Chapter 16: Caught in the Rain

BRABRA

The sky looks fine when Andriy picks me up himself on Thursday evening, no driver this time, just him behind the wheel and a rare, easy smile when I climb into the passenger seat.

"You're driving yourself now?" I ask, buckling my seatbelt. "I thought CEOs weren't allowed to touch a steering wheel."

"I make exceptions." He pulls away from the curb, glancing at me sideways. "Especially when I want to actually talk to someone instead of having a driver pretend not to listen the whole ride."

We're headed to a small restaurant two blocks from my apartment, his idea, something quiet and unremarkable enough that I agreed to it without too much hesitation. Dinner. Nothing more complicated than that, or so I keep telling myself.

The meal passes easily, easier than I expect. He asks about the twins' movements, laughing softly when I describe the strange, fluttering feeling that still catches me off guard some mornings. I ask about his week, and he actually tells me, complaints about board members and late meetings instead of the careful, edited version he usually gives.

"You're different tonight," I say, halfway through my plate, studying him over the candlelight.

"Different how?"

"Less careful." I turn my water glass slowly between my fingers. "You usually measure everything before you say it. Tonight you're just talking."

He considers that for a moment, something thoughtful crossing his face. "Maybe I'm tired of measuring everything around you. It takes more effort than people realize, always weighing what to say before you say it. I'd rather just talk to you, if you'll let me."

"I think I'd like that," I admit, surprising myself with how easily the words come.

"Good." A small, genuine smile tugs at his mouth. "Then ask me something. Anything. I won't measure the answer."

"What were you like, before all this?" I gesture vaguely, meaning the company, the boardrooms, the version of him the world sees. "Before you became someone people are afraid of."

He's quiet for a long moment, turning his fork slowly against his plate. "Lonelier, I think. I didn't notice it back then. I just kept building things, telling myself the building was the point." His eyes flick up to meet mine. "I notice it more now, comparing it to this."

Something warm moves through my chest at that, unguarded and a little frightening in how easily it arrives. I don't have an answer ready, so I just let the moment sit between us, comfortable in a way very little has felt comfortable these past months.

It's dark by the time we step outside, and the sky, which had looked fine three hours ago, has turned heavy and grey without either of us noticing.

"That doesn't look good," I say, glancing up.

The first drop lands on my cheek before I finish the sentence.

"Run," Andriy says, already reaching for my hand.

We don't make it far. The sky opens fully within seconds, cold and sudden, and by the time we duck under the awning of a closed bakery half a block away, we're both soaked through, laughing despite ourselves, breathless from the short, useless dash.

"So much for staying dry," I say, wringing water from the end of my sleeve.

"I take full responsibility." He shrugs out of his jacket without hesitation and settles it over my shoulders before I can protest, warm despite the rain, smelling faintly like him. "You're cold."

"So are you."

"I'll survive." He tucks the collar up gently around my neck, his hands lingering a moment longer than necessary, and something in the small gesture makes my breath catch in a way that has nothing to do with the rain.

We stand there under the narrow awning, rain hammering the pavement just past our feet, close enough that I can feel the warmth still clinging to him despite the cold soaking through his shirt.

"This is ridiculous," I say, though I'm smiling.

"Completely ridiculous," he agrees, not moving away.

For a long moment, neither of us says anything else. The rain fills the silence, steady and loud against the awning above us, and I'm aware of every small detail — his hand still resting at the collar of the jacket he gave me, the careful way he's watching my face like he's trying to memorize it, the sudden, dangerous thought that if I leaned forward even slightly, the space between us would disappear entirely.

I don't lean forward. Not yet. Some old caution keeps my feet planted exactly where they are.

"We should call the car," I say instead, my voice quieter than I mean it to be.

"Probably," he agrees, though he doesn't reach for his phone right away either.

Eventually he does, and eventually the car arrives, and the drive to my building is quiet in a way that feels charged rather than empty, both of us still damp, still a little breathless, neither of us quite ready to name whatever almost happened under that awning.

He walks me to my door despite the rain still falling outside, his jacket still draped over my shoulders.

"Keep it," he says, when I try to hand it back. "You're still cold. I'll survive the drive home."

"Andriy—"

"Please." His voice softens. "Let me do this one small thing."

I let him. I let the jacket stay, and I let him linger a moment longer at my door than either of us probably should, and when he finally says goodnight and heads back down the twenty-two stairs, I stand in my doorway for a long moment afterward, still feeling the warmth of his hands at my collar, still shivering slightly despite it.

Inside, I change out of my wet clothes and climb straight into bed, exhaustion pulling at me harder than usual, a deep, bone-tired heaviness I tell myself is simply from the rain, from the cold, from a long day that started too early and ended with far too much unspoken standing beneath a bakery awning.

I don't think much of it. Not yet.

I fall asleep quickly, his jacket still draped over the chair by my bed, and I don't wake until morning, groggy and slower than usual, a strange, hollow tiredness clinging to me that no amount of sleep seems to touch.

I blame the rain. I blame the late night. I get up anyway, the way I always do, and I don't yet know how wrong I am to brush off the way my whole body feels like it's moving through water this morning, heavier and slower than it has any right to be.

•  •  •

ANDRIY

I drive home soaked to the skin, heater running, replaying the moment under that awning more times than I probably should for a man who has closed billion-dollar deals without a second thought about what happens next.

I almost kissed her.

I don't let myself pretend otherwise on the drive home. I stood there watching the rain fall past her shoulder, watching her lips part slightly like she was about to say something and then didn't, and every careful, controlled instinct I've built my entire adult life around told me to close that last small distance between us.

I didn't.

Some part of me understood, even in that moment, that it wasn't the right time. Not yet. Not while she's still learning to trust the small things — the car, the vitamins, a jacket offered without expectation. A kiss asks for more than trust. It asks for certainty, and I don't think either of us has earned that yet, no matter how much I wanted to close that distance tonight.

My phone buzzes as I pull into the garage beneath my building. A message from her.

Brabra: Made it inside okay. Thank you for the jacket. And dinner. And the run through the rain, even though it was a disaster.

I smile at the screen despite myself.

Andriy: Best disaster I've had in years.

Brabra: Goodnight, Andriy.

I sit with the phone in my hand a while longer after her reply, the rain still drumming steadily against the parking garage entrance, and think about the way she looked standing under that awning, soaked and laughing and, for one unguarded moment, not bracing herself against anything at all.

I don't know what almost happened tonight. I don't know if it will happen again, or when, or whether she wants it to the way I do.

But I know I'm not going to rush it. Whatever this is building toward, I intend to let her set the pace, one small, ordinary evening at a time, for as long as she needs.

I head inside, already looking forward to tomorrow, already hoping the rain holds off long enough for her walk from the car to the office door, though some quiet part of me suspects I'll check the forecast three times before I let myself stop thinking about it.

It doesn't occur to me, not once tonight, to wonder whether the cold and the rain might cost her more than a restless night's sleep. I wish, later, that it had.