#gvbb23fic

Zoya was going to throw up.

She could feel her mouth watering in preparation for it, but she grit her teeth trying to tame it back.

“What–I don’t–” Nikolai was pale now. The palest she had ever seen him. And it did not look good.

In another setting, in another time, she would have teased him–told him that his good looks did have their limits. He would roll his eyes, of course. Then he would laugh and quirk up his mouth to an approximation of a smolder. Then he’d approach her with that same stupid look plastered on his face. And even if she turned away or clasped her hands over his face, he would make her look at him. He would stick his face so close to hers until she could see that ridiculous, beautiful, silly face until she broke. Until she was also laughing and smiling and wrapping her arms around him–

She gripped the handle of a suitcase tighter, a vague attempt of grounding her to this moment.

To this dreadful, heartbreaking moment.

“Nik–I’m–I’m sorry. I just think we’re–going in separate directions.” Her voice was crystal clear. Like ice.

Which was odd, because everything in her seemed to be crashing and burning.

“What did I do?” He burst out suddenly. The paralysis that had overtaken him was ripped away to be replaced with something a bit more panicked. “Please. I just–I don’t know what you’re saying to me right now. What did I do?”

She could feel the pressure in her head start to build. Her vision going in and out.

No. Not now.

She coughed and looked away from him.

“I don’t know how to be any clearer, Nikolai. I think it’s been clear that you and I just–don’t work.”

“Is it because I didn’t take you with me on that last business trip?” He asked. “Is it that I didn’t take your advice on that last legal issue I had with some of the product we were moving? Zo, please look at me. I just need to know what I did, so I can make some sense of–”

“It’s nothing that you did!” She snapped. Her eyes went back to him, and her resolve almost crumbled right then and there.

His face had changed from a deathly white to an angry red. His hands buried in his hair in a manic gesture. He was the perfect picture of a man who looked like he was surprised to find himself at the edge of a cliff, and wasn’t sure if he had a way to get down safely.

And Zoya had to be the one to push him over.

“Look,” She sighed, “We’ve both been busy with work. You have that new merger coming up, and I have a new case that is going to take my time. And it’s been like that for some time. I just think we’re drifting apart. And I’d rather end things now than wait for us to just realize we stopped loving each other.”

She turned to leave, but Nikolai’s hand grabbed her arm, making her face him again.

Another roll of nausea washed over her, and this time she had to swallow down the bile that was dangerously close to rising up.

“That’s it?” He demanded. “That’s all you’re going to say? That we’re both too fucking busy?”

“I–”

“Zoya, you and I have been busy our entire fucking relationship! We have gone weeks without seeing each other. We have been countries apart. Why are you doing this now?!” His hand gripped the fabric of her coat tighter. “Is it someone else?”

“No!” Zoya cried out.

“Is Aleksander back?”

“No.” Zoya replied.

“Then—” The fight seemed to leave him. The grip on her coat was weaker. “Then–do– do you not love me anymore?”

She needed to agree. She needed to confirm his worst fear, so that he could hate her. So that he could let her go. But the words weren’t coming out.

The lie was too bitter on her tongue for them to come out in any disguise of truth.

Instead she just released herself from his grip and took a step back. She needed distance. She needed space.

Because if she spent one more second being close enough to touch him, she would stay.

And she can’t stay.

“Nikolai…I just…think we should just be happy for what we had.” Now her throat felt like it was closing in on itself. “I don’t think we were meant to last forever.”

She was seeing spots in her vision again, but it wasn’t enough to block the devastated look that crossed his face.

It wasn’t enough for her to ignore the way she had completely shattered him.

She turned again, and this time he didn’t grab her. She walked towards their–his– door, but stopped when she heard a faint, “Please.”

Zoya glanced behind her shoulder one last time.

Nikolai was framed in the kitchen doorway. The only light coming from the lamp of the dining room.

“Please, Zoya…please… stay.”

She had joked with him once that he would be the type to beg for anything if it gave him attention. He had responded with his usual smirk and challenged her to it–like he always did.

Looks like she won.

The victory felt like the first of many knives into her heart.

“Goodbye, Nikolai.”

The door shut behind her as she left, and she made it all the way to her car before she collapsed on the sidewalk, her legs finally giving out.

With shaking hands she took her phone out. Zoya’s heavy breathing was all that she could hear until Genya’s “Hello?” was in her ear.

“I need you to come pick me up, and take me to the hospital. I think I’m getting worse.”

-

“I am sorry, Miss Nazyalensky,” The doctor said. She had a perfectly sympathetic look that Zoya wanted to slap right out of her. “Your results have come in, and it looks like your symptoms are progressing faster than we had expected.”

The beeping of the machines next to her was making her right eye twitch.

“What the hell does that mean?”

The hospital gown was rubbing at her skin all wrong.

“It means…it means we might have to adjust your…life expectancy.”

It was too bright in this room. She wished they would turn the lights down just a little.

“Miss Nazyalensky…we are expecting six months.”

There was a beat of silence. Then Zoya burst into a fit of laughter.

The doctor looked at her with a blank expression that made Zoya even laugh harder.

It wasn’t funny. Hearing that anyone’s life has less than a year to live was anything but hilarious. But Zoya couldn’t help it.

All her life, she has tried everything she could to make all the right decisions. She studied late nights. She got into a good school. She ate a salad every now and again. She worked out. She didn’t smoke. She stopped binge drinking. She made enough money to go to the doctor.

And what does she still get after all the right decisions?

A hereditary disease. A last gift from a mother who had abandoned her for yet another man who was going to leave her anyway.

There was some cosmic irony at play in her life. That as soon as she thought she had everything she had ever dreamed about– money, a career, someone who loves her— that was when life decided to remind her that the very family that she has tried so hard to ignore was the one that would kill her.

And that was why she was laughing.

The doctor coughed, “We need you to stay overnight to run some tests. Is there anyone you want with you? Our hospital does allow overnight stays.”

Her chest gave such a strong lurch Zoya was a little surprised that the heart monitor hadn’t gone berserk.

Yes. The admission was so close to the surface that she almost thought she had spoken it out loud. But the doctor just kept looking at her.

“No.” Zoya croaked. “No, I’m fine on my own.”

It was later that night that Zoya found that statement to be wildly untrue.

She almost hated Nikolai. She wanted to hate him.

It was his fault that there was this pain inside her that was twisting around and making her life more of a living hell. It wasn’t bad enough that she had to wait until her body decided to waste away completely.

Now, she felt like the cracks of her heart were starting to undo her, and all she wanted to do was to lay in his arms and feel his chest move up and down against her cheek. She wanted so, so badly to hear him murmur the office gossip while his voice slurred with exhaustion. She wanted to smell his cologne that lingered on their sheets when he was gone for a business trip. She wanted to tease and watch him cook in their kitchen. In the life that they had built.

She wanted, she wanted, she wanted.

Angry tears slipped down her cheeks as she turned her face into the unfamiliar pillow.

Without thinking, she pulled her phone up and hovered over the lockscreen picture of Nikolai pulling a stupid face while at the wheel of his boat when he took her sailing for the first time.

A stronger ache pushed through her, and she was close to throwing the phone across the room. Instead, she moved to her contacts, and hesitated for a brief moment before calling the one person she had no right calling.

“Hello?” The voice on the other hand was rough with sleep and confusion. “Zo?”

“Mal.” Zoya choked.

“What’s wrong?” He was more alert, and she could just picture him sitting abruptly up in bed, jostling Alina in the process.

“No–”

“Don’t lie.” He sighed. “You only ever call me if something is wrong.”

Zoya chewed on her lip.

What the hell was she doing? Maybe she shouldn’t have sent Genya away. Maybe she should have asked her to stay. Maybe that would have stopped her from calling the one-night stand that had been a result of boredom.

“Zo?” He asked in lieu of her silence. “Are you in a ditch? Is that why you can’t talk? Do you need me to come over–”

“No.” She said abruptly. “Don’t come over.”

“Why? Is it Nikolai? I thought we had straightened–”

“I just–”

“Miss Nazyalensky, I need to take your vitals.” The voice of her night nurse interrupted and Zoya was just a hair too late in muffling the receiver.

The nurse came over before Zoya could hang up the phone, and she had no choice but to be under her ministrations for a few minutes before she was alone again.

“What the fuck was that?!” Mal exclaimed. “Are you in a hospital? Zo, what happened? Why isn’t Nik–”

“Just shut up for a second, Oretsev.” Zoya’s headache was coming back. The sharp pain made it hard to piece together how to explain why she was called. Or even to come up with a reasonable excuse to call him.

“How bad is it?” He whispered into the receiver.

She could have lied, she guessed. She could have passed off this late night phone call as an accident. But she had already said her share of lies tonight, and she didn’t think she had anymore in her.

“Six months.” She muttered.

“Fuck.”

She barked out a laugh, “Always good with words, weren’t you?”

“Zoya…Nikolai…He–he doesn’t know, does he?”

She could feel Mal read into the silence. Even from a distance, Mal had a way to read just under the surface of her. It had never been enough for her to let him in–not completely (she wasn’t a fan of being the second thought after the actual woman he loved).

But it was enough that he said, “You didn’t tell him, because of what happened with Alina, right?”

“Nikolai is an idiot, Mal.” Zoya bit out.

His derisive laugh crackled through, “You don’t have to tell me twice. But that didn’t really answer my question.”

“He’s an idiot, who doesn’t know how to quit. If he knew, he’d never leave my side. He’d destroy his life trying to save an incurable disease. He’d hate himself more than he already does, and I’d still be dead in six months.”

These were the words she has been repeating to herself for months after she found out about the diagnosis. She wanted to believe that if she repeated them enough then maybe it would make her feel better about every single time she had to hide from him when she had spent half an hour throwing up, or making up some excuse to go to the doctor’s, or hiding the clumps of her hair that were starting to fall off from her head.

But telling them to Mal with the sounds of monitors and the smells of chemical cleanliness overwhelming her, the statements fell flat.

“He’d want to know, Zo.” He said simply.

She gave another bitter laugh, “Well I’d want to not be dying. But we don’t always get what we want. Not everyone can have miracles like your dear Saint Alina.”

There was silence between them for a while. Zoya knew he wouldn’t hang up on her. Not even after that comment. Because Mal Oretsev may be petty sometimes or pigheaded even more times than that, but at his heart he was kind and he knew what pain sounded like.

“You want me to come over there and try to threaten some nurses to give you the good pillows?”

Zoya smiled for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, “Oh, you’re still the softie, aren’t you? No wonder Alina loves you.”

He laughed and then sighed.

“Zo…it’s okay….it’s okay to be scared of what comes next. When Alina was sick…Alina spent a long time trying to put on a brave face for me, but I just wished she would have let me see her scared. I just didn’t know how much time I would have with her, and I didn’t want to waste one second pretending like everything was okay.”

I’m not Alina. She wanted to say. I’m not going to get better. I’m not scared of what is going to happen to me. I’m scared of what would happen to him if he had stayed with me to the end.

“Haven’t you learned by now, Oretsev?” She said instead. “I’m never scared.”

Mal gave another laugh. There was a noise in the background, and Zoya could faintly hear him talking to someone in the room.

“Alina begging you to come back to bed?” She teased.

“Something like that.” He sighed. “Call again, Zoya. Better yet, call him. You don’t have to do this alone.”

“Yeah, yeah,” She waved him off, “Just go have fun with your saint, Mal.”

“I’ll talk to you later.”

He hung up, and the silence felt more deafening than before.

She didn’t know why she called Mal. She wished she could have even said that at least Mal had gone through something like this situation before–that he would have just the right words to make her feel better about all of this.

But it wasn’t that. Maybe she called Mal because she couldn’t call the one person who would have actually come running to her side.

Zoya flipped open her phone again, and just stared at her lockscreen.

Nikolai’s breath came in short, harsh pants as his hands clenched around the controls of his plane. All he could see was the black fighter in front of him, desperately dodging and weaving to try to avoid him. He was good, Nikolai would give him that. But he was better. 

“Come on, come on,” he muttered as he watched his computer track the other plane, the target never quite steadying. The fighter dived into the canyon below and Nikolai followed, still not able to get a missile lock. The canyon walls seemed to narrow around his plane, one small misstep sure to end with him dying in a fiery wreck. Nikolai’s breathing quickened.

“Nik, need some help here!” Dominik gasped on the radio. Nikolai jerked his head up and saw two planes streaking across the sky, Dominik pursued by another enemy fighter. His heart stopped.

“Genya!” he yelled. “Help Domino!”

The fighter he was pursuing swerved suddenly, and Nikolai cursed as he struggled to follow. The enemy planes were infinitely more maneuverable than theirs, if a little slower. But he was so goddamn close, he could taste it.

“Can’t!” Genya responded, her heavy breathing making the line crackle. “Two on my tail.”

“Nikolai!”

Fuck. Nikolai was getting too far from his teammates. The world seemed to slow as he stared at the fighter in front of him, seemingly getting further and further away from him with every second. Dominik could handle himself for a few more seconds. If he stayed, he could chalk his first kill. He could scratch that tally mark into the side of his plane.

And Dominik would be dead.

Damn it all. 

He pulled up and out of the valley, the familiar crushing force settling back onto his body. 

“I’m coming,” he gasped, praying Dominik could hear him. “Hang on.”

The sky was a brilliant, unforgiving blue as he climbed higher, the air thinning. He looked around wildly.

“Talk to me, Dom. Where are you?”

“On your left! Break right, break right!”

Nikolai obeyed blindly, his body jerking against the seat’s restraints as the plane went perpendicular with the ground. To his right, he saw Genya’s plane scream past. She was giving the two on her tail a run for their money. Dominik passed by overhead with a roar, smoke trailing from his plane. Another enemy fighter followed him. 

Nikolai cursed and struggled to right his plane, but it was too goddamn slow. Time seemed to stretch out, each second an hour as Dominik got further and further from him.

“I’m almost there, Dom. Hang on,” he panted as he pushed the jet to go faster. The engine let out a warning screech.

“Nikolai!” Dominik screamed. 

“I’m coming, I’m coming—” His cockpit felt like it was burning up, the heat of a thousand suns piercing through his uniform and searing his skin, his bones—

“Nikolai!”

Nikolai bolts awake, sheets twisted around his sweat-sticky body. Dominik’s screams echo in his ear. His heart pounds in staccato rhythm, his mind still locked in a battle long past, long survived.  

“You good?”

Nikolai blinks and the figure crouched beside his bunk comes into focus. Mal Oretsev’s face is twisted in concern, one hand still stretched toward Nikolai. Nikolai bats it aside. He forces one breath after another into his constricted lungs, and slowly, the panic subsides. He isn’t in the sky, he isn’t flying, and the ground beneath him is as solid as it would ever be.

“Yeah,” he says breathlessly. He clears his throat and tries again, this time with a fake smile. “Never better.”

Mal doesn’t look convinced, but thankfully, doesn’t dig. He’s used to Nikolai’s idiosyncrasies by now. He tosses a shirt at Nikolai. “You better get your ass ready then. They called us back to Top Gun.”

Nikolai’s heart stutters at the name. Memories of bright blue eyes, desert that stretched to the horizon, and words he regretted more than anything rise unbidden to his mind. He hasn’t been back since what had happened almost four years ago, and he had intended to keep it that way for the rest of his hopefully long career. But he supposes he was never that lucky of a guy, anyway. He keeps his voice carefully level as he pulls the shirt on and kicks off his sheets.

“For what?”

Mal leans against his dresser, the very picture of nonchalance as Nikolai pulls on the first pair of pants he can find on his floor. But Nikolai has been with him long enough to read the tension in his jaw and that look he gets when he’s thinking about the past. He isn’t the only one with a messy story, after all. 

“Special detachment. They wouldn’t tell me more than that. But they only invited the best of the best.”

There’s only one pilot other than himself that Nikolai would ever think of as the best. He’s spent so long trying to forget her that the thought of seeing her again is like the sight of water for a man dying of thirst. His heart gives a little skip, the ink on his forearm aches. 

Don’t even start, Lantsov. Zoya’s not in the business of second chances. 

Nikolai shoves the thought of her out of his mind and gives Mal his best asshole-smile. 

“Guess you’re in charge of the squadron while I’m gone then.”

Mal rolls his eyes and chuffs Nikolai on the shoulder. “Fuck off, asshole. Be ready to leave in an hour or I’m leaving you behind.”

Nikolai clutches his heart in mock-hurt. “You would do that to your wingman? Your dearest fling? Your most convenient friend with bene—”

Mal throws a pillow at his face and stalks out of the room.

—

Top Gun is somehow just as Nikolai remembers it, and a completely different beast at the same time. As soon as he steps onto the tarmac, the balmy San Diego air kisses his skin and makes him crave an ice-cold drink. Beside him, Mal slides on a pair of aviators and squints at the midday sun.

“That was the worst flight I’ve ever been on.”

“Mmmm, I don’t know,” Nikolai drawls. He grabs his bag from the ground and starts walking toward the building where all the brass have their offices. “I’ve been in your backseat before. It was a pretty harrowing experience. Almost made me want to change careers.”

“I’m hanging you out to dry on our next hop,” Mal threatens, but Nikolai knows it’s an empty threat. Mal has never left him behind. Not when it counted. 

The two of them check in with Juris, the grizzled Top Gun Air Boss who’s been stationed there for as long as Nikolai can remember, then take a meandering route to their assigned housing. They don’t see a single pilot other than themselves as they roam the halls, the sky quiet without the familiar roar of fighters overhead. It’s like walking through a ghost town.

By nightfall, the two of them end up at Genya’s seaside bar on an unspoken agreement. Nikolai convinces himself he’s there to scope out the competition, but it’s a pretty flimsy excuse when he knows exactly whom from the competition he wants to see. Mal eyes him as he takes another swig from his beer, and Nikolai ignores his stare. Mal really isn’t one to judge. Pot, kettle, black, however the saying goes. 

Speaking of competition—there’s plenty of it packed into the space. Pilots fill every available space, wings of gold gleaming in the dim lights. Nikolai recognizes a few he’s flown with before, and some from his Top Gun class. The Bataar twins are over at the dartboard, arguing over the points from the last round. Nadia Zhabin sips at a brightly colored drink, her pale eyes sharp and focused as she scans the room. Even the elusive Alina Starkov is there, forever a bright star that would much rather be a wallflower. She ignores the small wave he sends her way, almost as resolutely as Mal refuses to acknowledge the whole side of the room where she’s seated. Not for the first time, Nikolai wonders what exactly they did to each other.

Nikolai flags Genya’s attention from across the bar where she’d been serving another group of uniformed pilots. His former squadron-mate is as beautiful as ever with her flame-red hair and glowing smile. Her one amber eye is narrowed in amusement, a black eye patch embroidered with seagulls covering where the other should have been. A familiar twinge of guilt tickles the bottom of Nikolai’s stomach, but he ignores it as he grins at Genya.

“Another beer, please. And put it on Oretsev’s tab.”

“Absolutely not,” Mal interjects. “Put it on his own tab. We all know he can afford it.”

Genya laughs, and Nikolai catches a lovestruck look from David, her fiance, from across the room. Genya has always said her career had been worth both a successful business and a fiancee, but it’s the first time Nikolai has been able to believe her. He hides his smile behind the new bottle Genya hands him.

“I think he’s got you there, Nicky.” She leans in closer. “Zoya hasn’t shown up yet. Thought I’d save you a few minutes of looking around like a lost puppy.”

Nikolai takes a measured sip of beer. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh look, it’s Nazyalensky,” Mal deadpans. Nikolai’s head whips around so fast that it hurts. And sure enough, Zoya Nazyalensky is walking through the front doors. Nikolai feels like he’s suddenly been ejected from his jet, just miles of empty sky beneath him and no parachute to slow his fall.

Where to begin with Zoya Nazyalensky? She had been in and out of life like a summer hurricane, one summer there and then gone as quickly as she’d arrived with a path of destruction left behind her. Nikolai watches sullenly as the entire room’s attention seems to shift toward her. She looks better than ever in her pressed khakis, her dark hair pulled back into an elegant twist. Her eyes scan the room in disinterest before they pause in Nikolai’s vicinity. He swears his heart stops as she pauses a few steps away from him.

“Oretsev.” Her voice is just the same as he remembers. 

“Nazyalensky.”

Nikolai’s grip on his bottle tightens as Mal hops off his stool and slides an arm around Zoya’s waist. Genya sighs from behind the bar. 

Nikolai isn’t stupid. He knows about Mal and Zoya. But seeing is different from knowing. He watches as the two of them head for an empty pool table, then turns back to Genya. She has a distinctly sympathetic look that makes him feel pretty fucking pathetic.

“You got anything stronger?”

“On the house.”

—

“I think I can take it from here, Oretsev.” Nikolai says as he grabs the pool stick from his friend’s hands.

Mal raises his eyebrows in shock, a million questions dancing in his eyes, but he takes one glance to where Nikolai was actually looking and decides to relinquish his hold.

He shakes his head then sighs, “More and more convinced you have a death wish, Charming.”

Nikolai rolls his eyes, “Prince Charming. C’mon man, we’ve been working together for how long now?”

Mal didn’t say anything. He just took his lukewarm glass of beer and went to join Alina at the other side of the bar. 

“Lieutenant Nazyalensky.” He gives her his best grin, he knows it won’t work. “Good to see you”

“Lantsov, I should have known you’d be here.” Zoya’s voice was as frigid as always.

“You look good.” He said as he pocketed two of the solid pool balls on the right pocket. 

“I am good. I’m very good.” She scoffed then scanned the table for her next move. “Nice to see my sloppy seconds can enjoy one another.” 

Nikolai grinned, their toxic little love square they had going on, well, Mal was a good distraction, and he wasn’t sensitive enough, about that at least, to be bothered. He didn’t even mind that her shot had knocked two of his pieces in different directions and had one of her striped balls landing in another pocket. 

He took his time looking at the table, but he was really looking for an excuse. An excuse to round the corner and stand toe-to-toe with her. His hands not-so-casually resting on either side of her on the sleek wood of the pool table. She didn’t need to tilt that much to meet his gaze, and he tried not to think that from this distance, it would be easy to just kiss her senseless. 

It also didn’t help that she didn’t take a step back either.

Oh, the familiar smell of her was making his head light. His hands twitched on his pool stick, like they were considering actually just taking her face and press his lips to hers. He could have actually done more than kiss her in the middle of this bar. But he saw just how tense her shoulders were under that bravado. Or maybe he was just projecting because he could feel the rigidity in his own spine.

Their last conversation hadn’t been a pleasant one. Their parting even colder. And seeing her under these familiar yellow lights was making Nikolai way more aware of just how far she felt. Just how big the barrier between them was that made her that much more untouchable.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to push his luck, anyway.

He moved away and deliberately stepped around her so that his shoulder brushed hers. It was a cheap shot at getting the upper hand.

It was a pathetic excuse to touch her. 

He lined up his shot and managed to tie their score. 

But Zoya wasn’t looking at the game. Her dark blue eyes picked him apart. 

He wondered what she saw. If she could read just how tense he was with her around. If she could see how badly he still wanted her. If she could feel how terrified he was to see her here, at the start of an assignment that smelled too much like a suicide mission. 

“Your shot.” He said. 

It was loud in Genya’s bar. The evening crowd on a warm summer night created a symphony of bursts of laughter, stories being yelled over the music, and servicemen and women trading war tales. There was no reason for Nikolai to have heard Zoya say, “It was my shot.” But he did hear her, and their game of pool suddenly felt so small and insignificant.

She turned away from him then. She marched back to Mal who was suspiciously alone and shoved the stick into his hands before storming out of the bar. 

Mal came over, and Nikolai forced a smile that he knew that his friend didn’t buy.

“Came back to get your ass kicked?” He winked. Then threw his arm around his broad shoulders. “Maybe something more?” 

Mal didn’t take the bait. He chugged the rest of his drink, and started to reset the table. 

“We both have enough problems, Lantsov. Let’s try not to make things worse.” 

Nikolai shrugged, trying to ignore the feeling of Zoya’s eyes still on him. 

“Hasn’t stopped you before.” He tried again. 

His friend shot him a look, “Maybe I should have.” He glanced behind him to the direction Zoya had gone. “Maybe we both should have known when to stop.”

Nikolai felt his gut plummet as his past started to creep out of the locked box he kept all of his worst memories. And he finished his drink to shove them all down.

He forced a laugh as he broke the triangle of pool balls to start their game.

“Can we table this wildly depressing line of conversation until after I beat you? It wouldn’t be Top Gun without me smoking you. Right, Pocketknife?” 

Mal rolled his eyes, but Nikolai still noted just how tense his friend was. He didn’t know quite what happened between Mal and Alina, but based on his last…encounter…with her it didn’t seem good. 

He was almost tempted to accuse him of being an idiot who wasn’t brave enough to get what he actually wanted. But pots shouldn’t be calling kettles black. 

Nikolai couldn’t help but glance at the door. He turned around and caught Zoya’s hand brush against Alina’s platinum blonde hair. He hesitated to call it affectionate, but it was…something. She leaned closer to the other girl, her lips just brushing the corner of Alina’s jaw. 

A flare of jealousy that was unfounded went through Nikolai, and was only abated when Alina met Zoya’s eyes in a sad kind of resignation. She shook her head and squeezed her hand in sympathy.

Zoya seemed to roll her eyes and walk off with her head shaking slightly. Nikolai wondered what that was about. Then he reminded himself that it wasn’t any of his business. Instead, he focused back on Mal. He focused on ignoring the empty ache that was more present with the absence of the flare of jealousy.