Volya didn't stan Liam, but still, the guy was an idol of millions. Maybe billions. And he had asked to see him, Volya Volkov? On purpose?
Judging by the top-of-the-line commercial-worthy smile Liam shot Volya, the man was just enjoying watching Volya struggle with the growing urge to pinch himself. So Volya went ahead and pinched himself.
Liam was still there.
Yes, yes, Volya had been taught it was impolite to stare slack-jawed, but give him a break! Everyone in Slavyansk would gawk at him simply because of his black skin, and he'd endured endless mind-numbing, banal small talk every single day of his life. Yeah, everyone in Slavyansk would stare and forget to blink at this sight. Maybe even people in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Hell, maybe even in San Francisco.
Liam didn't seem to mind his staring. "Hello, Volya," he said.
Great, now Volya could dazzle the popstar with the full extent of his English skills. He had to be perfect, how else could he impress the star and make the most of this moment? Should he do a little finger wave, like a kid at a birthday party?
"Hi, Liam," he replied.
Liam jumped up from his chair, holding out his hand. His smile lit up the dreary room better than any spotlight ever could.
Only drug dealers were this happy to see a random guy. Volya sniffed the air, but didn't catch anything stronger than stale weed on Liam. Still, something about the man kicked him right in the solar plexus, stealing his breath.
"Can this day get any weirder?" he muttered under his breath.
Liam glanced sideways at his interpreter, who stood up from her seat to join them. She could have been anywhere from twenty to forty, and was the most put-together person Volya had ever seen. She spoke in a smooth, cultured voice, greeting Volya again on Liam's behalf, as if one hello wasn't enough. Maybe Liam's fame required three of everything, including greetings.
Liam spoke again, and the interpreter jumped in, switching between Russian and English, wrapping Volya in a disorienting bilingual cloud. He forced himself to focus on what was being said.
"Those genetic swabs we did last year? You belong to a very unique population group. You're a near-perfect genetic match for Liam."
Volya contributed to the conversation in his best English. "Cool."
Liam looked delighted to discover their shared love of music.
"Very cool," Volya added.
All the while, his nose was fixed on the smell of meat under the formal flower arrangements. It was a terrible, awful feeling. That constant, gnawing hunger in the pit of his stomach, never fully gone, was at its peak right now, in front of a global superstar. If he started drooling, they'd definitely misinterpret it.
Liam cut off the interpreter mid-sentence with a gentle touch to her shoulder. "I've heard Russians have a saying: don't feed a nightingale with fables."
That was a damn good saying. Nightingales needed to eat.
Liam nodded at a covered tray on the coffee table in the corner, the source of that delicious smell.
After darting a quick glance at Anna Leonidovna, Volya stared at the plastic cover of the platter. He was staring, but the goosebumps on his arms were from a memory, one of the worst days of his school life. He remembered the bullies throwing him to the ground, tying him to a toilet, every blow to his ribs a violent explosion. Each memory was poison to his mind.
Blackout. Most of the words filtered down the line from Liam's honeyed voice, straight into Volya's ear, as if they were coming from inside his own head. Normally, he could never bring himself to speak up, but there was no point in freaking them out more than he already had.
He understood Liam without the interpreter.
"The food is safe," Liam had whispered, in neither English nor Russian. The words sounded strange in his mouth, but they meant exactly what they said. Liam winked. It was so brief, Volya might have imagined it. Maybe he'd finally snapped, and was making up a whole unknown language in his head?
"Wait a minute here—" he started, somehow slipping into that same unknown language, and lifted the cover off the tray. The contents looked exactly as good as they smelled: an array of cold cuts, beautifully arranged.
The interpreter made an inviting gesture. Or maybe she was trying to stop him from speaking. Next, she'd click her tongue and call him a naughty boy, like a dog.
His head stayed down, stubborn.
"We've made sure there's nothing here that will make you sick, Volya," the interpreter said in Russian. "We're aware of your food sensitivities."
He felt a twinge of shame for his instinctive dislike of the woman. He didn't want to be rude, but he couldn't shake it. "Really?"
The only thing his body could reliably keep down was meat. Most people refused to believe that, just like they refused to remember his name, because it was too weird. Being weird was exhausting.
The interpreter relayed his doubts to Liam. The popstar slung an arm over his shoulders. "Come on, Volya, sit down. We'll eat and chat about the internship."
This was definitely said in English, and Volya caught the gist of it on his own, despite years of English lessons turning his brain to mush. Maybe there was a click in his brain. Maybe Liam had spoken in English, and he'd just had a linguistic breakthrough. Wouldn't that be cool?
"Internship? What internship?" Volya attempted in English to test his theory, but what came out was so garbled that the interpreter jumped in halfway through.
No breakthrough there. When he'd slipped into that other language, it had felt as smooth as silk.
"I'll explain while you eat," Liam replied. "If you don't mind?"
Volya didn't mind. He understood eating better than just about anything else. For a split second, he froze, overwhelmed. It felt like he and Liam were swaying in place, almost in a hug. An awkward as hell hug.
Anna Leonidovna cleared her throat. Under her withering stare, Volya snapped out of it.
Fine. He'd go eat. It would be their fault if he got crumbs on the popstar's shoes, or the principal's. At least when it came to dirty floors, Volya was an expert, but Liam's pants were way too nice to get dirty. Time slowed as Volya's gaze landed on Liam's fitted trousers. His heart pounded in his ears, louder with every beat. Then a jolt of recognition shot through him. A full-body electric shiver.
He recognized Liam. Not from Toshka's collection of music videos. Sweat beaded under Volya's collar. He'd felt this exact same feeling once before, deep in his soul, on a more profound level. The same way he'd felt, all those years ago, when he'd met Toshka for the first time.
Noticing his hesitation, Liam let go of him. The strange feeling faded, leaving only a faint tick in Volya's temple. But he could ignore that. Breathing shallowly, too nervous to trigger that shiver again by getting too close to Liam, Volya made a beeline for the meat.
He lifted a pink, roasted slice halfway to his mouth, then lost all composure, stuffing the whole thing in and swallowing it whole, too impatient to chew. He might have let out a tiny growl of visceral pleasure at the end.
The visitors hadn't lied. The meat was perfect, no additives, no fillers, beyond succulent. His eyes slid shut as he savored it for a long second.
When he opened them to grab a second piece, he caught sight of the principal's wild, embarrassed grimace. Would she decide his terrible table manners were the thing that ruined her shot at that juicy funding? This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!
A dry, sarcastic voice in the back of his head pulled him out of his thoughts.
"The internship is with the band Buzzkill," Liam was saying, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "We're looking for a new roadie. You can sing on recordings, talk to the managers... whatever interests you most."
"Wait a minute," Volya glanced between Liam and the interpreter. "Wait, you want me? A random kid from the middle of nowhere? Not the other boys? Not even Toshka?"
That was absolutely insane. Completely fricking crazy. This was one of Toshka's wildest schemes, and he wasn't even here to be included?
"Can I bring my friend Toshka? He's got an amazing voice. No one in this town gives him a chance, even with a demo tape."
Liam smiled, an easy smile, if you didn't notice the faint strain at the corners of his eyes. "Singing, yes, the studio is yours if that's what you want. And we can arrange work for him on the tours too."
That was a galaxy's worth of life-changing opportunities. Holy moly, was this real?
"Come on, have a drink. Make yourself comfortable. We've got time. Or do you have more questions?"
He'd heard of things like this, but why would anyone send him a letter about it?
The interpreter frowned as she repeated his questions to Liam, who just chuckled, like he was amused by him.
"We can work with a speech therapist while we get you up to speed with English, and wait for the rest of the paperwork to come through over the holidays," was all he said.
From the corner of his eye, Volya saw it: a carrot dangled in front of him. But Liam wasn't just offering a carrot. He was offering him the whole field. He'd have a place to stay, a room of his own. A useful skill. Hell, he might even get to be a backup singer for the band, if Liam ever got sick.
Even if nothing else came of it, this was a huge deal. But something about it didn't feel right. There was a bigger problem, as far as Volya was concerned: Toshka.
"I'm not going without Toshka," Volya said flatly.
Toshka had begged everyone for this kind of opportunity. This was his whole idea, his whole soul poured into it.
"We'll keep his band going here while you're away," Liam smiled. "But you are the genetic match. The band needs you."
The hair on the back of Volya's neck stood up.
The hard truth hit him: if he left, he'd be locking Toshka in this orphanage, at the mercy of the Bruiser and everyone else, for a whole year. Even if he thought about coming back after the tour, he couldn't leave Toshka here alone.
"No," he said.
"Volkov!" Anna Leonidovna snapped, then turned to the interpreter with an apologetic smile.
"The two boys are very close friends," the interpreter chirped. "The year will fly by before you know it. You'll be back for summer break before you realize it."
"He... I mean, he'll feel left behind," Volya fumbled for the right words, his English failing him. He knew this school and this life were terrible, but he couldn't leave Toshka here. Not alone.
Anna Leonidovna caught the dullness in his tone. "Volya, we've done an enormous amount of work with this famous band to get you this after-school internship. You're an incredibly talented young man. We know this is an exceptional opportunity, and if you throw this away, we will never forgive you."
A year. One whole year. He'd be 18 by the time it was over.
He'd barely see Toshka at all, for most of the year. And what if something happened to Toshka? What if the Bruiser hurt him? What if Toshka got sick? What if he ran away from the orphanage? He'd be all alone.
"This isn't the band's idea," Volya said. "This is the principal's. Toshka and I are a team. If he's not coming, I'm not going."
"The paperwork is already finalized. There's simply no time to process anyone else. There's no room in the program for another person."
The way Anna Leonidovna said it sent a shiver down his spine. An internship wasn't an international adoption. It wouldn't take this much legal maneuvering to take a minor out of the country for a year.
They'd done all this behind his back?
Volya was hit with a cold, suffocating feeling, like a fish caught in a net. Wrapped up, and sold.
"I said, I'm not going," he repeated. "Don't you get it?"
"Go pack your things," the principal said.
He stared at her in shock. He could feel his heartbeat thudding in his ears. That cold, hard pit in his stomach was back.
"No."
The interpreter was droning in Liam's ear, but the popstar's eyes never left Volya's face. He must have sensed the tension, because he leaned in and whispered, "Trust me," right in Volya's ear.
Volya recoiled, darting a glance at the principal.
He'd survived a lot of crap from Leonidovna. He was used to her cutting off opportunities for him on a whim. Once, she'd refused to sign off on a check for a few rubles for his frigging medicine!
To make things worse, his body was doing the thing it only ever did with Toshka. Only Toshka had ever made him feel this way, every single time.
But Liam's hand on his shoulder, this ache, this yearning, this craving, came from somewhere deep inside him. The same pull you felt for your little brother, your twin. The superstar's expression, that grin, was asking him for a favor, not offering him the world on a silver platter.
"Ignore the shit," he said, in that same strange language from before. "The two of us can talk this through, away from them."
Liam's lips barely twitched at the words. But the man who'd traveled the world, who'd sung for kings and queens, nodded.
It made sense. They'd set this whole thing up to send him into a panic attack. It was almost overpowering the alarm bells ringing in Volya's head. Liam no longer felt like a stranger. He smelled like a forest fire, like a wolf's den.
The second Liam's hand touched his arm, Volya knew he'd do anything for this man.
Which was why, when Liam breathed the word "trust" in his ear, Volya didn't fight him as he led him out of the room.
He nearly snapped at the interpreter when she tried to shut the door in Anna Leonidovna's face.
The popstar's voice was a soft caress in his ear. "I'm sorry you were brought here like this."
"Behind my back," Volya said.
"Behind your back," Liam repeated, in Russian. And not just any Russian. It was that same strange, familiar language he'd replied in earlier. The one he didn't even know he understood.
"I didn't know you spoke Russian," Volya said.
Liam's reply was quiet, like he was sharing his deepest secret, and didn't want anyone else to hear. "I do."
"Then why the hell did you need an interpreter this whole time?" Volya blurted out.
"Because I wanted to see how you'd act," Liam said. "And what you'd do when the chips were down."
"Volkov!" Anna Leonidovna gasped from the doorway.
The door clicked shut, leaving them alone in the dimly lit corridor.
Liam let go of his arm, leaning back against the wall. "Let me set the record straight. You're not here for an internship."
Volya's legs nearly gave out from under him after a dozen steps. He slumped against the wall opposite Liam.
"Then why the hell am I here?" he asked.
"Let me show you something." Liam had the first, best, most important part of the truth, and he'd been dying to tell him.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a crumpled piece of paper, and handed it to Volya.
It was a copy of a birth certificate.
Volya's eyes skipped straight to the name at the top.
"Wait, this is my birth certificate," Volya said. "But how did you get this?"
Liam's reply was quiet, like he was sharing a secret that would change everything. "I'm your older brother. Full blood."
Volya's whole world tilted on its axis.