Liam didn't kiss him... duh! He twisted Volya's face this way and that, as if looking for a smudge of dirt.

"Not bad," Liam concluded upon his inspection with an impish grin, oblivious of the fact that Volya's heart had just set a new speed record for internal organs. "Another selfie?"

"Okay."

Volya stepped out of Liam's reach and lifted his iPad. A linden flower—three yellow blossoms pinned together—helicoptered past, just as Volya snapped his selfie. Their fluffy petals flicking Liam's famous nose now belonged to posterity.

The warm afternoon, full stomach, and the superstar sniffing linden flowers with him... it was so far removed from reality that he could never have dreamt it all up. Hence, it must be real. Happy and real. How lovely it was to take it in, unhurriedly. To forget everything unpleasant that came before. Stop agonizing over betraying Toshka.

This spring was bliss. Liam was bliss. His life was bliss.

"I see that you can smile, Volya Wolkov." Liam sounded pleased, even though the interpretation spoiled it. "Practice it often."

The way Liam butchered his name... Volya snorted.

"What?"

"You're one of the few people who'd never messed up my first name, but the way you'd just said my last name..." Volya cut himself off. Why ruin the perfect moment? "It sounded funny, that's all."

"What?" Liam insisted.

Volya sighed. Explaining it via the gadget was going to be such a pain in the ass!

"Okay. You're not saying my last name the right way. Marina did the same thing yesterday. You both put emphasis on the wrong syllable."

Geez, he sounded petty.

"Sorry."

Volya waved the apology away. "Eh, no biggie. On the bright side, the way you've said it, believe it or not, my name means Freedom of the Wolves."

Liam's brows jumped up. "Oh?"

"Or, maybe, Will of the Wolves." Volya shrugged. Could the app even get that? He replaced the names with the synonyms, svoboda and nakaz, and sighed in relief when the app dug up two different English equivalents for that. "Volya means both of these things in Russian."

Gosh, it was cheesy. Even cheesier than having cool genes. But Liam didn't roll his eyes. He walked in silence for a bit. His full lips moved before stretching into another radiant smile. "It should be WOlkov, right? Not WolkOV."

Apart from sounding like Hermione in Harry Potter during her wingardium leviosa moment, Liam got it.

"Yup, that's correct." Volya patted Liam on the back. "Want a sticker?"

Liam lifted his eyes and hands to the sky in a mock prayer of gratitude. Then he muttered something that the app didn't pick up.

"Sorry? What did you just say?" Volya chewed his lip. Damn, Marina was right, and he hated it so much that she was right! Unit 5 for all its drawbacks, was his ticket to better banter. He promised himself to attack it like he meant it tonight.

For now, he darted a glance at Liam's phone, but the text version was also rubbish.

"I said, it's going to rain. We better return to the hotel," Liam said slowly. Said, but not repeated, because this wasn't what was said before, not even close.

This little white lie didn't make the forecast update any less relevant. The sky between the lacework of the leaves darkened to violet in two seconds.

"Race you!" Volya took off under the disapproving stare of a cop guarding the tulips. At least the man didn't yell at them for bumping up the threat level to the flower beds.

"We'll have to shop tomorrow after you're done at the embassy," Liam shouted from behind Volya's back.

"No problem!" His body filled with buoyant energy, as if some weight had been lifted from his heart.

Learning English? No problem.

Singing? For Liam, he could be a nightingale.

Keeping secrets hidden? Sod off!

Years of pent-up joy burst out of Volya so hard that he got a stitch in his side. And yet, he hated the idea of stopping. Laughing while running was what he never knew he needed.

The first fat droplets of rain pelted his head. The smell of wetted asphalt freshened the city.

He finally skidded to a stop smack in the middle of the bridge crossing the Moscow River. The storm wrung the skies out till the slanting lines of water blinded him. Volya was soaked to the bone, but the joy made him so hot he was he wasn't steaming.

Next to him, Liam dropped the cowl of his hoodie and yanked the sunglasses off, lifting his face to the downpour, slurping the rain.

Unlike Volya's curls, Liam's hair hugged his skull tightly. It looked shinier than ever, so beautiful, that Volya itched to touch those ringlets.

A lightning bolt zigzagged overhead, splitting into three.

Volya jerk his reaching hand back, saw Liam's profile in the flash of lightning. It didn't matter that he'd regained his power of speech. His yell to haul ass got drowned out in the blast of thunder anyway.

He didn't mind being caught out in the deluge for a second. The electricity in the sky matched the one coursing through his veins, but it didn't hurt any more.

Maybe he was adapting to his inner thunderstorm.