People looked forward to the new year for many reasons, the most positive of which being hope for better things to come. For me, the new year had always been an acknowledgement that I had made it through the one before. It wasn’t as though I struggled as much as countless others; it was more that I had lived every minute of every day and I was glad to put five-hundred thousand or so behind me. It was an achievement to exist and even greater to do it with an inkling of joy in your heart, which Cal had helped me find. Still, I was glad to say goodbye to 1934, a year that had been unkind to me and mine.

Hearing my dad readying himself in the bathroom reminded me that regardless of how often I was away from the apartment, we continued to share a space, and it had me immediately wishing for solitude. I thought of Al Capone, sitting in the new prison in the middle of the sea, and wondered if his isolation and three squares a day made the incarceration worth it. Perhaps I would have come to that conclusion if not for Cal.

“I didn’t realize you were still here,” my father remarked once I left my room and waited for him to move away from the hall mirror.

“In general or tonight?” I ventured to clarify.

“Tonight. I thought you would be joining Igor, Maksim and their dames for a night on the town. You’re off gallivanting with girls all the time, couldn’t you have wrangled up a date?”

“I don’t need to wrangle up anything,” I stated, crinkling my nose at his heavy application of Aqua Velva. When I had told him a few weeks before that he was overdoing it with the aftershave, he had informed me that Sally loved it and waggled his eyebrows while adding, “If you know what I mean.” I did, so I made a concerted effort never to mention anything about his grooming habits again. I didn’t want to know about their relationship, not even bits and barbs. The thought of them being intimate disgusted me as much as his rampant hypocrisy. Mikhailovs didn’t need women until he nabbed one. Decades of brainwashing were forgotten as soon as he fucked a willing waitress. It was baffling.

“I know you may find this hard to believe, but there really is something to being with one devoted dame. You may be bedding a bunch of broads, but it’s empty, Vik. Love, that’s the important thing.”

“You see,” I began, thumbing my lower lip in an attempt to control my mouth from spouting off. “Growing up, there was this guy. His name was Taros, I think you know him.”

Sighing, he shook his head as he situated his tie.