“Please, don’t call me that,” Panda replied to my question ten minutes later.

“Ah well.” I shrugged, not actually disappointed. “Panda it is, then.”

After the Andrey’s incident Panda and Rita offered to walk me to my house, which was nice of them even if absolutely pointless since it was just a few minutes of walking away, and Andrey right now was riding a car with two unfriendly police officers.

A part of me couldn’t help but worry for him. As Andrey said, I once told him I loved him. Now, several years older and much wiser, I say that it was dumb teenage infatuation. Of course, it would be pointless to say it to him.

“Where did you learn to hit like that, Sveta?” Rita asked. Contrary to me, she used actual names even in informal conversations, which I found distasteful most of the time.

Rita herself was an exception, because I just liked how her name sounded. Andrey… He didn’t deserve any nicknames anymore. Even bad ones.

“My parents…” Panda trailed off, putting her hands in the pockets of her jeans. “They are… martial arts fanatics, sort of. I didn’t train since moving to Peter, but I guess you just can’t forget what you studied most of your life.”

She sounded unhappy about it. I gave her a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “That’s still cool, though. If a real fight starts, I’d be only able to plead for mercy.”

Rita hummed in agreement. “I bet you’d be able to protect Diana better than Jean-Jacques.”

Panda shrugged. “He has more muscle than I do.”

“And he lives with me,” I said. “I mean, he rents a room in my apartment, so we technically live together,” I added for Panda’s sake. Rita was aware of my and JJ’s living situation from the start.

The reminder made Rita frown. I wondered what she was more concerned about—a danger to my neck or all the possible historical revelations I could’ve, but didn’t yet unravel with JJ’s help.

“Do you think he is in now?” she said, instead of anything I expected. I didn’t like the grin on her face. “You know, it makes no sense hiding him from me, Diana. I can just come at work hours and see for myself.”

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

I hid my face in my palms. “Ugh, Rita! How about you… Do just that, alright? I’m not going to introduce the two of you to each other.”

Because no matter what JJ said, not only I could misinterpret his general attitude towards other people for flirting (if it wasn’t one, really). And in case with Rita, that would just lead to broken expectations and a world of drama that I’d like to avoid. Or at least, postpone.

We stopped at my house’s backdoor. Rita gave it a look of longing, but didn’t insist on coming in.

“Alright, girlfriend. You had a trying evening as it is. Have a good night.”

“Same,” Panda said with a wave.

“You two too.”

As they walked away, I unlocked the door and went in. The instant my friends’ presence left me, a bitter anger at Andrey and life in general settled back on my shoulders like it didn’t go anywhere. I hoped JJ was away, because I was so not in the mood to entertain him. I just wanted to curl on my bed with a book, wallow in self-pity and cry until I couldn’t anymore.

I didn’t check the lights on the first floor, instead immediately heading for my room. The soft mattress accepts me like a mother’s embrace… One that I didn’t have since I turned ten. And now, I didn’t have a father to hug me either.

Tears came to my eyes with the ease I hoped for. Crying, as messy as the process was, always felt cleansing for me, like I could cry out all my worries. It never worked this way, but it was at least something.

I cried over the deaths of my parents, over the fact that the person whom I admired once now turned from a distant memory into a potential danger.

I wished I could say that Andrey would never hurt me or bullshit like that, but I knew him well enough to know that he was physically aggressive by nature. In school he would get in fights, but nothing too serious. Now, who knew what he was up to in the last years? What he was up to now?

I was still crying, occasionally blowing my nose into paper tissues, when I heard a knock on my door. I paused, stilling like a wild animal that heard a twig snap.

“Ma chèrie? Is everything alright in there? I heard your crying,” a smooth voice with an unmistakable French accent said.

I sniffed. This was just what I tried to avoid. Concern. Concern from JJ, especially. A kind of concern I wouldn’t be able to trust in full, because I would wonder if he only acted this way to get into my pants.

More than that, even if it was anyone else, I had my pride. A pride to not be a crying, pitiful mess in front of others, no matter whom. And yet, I’d be lying to say that I wasn’t happy that JJ asked, somewhere deep down.

“I’m fine!” My voice was rough from crying, and I coughed into my fist before repeating. “I’m fine. Just ignore it, alright?”

For a second, I heard nothing. “You are giving me very hard task there, Diana. It’s not in my habits to ignore a woman in distress.”

I snorted at that sudden gallantness. It was hard to imagine a vampire like him to act like a knight in shining armour without ulterior motives, but… Jean-Jacques, the Casanova extraordinaire? That must’ve been in his bones.

Aloud, I just asked with no small amount of irony, “Really?”

“Indeed! Smiles suit ladies’ faces much better than tears. Now, to prove my words, let me tell you a story…”