Kostya kisses me on the top of my head, and then clumsily on my ear. I squeeze his hand, let him go, and we finally untangle ourselves from each other. He grabs tissues from the bedside table, wraps the condom in them and tosses the whole gross bundle back onto the table, but I couldn’t care less.

I sit up against the headboard, the pillows behind my back, and he lets me pull him in until he’s leaning against me, his head on my chest, my right arm slung over him. I run my hand through his hair and he makes a barely-audible grunt, somewhere low in his chest.

“You purring?” I murmur.

“I’m contented,” he says. “Like a house cat in a sunbeam. Meow.”

I laugh and he smiles, then plants a kiss on the inside of my elbow.

The bedroom is mostly dark, but the curtains are translucent enough to let some moonlight through. We sit there, like that, for a long time. I stroke Kostya’s hair, my other arm across his chest, and he strokes my arm with his fingertips, back and forth.

I’ve never seen him like this before, perfectly relaxed and totally unguarded, sprawled across the bed like he doesn’t have a care in the world. I get the feeling that not many people have seen Kostya like this. Maybe none.

“I’m getting better at that,” he says, his voice low and slow and sleepy.

“At what?” I say, still twisting my fingers in his hair.

“At making you laugh,” he says. “That time I even meant to do it.”

I laugh again, leaning against the headboard.

“Thanks,” I say.

“This is why we’re not a secret,” he says. “My mother told me tonight that I light up like a lantern when I’m around you.”

“I thought it was because I act like a shy teenager when we’re together,” I murmur.

He looks at me, eyebrows raised.

“Shy?” he asks.

“I mean in public,” I say.

“Good,” he says. “Don’t be shy around me.”

“We’re naked right now because you just fucked my brains out,” I say. “If that’s shy, I’d almost hate to see not shy.”

I’m sliding downward slowly, the pillows shifting under me, so now I’m at a forty-five degree angle and Kostya’s head is on my stomach. He turns his head and kisses it, and I think both of us are slowly falling asleep, tangled together in a mass of limbs and bed sheets and pillows.

“Do you have to leave?” I finally ask.

“No,” he says.

“You sure?” I ask.

“Are you trying to get rid of me?” Kostya asks.

“I just don’t want you disowned, exiled, and penniless,” I tease.

I meant to make him laugh, but instead his face goes serious and he looks at me.

“I’m just going to tell him,” he says, his gray eyes steady. “He can’t do anything. He won’t disown me. He can’t force me to marry anyone. All he can do is be angry, and I don’t care any more.”

I hold my breath and bite my lip.

“Are you sure?” I ask.

Kostya just nods.

I’m not sure how to phrase this next thing, so I take a deep breath and just let some words fly out of my mouth.

“We’ve only known each other for what, a week and a half?” I ask. “I don’t want you to ruin your relationship with your father over something that might not...”

I swallow, and Kostya’s just staring at me.

“I mean, it’s just, you know, what if I go home at the end of the month and, like, you come to your senses or something and realize that you fucked up your relationship with your dad because of some American girl?” I say, all in one breath.

“Zloyushka, what the hell are you talking about?” he asks. “I’m at my senses. However you say that.”

“What if it turns out I’m a serial killer?” I say.

For some reason it’s the first thing that pops into my head.

“Then we’ll deport you back to the U.S. to stand trial, and I’ll still have made it clear to my father that he doesn’t control who I’m with,” Kostya says.

It sounds so sensible when he says it out loud.

“I’m not a serial killer,” I say.

“I didn’t think so,” he says.

Then he lifts himself off my stomach and puts his head next to mine. He takes my hand in his and locks our fingers together.

“I know relationships don’t work out sometimes,” he says. “But I climbed up two stories of stone wall with a plant in my mouth because I thought it might make you smile. And it did. And it was worth it, because I feel like I’m the moon when you smile at me, and I would be an idiot if I didn’t at least try.”

He kisses my hand, and I don’t answer, because there’s suddenly a lump in my throat.

“Tell me now if I’m wrong about this and I shouldn’t try,” he says, his voice barely a whisper.

“No,” I whisper, swallowing hard. “I mean, no, you’re not wrong. You should try. We should try.”

Stop talking, I think.

“Good,” he says, simply. “I’ll talk to him when he’s back from Kiev.”

He pushes my hair out of my face with his other hand, and then kisses my forehead.

“Do all Americans make everything seem so complicated?” he asks.

“That was nothing,” I say.

After a few more minutes we both get out of the bed. I find him an extra toothbrush and he brushes his teeth as I get the rest of my makeup off, totally naked the whole time. As he leaves the bathroom, he puts one hand on my ass and squeezes just a little, kissing me on the cheek.

“I like seeing you naked,” he says. “I’ll be in your bed.”

He leaves the bathroom and I blink at myself in the mirror, then smile. When I get in bed he’s half asleep, and he rolls over and puts one arm over my stomach.

“Spokushki,” he says.

“Don’t let the bedbugs bite,” I say, and I’m asleep almost instantly.

* * *

It feels like thirty minutes later that there’s a knock on my door, but the sun is already streaming through the windows. I’m lying on my stomach and Kostya has one arm and one leg half-slung over me, his face buried in the fluffy white pillow.

I hear the knock again, and this time he wakes up, too.

“Who is it?” he asks me.

“I don’t know yet,” I whisper, getting out of bed. “Stay out of sight,” I say, and put on the black bathrobe that came with the room.

“You want me to hide in the closet or something?” he asks, his voice extra raspy and gravelly.

“Just don’t walk out naked,” I whisper, and close the door slightly behind me.

You can’t see the bedroom door from the front door, and it’s probably just someone who wants to know if I have any laundry, so I’m not that worried about it.

Instead, it’s my mother, and she’s in a bit of a state.

“Hazel, can I borrow your deodorant?” she asks. sweeping past me and into my rooms.

“Sure, just stay there, I can—”

She sweeps past me, into my living room, toward the bathroom.

“I know we both get the nervous sweats, so yours will probably work pretty well,” she says.

“Yes, it’s fine, let me go find it though the bathroom’s kind of a mess so—”

She’s not listening. She’s looking past me in the direction of the bedroom.

All my insides wrap themselves around my windpipe, and I follow her gaze, praying that I don’t see Kostya standing there, totally naked with morning wood.

I don’t. The bedroom door opened itself, like doors in old houses do, and lying in full view on an ottoman in the bedroom is his formal military jacket. Even from here, it’s perfectly obvious what it is.

“Deodorant’s in the bathroom!” I say, and grab her arm, trying to haul her away, like I can magically make her unsee the jacket.

“Hazel,” she says, and gives me her cut-the-bullshit look.

It’s a strong one.

“Please tell me that jacket belongs to one of the many pudgy, middle-aged generals who were in attendance last night, and not the crown prince of Sveloria,” she whispers.

I swallow.

“It belongs to a general?” I whisper back, heat flooding my face.

She gives me the look again.

“Just leave and pretend you never saw it,” I whisper. “It’s fine.”

My mother glares at the jacket.

“At least tell me it was just the once,” she says.

I open my mouth, then shut it. My face has gone nuclear.

“You’re the diplomat,” I whisper. “I’m on vacation!”

“It’s still bad form!” she whispers. “Now this has to be disclosed to the state department, there’s paperwork, you have to give a statement to the embassy. It’s a whole mess now.”

“There’s paperwork about who I, uh...”

“Unless you just snuggled all night, yes, there’s paperwork,” she whispers. “And, actually, yes, even then, so never mind.”

She glances at the door again, and I hear a slight rustle inside the room. I’m sure Kostya can hear all this.

“At least tell me you were careful,” she says, her voice dropping to an actual whisper. “You’ve still got that IUD, right?”

“Yes, and we were careful and I’m not an idiot, mom,” I say.

She looks like she might disagree, but there’s another rustle in the bedroom and we both look over.

Kostya steps into the doorway, bedsheets wrapped around him several times, very securely.

“Good morning, Ambassador Towers,” he says, nodding his head slightly, one hand holding the sheets firmly in place.

“Good morning, Konstantin Grigorovich,” she says, her tone very, very formal.

I pinch the bridge of my nose between my finger and thumb.

“Could you please call each other Eileen and Kostya and not make this any weirder than it already is, for fuck’s sake?” I say.

My mother takes a deep breath.

“Hello, Kostya,” she says. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

“Hello, Eileen,” he says. “I didn’t know Hazel would have a visitor this morning,” he says, his tone exactly as formal as hers.

“I didn’t know either,” I point out, my eyes still squeezed shut.

“You’re accompanying my father to the economic summit in Kiev, correct?” he goes on.

“I am,” she says.

Kostya and I look at each other.

“Please don’t tell him,” I say. “Please, Mom.”

“I would prefer to talk to my father about this myself, when he returns,” Kostya says. “He should hear it from me.”

My mother sighs and crosses her arms in front of herself.

“Of course,” she says, her voice softening a little.

“My deepest thanks,” Kostya says, sounding very formal for someone who’s wearing my bed sheets.

We all look at each other in silence for a moment.

“I should be leaving,” my mother says.

“A pleasure to see you,” Kostya says, and I nearly roll my eyes.

“You as well,” my mom says, then looks at me. “Deodorant?”

I grab it from the bathroom, then escort her back to my front door. Kostya goes back into the bedroom and closes the door, firmly this time.

Inside the front door, my mom crosses her arms in front of her.

“He’s telling his father and I had to find out this way?” she asks.

“You weren’t supposed to,” I say.

She glances at the closed bedroom door again and thinks for a moment.

“I had some suspicions,” she admits. “We were hoping you were just flirting.”

I make an oops face.

“Everyone says he’s much more reasonable than his father, at least,” she says. Her voice softens a little. “And he’s got a cuter butt.”

I go scarlet again.

“Mom,” I hiss, but she just laughs.

Then she puts one hand on my shoulder.

“You like him for more than his cute butt?” she asks, softly.

I just nod.

“Okay,” she says. “I’ll do the paperwork.”

“Thank you,” I say. “And sorry.”

She hugs me.

“I can’t even tell your father,” she says. “The man couldn’t keep a secret if his life depended on it.”

“I know,” I say. “Thanks.”

Then she leaves. I take a couple deep breaths, standing in the living room, and then walk to the bedroom and open the door.