27. Chapter 27

Jade

The next night, I spill my guts as soon as I'm alone with Ivan.

"Dmitri and I had sex," I blurt, hardly waiting a second after the door shuts behind my boyfriend. He has to do a pick-up tonight, but I didn't want to sleep alone, so the two of them snuck me out of my building and into theirs a few minutes ago.

Embarrassed, I cover my mouth but don't take the words back.

"Yeah," he says with a chuckle. "I'm right across the hall, Jade. Thin walls."

Oh. My. God.

How mortifying!

My eyes bug, and I shake my head. "Please tell me you're kidding."

"It's not a big deal," he says, shrugging so lightly that I almost believe him. "It's bound to happen, especially since I'm guarding you now. Chances are, I'll overhear a lot."

Well, if he really isn't fazed by it.

"We said ‘I love you' too," I gush, folding my bottom lip under my teeth.

His boyish smile brightens. "So the sex was good then."

I laugh through the nerves. "You're bad."

He holds up his hands, chuckling. "Do you want anything to eat? Or are you tired?"

"Not hungry, not too tired yet, though," I admit, peering over at the old brown leather couch. "Can we just cuddle?"

"Yeah, we can do that."

Since I'm already in my pajamas, I just have to shrug off my coat and shoes while Ivan pops into the bathroom to change into sweatpants. I pull my favorite blanket off of Dmitri's bed, hugging the soft fabric to my face, surrounding myself with his woodsy smell. If Ivan thinks it's weird that I'm practically inhaling his brother's scent from his blanket, he doesn't say it.

I hold it out to him, offering it so he can toss it over the back of the couch and extend it to cover the whole thing. He gets in first, putting his back against the standing cushions. He's under the blanket easily, waiting for me to follow suit.

"So, on the nights that Dmitri is away, I can stay with you?"

"Of course," Ivan replies, lifting the blanket for me to crawl under with him.

Naps on Dmitri's couch have easily become one of my favorite ways to sleep. Especially when it's with Ivan. If I want to cuddle my boyfriend, he'll pick me up and bring me to his bed. It's only a few feet away but much more accommodating for his size.

Ivan, on the other hand, fits perfectly snuggled onto the couch with me. Cuddling with your boyfriend's brother is probably super strange to people who don't have an Ivan, but if they had an Ivan, they'd understand. One hug from this man, and it would make total sense.

And besides, he's not just Dmitri's little brother to me anymore. He's right up there with Matteo as one of my best friends. Sometimes I miss him as soon as I have to leave for class. It's crazy how natural our bond feels, like I've had it my whole life instead of just a couple of months.

"I'm starting to feel kind of bad for fibbing to my brothers," I confess, having just thought of Matteo. Getting comfortable lying on my side with him, I frown. "I wish they knew but?—"

"But they'd totally freak out and you want to enjoy the bliss that keeping your relationship a secret provides. Trust me, I get it."

I chew on my bottom lip, softening into a more relaxed state. "You do?"

"Uh-huh," Ivan agrees. "I've got secrets too."

"You do?" I look at him with large, round eyes. "Even from Dmitri?"

"From everyone," he whispers.

Sensing his sadness, I lean in, tucking my head under his chin.

"If you want to tell someone, you can tell me," I offer, meaning it. "I'll never tell a soul. Best friend privileges with me are unbreakable."

"Yeah?" he asks vulnerably, twirling some of my hair between his fingertips.

"Yep," I chime, pecking his heart with my lips. "You tell me anything you want, and I'll keep your secrets."

It's quiet for a few minutes, only the sound of our breathing fills the room. Ivan continues to stroke his hand through my hair, petting my head in the process. Everything he does offers a level of comfort only Dmitri and Matteo have given me before. They all have the ability to make me feel small in a safe way. Like I could be made of glass, but they'd never let me break.

"There is one thing I'd like to say out loud," he finally says, muttering the words like a soft song.

"Tell me," I encourage, keeping my head down so that he doesn't lose his courage.

More strokes of my hair and his heart starts to beat faster, the sound echoing in my ear. I know this is hard for him because he's genuinely hesitating. I'm about to remind him that there's no pressure and he doesn't have to tell me when he speaks.

"I'm gay."

Two words to hit me right in the heart.

I can feel Ivan holding in a breath, and I practically squeeze it out of him.

"I'm so happy you told me," I exclaim, feeling like I might cry.

"You are?" Ivan asks, voice wavering.

"Of course!" I promise, lifting my head up to look him in the eyes. I quickly kiss the corner of his mouth, needing to assure him. "Are you okay? That seemed really hard for you?—"

"It was," he agrees, swallowing thickly. "I didn't think I'd ever say it."

"What?" I ask, devastated. "Why not?"

"It's stupid," he mumbles, eyes turning hazy.

"Nothing you feel could ever be stupid, Ivan Morozov."

A shaky breath falls from his lips. "A lot of reasons, I think."

"Yeah?" I ask, cuddling back up to him. "Like what?"

"Like, I'll never marry either way, so it doesn't exactly matter. And if I did want to love someone, I wouldn't want to be fearful because of it. I definitely wouldn't want my partner to be."

"Who should you have to fear?" I ask, frowning. "You're a Morozov."

"Exactly," he answers sadly. "Homosexuality wasn't decriminalized in Russia until 1993. How do you think my family there would feel about me? I don't even know how my father will feel, let alone…"

"Dmitri?" I gasp. "You can't possibly think—Ivan, your brother loves you so much. He'd never?—"

"Maybe," Ivan interrupts lightly. "But I'm not willing to take the risk. He'll be disgusted with me, or he won't care and other people will be disgusted with him. It's not like your family Jade. The older generations still have a lot of power, and I won't make Dmitri a target for me. Maybe when they all die?—"

"I can make that happen," I tell him darkly.

He chuckles, dropping a kiss to my hair. "So fierce."

"I was being serious," I pout.

"I know you were," he replies. "That's why I told you."

I'm caught between feeling immensely flattered by this show of friendship and feeling horrible that Ivan feels like he can't tell anyone else.

"For what it's worth, all of my brothers love Nico just the way he is," I tell him, understanding it's not exactly the same. "I know our families aren't the same, but the love you and Dmitri have isn't different from the love my brothers have for each other."

"No? You don't think so?"

"Nope," I swear.

I take one of Ivan's hands, isolating his index finger, and lift it to my face. Before he can question what I'm doing, I rub it over the small scar on the bridge of my nose, gently gliding his finger over the mark.

"Do you feel that?" I ask, rubbing it another time.

"A scar?" he asks, moving in closer to see it and guiding his finger along it himself.

"Yeah," I whisper. "I conceal it with a little makeup."

I didn't used to. But any time my dad or brothers look at my face for too long, I can feel their eyes lead their gaze there. They do a good job hiding their anger that comes with seeing it, but it's hard for me either way. I lied about it, and now that we're close like a real family, I feel guilty. But maybe telling Ivan will help.

A secret for a secret.

"When I first met my family, Matteo noticed it, and asked if I'd broken my nose before," I tell him, and his fingers slowly leave my face. "It was at dinner with everyone, and I didn't really know what to say, so I told them I did, and I explained how."

I still wonder if Apollo picked up on my lying but haven't been brave enough to ask. He told me I was a horrible liar before he started coaching me in the art, but he never tried to call me out for this one.

"I told them that when I was five, I fell off a kitchen counter and hit my face on the tile," I say, avoiding his eyes. "I wasn't five."

"No?" he asks, voice wavering.

"I was three," I croak, looking back at him with wet eyes. "And I didn't fall."

"Oh, Jade." Ivan tucks me into his chest, not caring when I start to bawl into his T-shirt, soaking the fabric.

"I was j-just hungry," I whimper, still trying to tell all of my secret. "I didn't even get into the cabinet before I felt hands shoving me off from behind. I hit the ground so hard, I thought m-my brain shook."

"Hey, hey," he coaxes, reaching around me to rub my back while he holds me. "Shhh, slow down, I've got you."

I didn't think I was going to cry this hard a few minutes ago when I decided to open up. I figured it would really hurt to talk about it. Otherwise, I would have told my family the truth by this point, but I severely underestimated how powerful horrible memories can be. It's like I'm still there, perpetually falling and crashing to the floor, feeling the fresh wounds of betrayal lash at me.

You don't understand things like this when you're three years old. You don't understand how the person you love more than anything in the world can hurt you without blinking. It's impossible to comprehend the vile hate required to make a small and vulnerable child bleed so much that they pass out.

"C-can someone get Matteo?" I cry, shaking against his chest. If I can't have Dmitri or my dad, I need my brother. I have to tell him the truth, I can feel it eating away at me from the inside out.

"Fuck," he murmurs. "Shit, okay, hold on?—"

He attempts to maneuver around me when a wave of crushing disappointment hits me. He can't bring Matteo here, because I'm not supposed to be here.

"Don't go," I blurt, squeezing him tighter. "I forgot, he can't come here, I?—"

Ivan freezes. "Jade, if you need Matteo, I'll bring him here, secrets be damned. Dmitri won't care, we can handle it."

"No, no," I emphasize, digging my fingers into his shirt. "He can't know yet. Please, don't?—"

"Okay, okay," he rushes out, interrupting my raising voice. "I've got you, alright?" Ivan holds me so tight that it almost feels like I'm being crushed, but I don't tell him to stop. "Dmitri will be back soon, okay? You want to tell him instead?"

I don't want to tell anyone ever. I just don't know that I can't live much longer with it bottled up. All of it. Not just the nose-breaking incident but everything.

Being shoved off of a counter by my own mother may have been the first betrayal, but it isn't anywhere near the worst or the most violent. I assume that all of my brothers have been filled in on the basics when it comes to Kim and Bruce. Everything I told Apollo was relayed to our dad, likely with painstaking detail. But I have a feeling they attempted to spare the remainder of our family with a less graphic summary. But Dmitri hardly knows a thing.

All of these secrets just seem to keep getting harder to keep, and I feel like they're going to explode out of me at the worst time. Dating Dmitri behind my family's back, the broken nose lie, my past, and the games…

God, the games, I have to tell Dmitri about the games.