18

- Do you smoke? I asked Alyosha, who was looking askance at me.

I did not touch breakfast, allowing myself to drink only coffee. From a long sitting in a chair, the body was a little numb, but I was not going to get up yet.

Alyosha gave me a suspicious look and silently took a pack of cigarettes from the inside pocket of his jacket. I think that I used to smoke, otherwise it would not have occurred to me to ask for a smoke.

"It's bad," he remarked imperturbably, lighting a cigarette for me.

He himself did not smoke. At least, before I did not notice the smell behind him, but nevertheless I carried cigarettes with me. Weird.

"To live too," I answered, coughing.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him stare at the handprint that had almost come off my wrist.

Even before, I was a little incomprehensible to his role as a nanny, but now, having learned a tiny piece of the truth, I realized that Alyosha was assigned to me not in the role of a nanny, that is, not only in the role of a nanny,