Page 50 of Psychic Obsession
Frode watched Nikolai.First, he'd been annoyed with him for not leaving with Hjalmar, but when he'd returned to the TV room and seen the faraway look in his eyes, he'd stopped to study him.Sadness clung to him.Or maybe it wasn't sadness, but misery and maybe regret.
"Nikolai."
No reaction, his eyes focused but unseeing.
"Hey."
Nikolai startled."Sorry."He rubbed a hand over his face in a motion of exhaustion."I should get going too."But he made no motion to get up.
"Are you okay?"
A ghost of a smile."I was gonna ask you the same thing.You're fine being here on your own?"
A shiver danced down his spine.Maybe he should get a dog after all."He only kills women, right?"
Nikolai scrunched his nose."Appears so."
"So the likelihood of him coming here is non-existent."
He nodded.
"Are you okay?"He didn't care if Nikolai fucking Nesterova was okay, but he'd never seen him like this.He looked lost, and it was so unlike the cocky, annoying man Frode knew him to be.
"I'll be fine, pet."
Asshole.Frode spluttered, and Nikolai grinned, but it lacked the sharp edge it most often held.Something wasn't right with Nikolai today.He was softer, more vulnerable.Had something happened in his private life?Had his family done something?
"Why did you move back here?"Frode did his best not to think about Nikolai, to not be near him, to not remember things Hjalmar said about him, but he'd cut his family off.
"There was a job opening."
Frode shook his head.It wasn't the reason.There were jobs all over the country.Moving back to Berg wasn't a career move.
Nikolai sighed."My fiancé broke up with me, and I needed to...get away, I guess.But starting over with nothing when you're forty-one sucks.I guess I wanted something familiar."
Frode gaped."Fiancé?Holy fuck, you were engaged?"
The smile was more like a grimace."I was.Julian Colby.I was gonna become Nikolai Colby in October.Julian wanted a fall wedding."
Shit.Frode hadn't known he'd had a boyfriend.He walked over to the armchair across from Nikolai, the entire length of the coffee table between them."Were you together for long?"
"Eight years."
Frode swallowed.Eight years.Nikolai fucking Nesterova in a committed relationship.He never believed he'd see the day."What happened?"
Nikolai snorted."I'm not entirely sure, but according to Julian, it was my fault."
On a normal day, Frode would've agreed wholeheartedly, but the anguish wrapping around Nikolai made him bite his tongue."How's so?"
Nikolai shrugged."I work too much.I missed one too many dinner reservations because I was too wrapped up in a case, and he got tired of waiting."A humorless laugh."I can't say he's wrong.I didn't forget about him, and I never left him sitting waiting in a restaurant or anything along those lines.I called or texted to let him know I wouldn't be able to make it.I wanted to spend time with him.I loved him."He looked into Frode's eyes as if willing him to believe him, and right then Frode did.He hadn't been sure Nikolai was capable of love--or that was untrue.He loved Hjalmar.It was clear as day.But Frode hadn't been sure he'd been capable of a romantic kind of love.Clearly, he'd been wrong.
"But when I was closing in on a killer, I couldn't make myself switch off the desk lamp and go sit across from him in a cozy restaurant and flirt."He shook his head."I tried, but he could always tell when my mind was elsewhere, and he'd get angry and think I was disrespectful for not giving him my full attention."
He rubbed his hand over his face again.
"I can't say he was wrong.And I wanted to give him everything he ever wanted, but lives were on the line, killers walking free while I was wining and dining my boyfriend."
He huffed and threw his hands in the air."And now you've turned the night into a therapy session."
