“I love it when you start footnoting yourself about positional fighting.” Lyonya tossed the clippings aside and tugged me into his lap. “You can take the sniper out of the student, but you cannot take the student out of the sniper.”
“It’s all absolute rubbish,” I grumbled, thumping my head on his shoulder.
“They’re propagandists, milaya. They deal in rubbish. They’re determined to make you a heroine—”
I made retching noises.
“—and personally, I quite like the thought of marrying a heroine. You earn the glory, I bask. I’ve already been asked what it’s like to live with the girl sniper herself—”
I groaned but could feel a smile starting to creep over my face. “What did you say?”
“I was very complimentary. I told them you were lethal on the battlefield yet an utter disaster in the kitchen, and what man could possibly want more in a wife?”
“You don’t even know if I can cook or not—”
“I’m sure you have a box of recipes somewhere, and they’re all beautifully footnoted. With blood splatter,” Lyonya added, and as I exploded into laughter, he picked me up and slung me over one shoulder. “When can we get married?” he asked, tossing me down on his army cot.
“Later.” I pulled him down on top of me, taking his face between my hands for a long kiss. “Come here . . .”
“Why later?” he asked afterward when both of us were still breathing hard, damp with sweat, our limbs interlocked. “Why not get things finalized with Alexei and marry me, Mila?”
My hand was still tangled in his hair, brushing slowly up and down from the soft strands at the crown to the short velvety buzz down his neck. “I love you, Lyonya—but are you sure I’m what you want? It’s so soon . . .”
“It’s been a month since you started here with me. A month in front-line time? That’s a year in peacetime.” He gave me a shrewd look. “I think you’re just dragging your feet at the idea of facing Alexei about the divorce.”
I was dragging my feet, and I hated that. I knew, I just knew, that Alexei would make trouble when I told him I wanted a divorce so I could marry someone else, and it felt unlucky to invite even a drop more trouble into life when Lyonya and I were already living in a war zone. “What’s the rush?” I asked, ducking the subject. “What do we get by marrying that we don’t have now?” I indicated the little world of the dugout: the stove that warmed our evenings; the table where we ate supper; this cot where we burrowed against the cold.
“If we were married, you’d get my pension if I die,” Lyonya pointed out. “Come on, Lady Death—marry me for the money.”
“Maybe you’re trying to marry me for mine,” I teased. “My ever-so-luxurious senior sergeant pension if I cap it here on the front line.”
“I would like to know you’re taken care of, after all this.” That quirk of Lyonya’s mouth. “Things get lean and hungry after wars. I’m eleven years older than you; I probably remember the hungry times after the last war a bit more clearly.”
“Don’t worry on that score.” I traced the outer edge of his eyebrow. “I won’t ever starve. My father knows people. The kind of people who never die of hunger, but make sure their enemies do.”
“Then marry me so your father won’t accuse me of despoiling his daughter and decide to take steps.” Lyonya rolled onto his back, grinning, arm still around my waist. “Make an honest man of me before I’m found floating in a river.”
“If a man ever ends up floating in a river on my behalf, I’ll be the one who put him there, not my father!” I burrowed into Lyonya’s shoulder. “Though Papa would probably like it if you ask for his approval.”