Page 90 of Red Rooster

But he said, “I was madly in love with my roommate.”

Nikita stilled, for just a moment.

Jamie sighed. “It was pretty pathetic. We met at school. Our first day. And she was just…” He exhaled in a way that spoke more eloquently than words could. “And I was the nothing-special friend. And her boyfriend was…well, he’s a lot like Lanny, actually.” His voice grew sour. “He doesn’t have an artistic bone in his body. Or, if he did, it got crowded out a long time ago by protein powder and muscles.”

It wasn’t funny, but Nikita snorted. “Pathetic.”

“I know.” Jamie moved up to stand beside him, on the other side of the narrow tree trunk. “The sad part is, now I’m strong, and I can breathe, and I don’t need glasses…and she thinks I’m dead, or that I’m a zombie she ran into in our favorite coffeeshop and…well.” Another sigh. “It doesn’t matter now.”

Nikita glanced over at him, suspicious…but found no trace of manipulation in Jamie’s features. Only wistfulness; the pain of a lost chance.

You don’t know anything, Nikita thought, and almost told him. A schoolboy crush was nothing like his own loss. If Jamie Anderson thought he’d been through something terrible, immortality wasn’t going to serve him well.

But he was too tired to voice those things.

“I’m sorry,” Jamie said after a long spell of quiet. “I know that doesn’t mean anything, coming from me, but I am.”

Nikita nodded, swallowed with trouble. “Thanks.”

Footsteps again. Loud and graceless, human.

“Hey, Nik.”

Nikita turned and found Steve Baskin standing behind him, within arm’s reach, close enough to kill him. If he’d wanted to. So he wasn’t afraid, then. Maybe he shouldn’t have been – what child feared his own grandparent?

“Nik,” Nikita said. “That’s awfully familiar.”

Steve had his eyes, just like Trina did. His smile was half-hopeful, half-rueful. “Sorry. I just feel like I already know you.”

“You don’t.”

Jamie looked between them, and then silently walked back to the house.

“If it helps,” Steve started.

“It probably won’t.”

“She had a good life. Lots of family. Nice place to live.” He looked so…so sad, and understanding. Nikita wanted to vomit. “She always missed you – she kept your memory alive – but I think she was content. Happy, even. She loved her kids, and–”

“Kids?” His breathing hitched.

Steve, if possible, grew even more sorry-looking, eyebrows crimping, frown one of consolation. “Yes. She had three – including my dad.”

Nikita tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry. “She found someone else, then.”

“Nik – Nikita…she married Pyotr.”

Blankness.

For one blessed second, he thought nothing about that.

Then it was,Huh, well, okay.

Then,That makes sense.

Then it was…painful.

He dragged in a breath and pushed something like a smile across his lips. “Well. Good for little Pyotr.”