“Yes.”
“Good. Then do that and go throw water on your face.”
Ethan doesn’t move.
Maksim looks at him for another second. “Or don’t. But if you’re still on this sofa in ten minutes, I’ll be tempted to treat you as a patient, and neither of us wants that.”
That gets him up.
Slowly. Unhappily. But up.
Ethan stands with a muttered curse and presses a hand to the back of his neck. He looks like hell. Not tragic hell. Self-inflicted hell. The sort I’m too old to find interesting.
Alina watches him and says, more quietly now, “You need to sober up.”
He doesn’t answer her.
He doesn’t answer me either when I tell him, “You will not speak to Sienna again today.”Or ever.But I don’t say that part out loud.
His head comes up at that, some flicker of resistance surfacing again. “Father?—”
“No.”
He closes his mouth.
Good.
Maksim steps aside and nods toward the door. “Go.”
This time Ethan goes.
Alina smooths a hand over the front of her dress and steps back from the chair. “I have a few things to take care of,” she says.
It’s aimed at both of us, but she’s looking at me when she says it. Not warm. Not cold either. Just controlled in the way she gets when she’s angry and refusing to show how much.
I nod once. “Of course.”
She looks at Maksim. “Make sure he drinks the coffee this time.”
Maksim lifts his cup slightly. “I’m a doctor, not a nurse.”
“That has never stopped you before.”
For the first time that morning, something almost like amusement passes between them. Brief. Familiar. Too easy.
Then Alina leaves.
The door closes behind her, and for a second the room is quiet except for the soft clink of Maksim setting his cup down.
Then he looks at me and says, “What was that about?”
I know what he means.
Not Ethan. Not the wedding. Not even Alina’s temper.
The whole thing.
My friend knows me too well.