Nightswan

Chapter 31

- Vasilisa - 

He had agreed to a dance class! Vasilisa could hardly believe it. She sent Bryanna a text to tell her the good news as soon as they had returned from the park. Dash immediately consumed his entire bowl of water, and Alessio refilled it. When her phone buzzed with an incoming text message, she picked it up from the table.

"How would Wednesday be for you?"

"For?" Alessio stood and wiped his hands on his pants.

"A dance lesson."

"You've already messaged Bryanna?"

"I did. I think you'll like her; she's super nice. And she's funny."

"I could do Wednesday. I don't have any meetings that day."

"Great! I'll make sure I have all my classwork done so we can go as soon as you get home."

"You're really looking forward to this, aren't you?" Alessio raised a brow.

"It'll be fun! We haven't really done many things just for fun." Vasi twirled a piece of hair around her finger. Alessio watched her, and she couldn't really recognize the emotion she could see in his gaze. There was a certain glint there that she hadn't seen. Not lust, not even desire. It was something far stronger. Could it be love? Hugh never looked at her how Alessio did...

But then again, Hugh didn't actually love her.

Did that mean Alessio did?

If so, did he expect her to love him back? She did feel deeply for him, cared more for him than possibly any other person in her life. Vasilisa couldn't imagine spending her future with anyone else, and the thought of him looking at anyone else the way he looked at her unsettled her stomach. She didn't like the idea of him kissing another woman, either, or her another man.

Was that love?

There was no spark. No chemistry. No heat.

Was that real, or was it all imaginary concoctions of romance novels?

She didn't know. And the longer she spent with Alessio, the less convinced she was that she knew anything about anything.

Wednesday arrived, and Vasi spent the day trying to keep herself focused on everything but the dance lesson they were taking that night. She finished all of her classwork and then some, even working on readings that weren't due until the next week. Cleaning only occupied her for so long, too. When she finished, she flopped down on the sofa with Dash curled up on the floor and turned on the television. The streaming service to which they were subscribed wasn't offering anything appealing. She finally settled on a mafia show on a cable station and decided that was good enough.

Alessio wasn't a member of a mafia or gang—or was he? How would one classify the Flight anyhow?—but from what she understood, the fictional show was all wrong. There was no moral code whatsoever, and teamwork didn't really exist. Everyone was out to climb the ladder to the top; it didn't matter who was destroyed in the process. The Flight was different. It was illegal, yes, but it seemed more like a family. That big man had come to Alessio's aid the moment he called. No hesitation. No big questions asked. He just came and delivered the weapons then left just as quickly as he'd arrived. Besides the look he gave her when Alessio wasn't looking; that had made her terribly uncomfortable, and she'd had to fight the urge to cover herself.

Alessio never made her feel that way. He had once—on their wedding night—but that had been months ago. He'd never done it again. Was that because he didn't feel that way anymore about her? Was that part of love, too—the desire disappears entirely after adjusting to a life schedule together?