“Seems to me that’s exactly what he is.”
“I don’t know,” she replies, looking forlornly up at the cloudy sky. “It kinda feels like I’m the fool in this scenario.”
“Because you didn’t realize he was cheating on you?”
She looks at me. “I saw them today, Anton. I saw them together. The way they talked to each other when they were alone. The way they touched. This affair has been going on for a while. And I never suspected a thing.”
“You trusted them.”
She nods. “I did.”
“But you won’t make that mistake again.”
“With them?” she asks.
“With anyone.”
She frowns. “I don’t want to be that way, though. I don’t want to be the kind of person that never gives anyone a shot because of two assholes in my past.”
“Take it from someone who knows,” I advise her. “Most people are assholes. Save yourself the trouble of giving every single person a chance.”
“That’s never been how I live my life.”
“Time to adopt a different philosophy, wouldn’t you say?”
She looks at me skeptically. “Who broke you?”
“I’ve never been broken, Jessa,” I tell her. “That’s the whole point.”
A gust of ocean breeze washes over us and she shivers in her thin dress. I pull off my coat and guide it around her shoulders.
She’s about to decline, but the moment the thick fabric falls over her arms, she sighs with relief. “Wow, I needed that more than I realized.”
She slides her hands into the arm holes and the fabric swallows her whole. She has to push the sleeves up to make her hands visible.
“Thank you.”
I nod and pull out the cigar I’ve been hanging onto all night. She watches as I light it and bring it to my lips. The scent of vanilla wafts off the tip and she closes her eyes for a second.
“Mm, that smell.”
“You like it?”
She nods. “Yeah. It’s rich. Sweet. Like vanilla for a crème brûlée.”
“Any chance that’s what you’re making for dessert tonight?”
She smiles. “Sorry. There was too much chocolate in the pantry for me to ignore.”
“Chocolate,” I scoff. “That’s Yulian’s doing, no doubt.”
“You can’t blame him. There’s nothing like chocolate to cure a bad mood.”
“I prefer sex.”
Her cheeks flush with color and she avoids my eyes. “Is that why you called me up here? You were in a bad mood?”
“I just needed a distraction,” I tell her. “As did you.”