Liam traveled by bus. Except it wasn't an average city bus overheated to the point of its riders passing out in its dusty womb. This was a luxurious, air-conditioned affair, with the bathroom wafting lavender. Volya loved the reclining seats the most. They lured him to tilt his head back, close his eyes and stop worrying about stuff. He let his head lean against the leather, but didn't close his eyes, peering out of the window instead.

The driveway went by, then the familiar street lined with dilapidated six-story apartment buildings and the laundry flapping on the clotheslines in mockery of flags. He wouldn't see this for a while, because he was leaving. Leaving! Un-frigging-real...

More streets flashed beyond the bus's tinted windows. The houses spread out, grew shabbier, between the trees. The rail lines with a parked freight train snuggled to the road. After that, the grassy plain stretched to the horizon in all directions.

Liam reached across the aisle to pat his knee. He said something after a glance at the interpreter, whose name turned out to be Marina.

Marina leaned forward. "Liam's asking why you weren't too happy with the farewell from your friend. He seemed sweet."

The struggle over asking a virtual stranger this rather personal question reflected on her face, but professionalism won. Whatever Liam wanted to know, she had to get it for him.

Volya bit his upper lip.

Toshka's mood made a 180 degree flip just before Volya had boarded the bus. Gone were his upbeat, 'Volya, you must go! I'm so happy for you! It's your golden opportunity!' rants. Suddenly, Toshka couldn't get words out through trembling lips. He opted for a mile-wide sign of the blessing cross with a full-on triple kiss as if Volya was leaving to fight in a war or something. Volya's skin still tingled where Toshka's lips brushed his cheeks.

"I hated that Toshka treated me like I'm not coming back. Also..."

Also, this wasn't how he imagined their first kiss. They should have kissed after Volya had a chance to confess the full extent of his feelings. He'd do it away from the eavesdropping crowds. It should have been an awesome moment. Now it was ruined, but good luck explaining that to Liam.

When it became clear that Volya had clammed up, Marina dutifully interpreted what he'd chosen to say. He caught a faint sigh of relief from her before she added pointers about Russian customs.

Volya turned away from Marina's coffee-fueled efficiency, Liam's million-watt smile and English babbling. He jerked his knee from under Liam's warm hand. Why he'd tolerated Liam's touch for this long was a mystery to him. He wasn't a touchy-feely person... except with Toshka. And Toshka's kiss was now smothered in his memory.

The seats, heated by the late afternoon sun, gave out the new leather smell. The dust, kicked up by the wheels, filtered inside to tickle his nostrils. The driver's tuneless humming drifted around the bus.

"Volya?"

The floral scent and the nails sharp enough to dig through the jeans told him it was Marina who tapped his knee this time. There must have been a conspiracy to prevent him from dozing off.

"Marina ah..." he chewed his lip. She didn't introduce herself with her full name as he would have expected. "Marina? What's your patronymic name?"

"Just Marina," she replied, before pushing an iPad and headphones into his hands. "I want you to go through Units 1 and 2 before we get to Rostov-on-Don. I'll quiz you while we're waiting on our flight to Moscow."

This wasn't how just Marinas spoke. He needed to use her patronymic name, even if it made her feel older. Or at least her last name, so he could address her in English as Mrs. Something... or maybe Ma'am? Her manner hinted at a bigger role than an interpreter to a visiting superstar.

With Liam it was different. Despite all his fortune-and-glory, and being twenty-one to Volya's seventeen, Liam felt like just Liam.

While doubts swirled through Volya's mind, Marina watched him with her blue-gray eyes, expecting obedience.

He put the headset on and diligently repeated after the recording, "Hello, my name is Alexei Petrov. Is this your first time in London?"

This was an entry-level English course. He needed it for the internship to work, but did it have to be this boring? "Who talks like this anyway?"

With a tiny nod of her head, Marina indicated Liam, who curled up in his chair, with a slim laptop and headphones. The waves of audio recordings zigzagged across the screen. The guy stopped and restarted the tracks, typing his notes in a separate window.

"He does. You want to speak with him without me hovering over your shoulder, yes?" Marina cajoled. "Or understand what he's singing about?"

Liam's baritonal humming had the titillating quality that unfurled a human soul. Or, at least, Volya's soul unfurled in response to it, then furled right back, sending a pleasant jolt of longing through his core.

"I understand his songs just fine," he muttered.

She looked at him with a certain tilt to her head, a certain expression on her features, as if she'd guessed some secret about him. "You know more English than you let on, don't you?"

Volya dipped his head. "Yes. I mean, we have had it since Grade 4, so it rubbed off. But I never dreamed of fooling James Bond into thinking we're long-lost twins."

"You're in no danger of that, I assure you," Marina replied.

"Fine, I'll give it my best." He hesitated, then added in English. "Ma'am."

Marina cringed worse than when they had discussed his previous English instructions. It must have been his terrible accent.

***

When they stopped at the Rostov-on-Don airport, the bodyguards flanked them. They exchanged clipped lines about Liam touring too far from Moscow and too close to the volatile Caucasus Mountains' region. This situation was too risky, too risky by far!

Volya felt like an ant with a heel hovering above him. One wrong move, and he'd be squashed to ensure Liam's safety, so he stuck to Liam's side like glue. Marina moved in too, in case Liam decided to open his mouth and say something. Fortunately, Liam was just whistling tunes with a strong potential to render hearts asunder.

Having to rely on an interpreter started to actually get on Volya's nerves, but since there was no getting rid of Marina, he might as well ask her about the swarm of Liam's fans.

"How did they know?" Volya asked, eyeing the bright summer tops, banners and posters. Marina interpreted it like she was on an autopilot.

"One of the universe's greatest mysteries," Liam whispered back and redoubled his beaming at his local devotees. They yelped in response.

Volya edged even closer to the popstar, though not for fear of being lost. Liam moved in a personal cone of spot-light, even when he was flanked by the guards, Marina and Volya. He was never in danger of melting into a crowd, be it a thousand times larger than this one.

Volya squinted to study the phenomenon.

Part of it was that Liam was ridiculously tall and just as beautiful.

Full lips and enormous eyes gave his features an air of sensuality even when he rested his face. His gaze had velvet's quality to it, courtesy of the eyelashes so long they had to curl out of the way. The flash of teeth when he smiled charged the surrounding with energy.

But the fans were too far away to notice it.

That left the posture. One look at Liam's straight but mobile shoulders; springy spine; his swagger-in-each-step walk gave him away as a born dancer. Not a single joint was locked, but not a single one was loose either. Just like Liam's smile, his body gave out energy as naturally as the sun gives out light. His manner was electrifying, that was the reason he stood out, couldn't not to.

Maybe that's what gave Volya that jolt of recognition on the first day. Or maybe he was becoming one of the sloppily counted fans convinced that Liam is special to them and only them.

Liam stopped to face the wall of the upraised phones.

Toshka had wanted exposure, so Volya dug his heels in and looked directly into the eye of the photo-storm. Liam draped his arm over Volya's shoulders.

Heat of embarrassment crept into his cheeks from this feather-light touch. It intensified when his attentive ears picked the whispers about that new cutie with Liam.

New cutie? Him.

The fans were turning their thoughts into hashtags right before his eyes, summing him up.

"Volya, smile. Scowling is the guards' job," Liam commanded via too-classy-to-snigger Marina.

"I am." He stretched his lips, pushing them out at the corners, as far as they would go.

Liam wasn't too classy to snigger.

Volya tried harder, but then his gaze drifted to the airplanes and the had-fought-for smile sloughed off. He wanted to get away from the fans, but a shiver ran down his spine at the thought of boarding. Miles high in the air, in a metal box with wings... ouch.

Marina didn't leave Volya much time to dwell on the air traffic safety. She was on him like white on rice from the moment they were past the security gates with Unit 2. When that was exhausted, it was Unit 3.

Dreading the inevitability of Unit 4, Volya fled to the bathroom.

There, he bent over the sink, clutching the porcelain sides as if he was already falling from the sky without a chute. After a minute or two gurgling faucet and solitude helped his guts unclench.

He could do this. He tossed water into his face. Millions flew every day. He could do too...

Volya dragged his fingers through his hair, straightening the frizzles, pressing the wet curls down. Then he forced his gaze up to check the mirror.

It reflected a crooked grin under the stunned eyes, straining to stay put. Luckily, the weight of his wide brow kept them in their sockets. Splotches of red from where he'd rubbed his cheeks still dappled the skin.

Who was he kidding? This wasn't the face of a backward boy who was afraid of flying. He feared something else, something bigger... But it wasn't flying the coop either. He'd dreamt about it all his life!

He kept throwing handfuls of cold water into his face until the redness faded and he looked less freaked out. Nobody loved fear stamped into a man's features. Fear made a man stupid, and whenever a man got stupid, he lost already.

The moment Volya returned to the lounge, Marina glanced at him expectantly.

"No, I didn't finish Unit 4 there," he said and she sighed like he was getting on her nerves.

"If I'm so bad at languages, why could I understand that other one? That weird language in the office? What was it, anyway?"

His breath caught. This was where Marina would tell him it was all in his head. That nobody had ever heard Liam speak anything but English or an occasional thank you, Japan! or France during the concert in the appropriate country's native tongue.

Marina didn't say anything at first. She didn't scoff or chuckle. She sort of stifled a dreamy sigh, as if she was itching to talk about it, but was afraid to bore him to death. Or maybe she pondered if he was worthy of being privy to Liam's mysteries.

"It was a long-dead language. It's being painstakingly reconstructed, but to hear a dialect from you like it's still a living tongue..." She shook her head. "I'm amazed that you have a genetic memory of it."

Was it his coveted genes at work? "Genetic memory? What's that?"

Marina slanted her eyes at Liam. "All in a good time."

Volya's stomach twisted: Liam wanted to keep things from him as they were traveling farther from home.

"Okay, okay. But is Liam that way too? Does he recall this ancient language because of his genetic memory? Do we have the same cool genes?"

"No, Volya. Your genetics is... unique," Marina said. "We taught Liam a few words, that's all. His knowledge is limited."

"I could tell that," Volya confessed. And he could tell it despite the weird voice arguing that Liam was his kin.

"Fascinating." Marina chewed her lip, as if filing the information away. Then she smiled with an overblown enthusiasm. "All the more reasons why you need to learn English, right?"

"Yes, ma'am! On it!"

Marina's evasiveness whetted Volya's appetite for more answers, but at least he received a half-way rational one. Genetic memory had a patina of scientific reasoning. It was better than believing in witches who spoke in tongues.

Reconstructions of the ancient languages by the linguists. Researchers interested in his genes... Good, solid, real stuff—unlike the voice in his head. But, hey, there might be a scientific explanation for it too. Or, more likely, medical... For now, as much as he hated to admit it, Marina was right. He had to attack English.

So, watch out, Unit 4! He was coming for it.