.”
Kai’s eyes narrow. “A taste of what? You’ve already got a tomato.”
Nazar doesn’t answer with words. He uses his free hand to tip Kai’s chin up. His heavy gaze drops to the long, pale column of Kai’s throat where a pulse beats steadily under the skin.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Kai breathes, but he doesn’t pull away. A flicker of something hot passes through him. He tilts his head, baring his neck in a clear invitation.
Nazar leans in. He touches the tip of his tongue to that frantic pulse point, a slow lick that tastes of salt and sun-warmed skin. He feels the shiver that runs through Kai’s entire body.
He pulls back with a smirk and finally hands over the basket.
Kai grabs the basket with one hand and Nazar’s shirt with the other, pulling him in for a quick, hard kiss. Kai even bites his lip.
“You’re insufferable,” Nazar says, his voice a little shaky now.
“And you love it,” Kai murmurs, his good mood fully restored. “Your grandmother is going to send out a search party if we don’t get back soon.
They walk back to the house together, Kai carrying the basket of tomatoes, Nazar finishing off the stolen one with deep satisfaction.
Through the kitchen window, Nazar can see his friends—his family, really—crowded around the too-small table, laughing and eating and making his grandmother beam with pride.
Tomorrow they’ll fly to the islands. He’ll probably be nervous about whether Kai likes the resort he picked, the excursions he planned, all the details he’s not used to thinking about.
But right now, in this moment, with Kai’s shoulder bumping against his and the summer evening settling gold around them—
Right now, everything is exactly as it should be.
They step through the back door together, and his grandmother immediately zeroes in on the basket.
