He doesn’t reply.
“You think something’s got to be wrong for me to want to see you?”
His shoulders hunch. “Don’t be mad at me, Red.”
“I’m not mad. I just…” I huff. “Just wish you’d talk to me more.”
“What do you wanna know? I’m an open book.”
A laugh escapes me. “Really.”
Kash sucks in a lungful of smoke, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye. “What is it? Ask me.”
“Seriously? I’ll mark this day in the calendar,” I mutter. “I should bring my phone and film this monumental moment.”
He snorts softly.
“Okay, here’s the thing. I’ve been curious how you found the money to pay for everything when we ran away. I mean, I had some cash. Nate had nothing. And George can’t be paying you all that much.”
I watch as he struggles with something. At first I think he won’t answer, despite what he said. I did have my doubts.
But then he says, “I had some… things of value. I sold the last of them for this apartment—for the deposit, the first months of rent, the bills.”
“That’s real nice of you.” I smile at him, but he doesn’t seem to notice. Doesn’t seem to be seeing me at all, his gaze thoughtful. “What did you sell, then?” When he doesn’t reply, I change tack. “You never talk about your family. Are they rich?”
He shrugs. “They’re well off.” He rolls his cigarette. “Pizdets.”
“What?”
“Nothing. They aren’t good people. That’s all you need to know about them.”
“I’m not sure about that.” I lean on the rail, looking down at the empty street, shivering a little in my light clothing. I consider asking him more, pushing more, but instead what comes out is, “Was it Russian? That word?”
He sucks on his cigarette, tendrils of smoke escaping his nostrils. “Yeah.”
“Are you Russian?”
“No,” he mutters. “I was born here.”
Still cryptic. He can’t make a single clear statement, can he? “So where is home for you?”
He shoots me a weird look. “Where do you think?”
“I dunno. Give me a hint?”
Turning away from me, he smokes quietly for a bit. A honk sounds from a street further down. Someone shouts. Laughter rings out.
“Where the compass points,” he eventually says.
“North.” I force myself not to stare at his corded forearms where he leans on the rail beside me, at the tattoos of the phoenix and the dragon. “Some island in the Great Lakes? Chicago? Madison?”
He squints at me through the smoke slowly curling from between his lips. “Nate told you that?”
“Nate? He knows where you’re from?” A sense of betrayal hits me. He told Nate, and not me?
“No, I just…” He glances down at the ink on his arms, then away. “I thought he’d guessed.”
Interesting. I make a mental note to ask Nate about the tattoos. “So what is it? Which town?”