CHAPTER 18. Voices Between Us
877 Words
Elena did not mean to call him. That was the first thing. The second was that once his voice was in her ear, any pretense that this was still a small thing vanished.
It happened because she was tired. Tired people told the truth more easily, reached instead of measuring, forgot that distance required maintenance. She had just stepped into her flat, kicked off her heels, and dropped her bag when her phone buzzed again.
Nikolai. A single message: Did the ribbon survive?
Elena laughed softly. Dusk settled blue-gray outside the windows, the black umbrella still standing like a witness. Without overthinking, she hit call.
The second it rang, regret arrived. “Oh, God.” She nearly hung up.
Then he answered.
“Elena.” Just her name—low, immediate, unmistakably him.
She went still. No background noise. Just quiet, his voice somehow more intimate than it had a right to be.
“You answered fast,” she said.
“So did you.”
Her pulse did something unhelpful. She leaned against the counter. “I should probably have opened with something better.”
“Probably.”
She smiled. “You’re impossible.”
“So I’ve been told.”
A pause. “Did something happen?”
Of course he would ask that first. Not why did you call. Not are you all right. Just that. Direct. Focused.
“No,” she said softly. “Nothing happened.”
Then, honestly: “I just heard your message in my head and it felt strange to answer in text.”
Silence. Not empty, but loaded.
When he spoke again, his voice had changed slightly—lower, rougher.
“That’s dangerous.”
“Yes,” she admitted.
“But you did it anyway.”
“I did.”
Another pause. She could hear him breathing—steady, controlled. The awareness felt too close, as if the call had stepped over a line that messaging only circled.
“Did the ribbon survive?” he asked.
“Yes. Though not before one man with tragic opinions nearly lost the right to speak in public.”
“That sounds serious.”
“It was. He described the color palette as ‘aggressively romantic.’”
A low laugh came from him. Not faint amusement, but real, dark, warm enough to send a thrill through her.
“Well.”
A beat. “That was new.”
“What was?”
“You laughing.”
“I’ve done it before.”
“Not like that.”
Silence again.
“You notice inconvenient things.”
“You keep giving me material.”
“That sounds like blame.”
“It might be.”
A soft sound from him—almost laughter. Elena pressed her hand flat to the counter to ground herself.
Texting left room for distance and editing. A voice gave things away—hesitation, cadence, the shape of restraint. Nikolai’s carried more than he seemed to realize.
“You’ve had a long day,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“You sound tired.”
“Is that your version of concern?”
“Yes.”
Her throat tightened. “You make it difficult to ignore when you do that.”
“When I do what?”
“Say things like they’re obvious.”
She laughed softly. “Most people dress concern up so they don’t admit it.”
“I’m not most people.”
“No,” she said quietly. “You really aren’t.”
The line went still. Elena noticed the dim light over the table, the orchid, rain tapping against the glass. Across the city, she imagined him, phone to ear, expression unreadable, eyes intent.
“What are you doing right now?” she asked.
A pause. “Standing by a window.”
Her breath caught. “Are you?”
“Yes.”
Another silence. It felt like standing in separate rooms, sharing the same quiet.
“That,” he said finally, low, “also feels dangerous.”
“Yes.”
“Should we stop?”
She could say yes. Laugh it off. Retreat. Instead: “Do you want to?”
“No.”
The room seemed to narrow around her.
“I don’t either,” she admitted.
A slow exhale. Something shifted—not ease, but a different honesty, fewer edges, more underneath.
They talked twenty more minutes about ordinary things—her impossible client, his useless meeting, Adrian, Claire—but threaded through it all was the awareness of what had been said.
By the end, Elena sat at the table, restless and bright.
“I should let you go,” he said.
“You say that like you’re being responsible.”
“I am.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It can be.”
She smiled. “I’m glad I called.”
“So am I.”
The line clicked dead. Elena lowered her phone, standing in the soft-lit quiet, fully aware that something had changed. Before, there were polished messages. Now she knew the shape of his silence in real time, the sound of his laugh, the weight of his honesty. And that was worse. Because now, when she thought of Nikolai Orlov, she would not only see him—she would hear him too.
- Writer
