Page 129 of Mile High Ex's Dad
Her face doesn’t break. She’s too proud for that.
But now I know. Whatever happened between her and Viktor is not finished, not for her. Whatever shape their marriage took inthe end, whatever distance or bitterness came after, some part of her still wanted him. Maybe still does.
Ethan sees it too late. The anger drains out of him first. Then comes the regret. “Mother?—”
“No,” she says. Just that.
She straightens, and when she speaks again her tone is calm enough to make the whole thing feel even crueler. “You are drunk,” she says. “And you are going to your room now before you say another word you can’t take back.”
He stares at her.
She doesn’t move.
Neither do I.
Ethan looks away first. He looks like he wants to move, but he doesn’t. He just stands there in the middle of the corridor, breathing too hard, one hand half-lifted and then dropping uselessly back to his side. The anger has gone out of him. What’s left is worse. A drunken kind of misery, heavy and ugly and impossible to direct anywhere now that the words are already out.
Alina is still holding herself so tightly she looks breakable.
I glance from one of them to the other and say, because someone has to, “Maybe we should get him to his room.”
Alina turns her head and gives me a look so cold it almost makes me step back.
I take it without comment. There’s no time to be offended on principle. Not when Ethan is swaying in the corridor like he might either pick another fight or fold where he stands.
So I move closer and reach for his arm. “Come on,” I say quietly. “Let’s just get you upstairs.”
He doesn’t resist. Not really. He lets me take his arm, but his eyes aren’t on me. They’re fixed somewhere past my shoulder.
I turn my head.
Viktor is at the far end of the hall. The air in the corridor changes the second he steps into it. Not louder. Just heavier. More deliberate. He looks from Ethan to Alina to me, taking in the scene in a single sweep.
“What’s going on?”
“He’s drunk,” Alina says.
Viktor glances at her, then back at Ethan.
Ethan is still looking at him. Not with embarrassment. Not even with anger now. Something looser. More reckless. The kind of stare people get when drink burns through the last of their judgment and leaves only whatever was waiting underneath.
Viktor sees it. “So,” he says, very evenly, “we’re doing this here.”
Ethan gives a short laugh that makes my skin crawl. “Why do you keep looking at her?”
I want the floor to open.
The whole day has already been one long descent into humiliation and secrets and near disasters, and somehow this is still worse.
Viktor doesn’t react right away.
That scares me more than if he had.
He just looks at Ethan, then at me for one brief, unreadable second, and then back again. Alina has gone very still beside us. I can feel it without looking at her. The whole corridor feels balanced on one terrible, tottering moment.
“Ethan,” I say, low and urgent, “stop.”
He doesn’t. He actually straightens a little, as if whatever miserable courage he has left has chosen this moment to make itself useful.
