to your hotel, I’ll show you how distracting you can be.”
Lourds grinned. “We can skip baggage. I’ll have my luggage delivered.”
“I won’t hear of it. We’ll get your things.”
***
When they arrived at the Kabul Serena Hotel, twenty minutes from the airport, Lourds confirmed his reservation and accepted his room key. Layla stood apart from him and didn’t speak. They took the elevator up to the second floor, then slipped into his room.
Once inside, they didn’t waste time on words. He reached for her, and she was in his arms. He hadn’t seen her since Christmas, and for a moment, he just held her, feeling her warm body against his, smelling the shampoo that filtered through the hijab, and hearing her breathing in his ear.
Then the clothes came off, and Layla became his again.
***
Afterwards in bed, Lourds lay on his back and wondered at how being with her made him feel. There was a completeness that he had never experienced before and a calm that fell over him. He thought about the ring in his pants pocket, but he knew he didn’t want to have that discussion now. Having it on Valentine’s Day was apparently out of the question. With everything Layla had planned, he didn’t want to disrupt everything she was balancing.
She lay at his side with an arm across his chest, holding him tightly.
“I am sorry that I cannot be there for you on Valentine’s Day.” She spoke softly.
“It’ll be all right.”
“Yes, it will. I will have some time this weekend, I think.”
“Good.”
“Tina said you will be returning to the university next week?”
“That’s right.”
Layla sighed. “Timing is such a problem.”
“We knew that going into this. We’re both busy people. A relationship like this, you have to work at it.”
“I know. The fact that you’re willing to do so means a lot to me.”
Lourds kissed her tender lips. “You mean a lot to me.”
She smiled and snuggled against him. “As you do to me.” She yawned. “Excuse me. I have been really tired of late.”
“That long drive probably didn’t help.”
“No, and I have to make it again in the morning.”
“I could drive you. Let you sleep on the way back.”
“No. That would cause complications if we were seen. It would be better if you found something to do until we can be together again. I’m afraid I won’t be able to see you until the weekend.”
“All right.”
“I’m sorry, Thomas, that your Valentine’s Day is not going to be as perfect as you had planned.”
“It’s fine. It’ll be fine. I’m sure I can find something to do. I’m in a city that’s thousands of years old. I’m sure there’s some part of it I haven’t seen.”
“I do wish things were different, but they are not.”
“I understand.” Lourds did understand, but he didn’t like the situation either. Perhaps once they were married, things would be different. He looked forward to that. For a moment, he thought about getting the ring, showing it to her, and asking her to marry him right then and there.
But he didn’t. Instead, he felt her soft breath against his bare chest and knew that she was asleep. He closed his eyes and just held her.
13
Tverskaya Street
Moscow, Russia
Russian Federation
February 13, 2013
“You do not look like you are having a good time.”
Blearily, through a vodka-fueled haze, Colonel Sergay Linko stared at the young woman before him. She was beautiful in the way that young women always were when they took care of themselves. She exercised and kept her body fit, but her hair was too brunette, with a blue and white streak on the right side. The artificial green of her eyes told him she was wearing cosmetic contact lenses. She wore a dark red dress, almost the color of blood. She spoke English with a Russian accent. Evidently, she’d thought he was American.
She believed that because his suit was too good to be a Russian suit. In truth, he had gotten it from a black market dealer. The suit was dark, fashionable. Not like some of the colorful rags other men in the nightclub wore.
The crowd around them moved with the basso beat of the heavy metal rock music thundering through the speakers. Huge wallscreens showed snippets of video footage of the patrons. When the men and women saw themselves on the screens, they waved in triumph, like they had instantly become famous.
It was ludicrous. Linko only came to the bar to pick up women and to hate the New Russians even more than he already did.