Chapter 21 #3
“Send him a text, don’t follow him around,” Friend Three said.
“I’m outta here,” Friend Four mumbled. “This is embarrassing.”
She started to head toward the door.
Friends One through Three watched her go and then looked at Cheyenne.
“If you want a ride, let’s go,” Friend Two said and looked at the hovering hostess. “Can we borrow a tablecloth? Swear, I’ll clean it and bring it back. But I don’t want her to make a mess of my car.”
I felt Dimitri move and knew he’d given her the go ahead when the hostess scurried off somewhere.
Raye sidled to my side, her eyes on Cheyenne who Titus was letting go because it was clear she wasn’t about to lose her ride.
Then again, not sure a Lyft driver would let her in their car with the state of her.
“Is Luna going to have any more problems with you?” she demanded before she could take off.
Cheyenne’s face contorted with anger. “I—”
“She will have no problems with you, or you will have problems with me,” Dimitri stated. “Starting with me pressing charges for the damage caused by your behavior in my restaurant.”
Cheyenne’s face paled under the remains of the borscht.
I didn’t think she was worried about the charges. I thought she was finally clueing in to all that was Dimitri.
“And Luna will press charges for assault,” Shanti chimed in.
“Come on,” Friend Three said. “Just promise you’ll leave her alone, pull yourself together, for heaven’s sake, and let’s go.”
Cheyenne paused to make a decision, then spat, “You can have him. He’s probably shit in bed anyway.”
She was sooooo wrong.
“She hadn’t even slept with him?” a woman at a table close to our drama whispered loudly to her partner.
“Bunny boiler,” her partner whispered loudly back.
It was then I realized how vast our audience was, how mortifying this was, how ruined my outfit was, how much of a disaster I must look, and I wished I had another bowl of borscht to throw.
But that was when it clicked with Cheyenne, you could see it written all over her face, which was now bright red, and it wasn’t the soup.
She hung her head and mumbled, “I’m over it anyway.”
Ulk.
Not even.
She slunk away.
The hostess handed them a folded tablecloth at the door.
“If you ladies will follow me,” Dimitri said while letting me go.
I looked up at him to assess how upset he was about all of this. Was he lethally upset? Or would we get out of there alive?
The thing was, his brown eyes were dancing, but he appeared in pain, though, that pain was the pain of not busting out laughing.
Urgh.
We trooped behind him through the restaurant, and I wasn’t sure if I thought it was hilarious or mortifying beyond endurance, that when we did, the entire place erupted in applause.
Dimitri led us through the kitchen to his den and there were already tablecloths spread on the couch so I could sit without ruining anything.
He’d been handed an absorbent white kitchen towel on the way and was mopping down his front.
The towel came away looking like a crime scene.
God.
“I’ll pay for cleaners,” I assured him.
He lifted his head from his chore and smiled at me. “Please, zayka, have no worries. Would you like to use my bathroom to…” long pause, “…attempt to clean up?”
I needed a full hose down, so I stated, “I need to go home.”
“Knox and Brady are about two minutes out,” Tex, who had been surprisingly silent through all of this, said.
“They are?” I asked.
“I got experience with this shit, remember?” he asked. “The last time the cops were involved. I figured our host didn’t want the cops involved so I texted the minute that woman showed.”
I didn’t know if this was good thinking or not.
Though, Dimitri dipped his chin to Tex in a mob boss gesture of gratitude and respect, and I knew that was good.
I also knew that Knox couldn’t drive, so Brady had to drive him, and I was hoping a silver lining would come from this mess with it giving them more time to work their shit out.
Dimitri had our champagne (and the vodka, I went for vodka) brought to his den and we sipped while we waited for Knox and Brady to arrive.
And when Dimitri was told they were there, we each got a bag emblazoned on the outside with a red foil bear, and inside was our boxed beef stroganoff and ptichye moloko.
I dumped my also ruined clutch in mine.
Mercifully, Dimitri let us walk out the back door.
Alas, Knox and Brady were waiting outside that door.
Knox was on me in a flash.
“Baby. Jesus,” he whispered, his hands moving all over me.
“It’s borscht,” I said.
He took his hands away and stared at them, palms up.
“She threw soup at me,” I said.
He looked at me.
“A lot of it,” I continued.
That was the first lip twitch I got from him.
“Do not,” I warned.
He pulled it together and said, “Let’s get you home.”
Good idea.
And I was ready. I brought a tablecloth with me.
I refused to look at either of them the whole trip back, and I knew they were reading my mood because neither spoke.
This brought me to now.
I’d finished my shower. Lotioned my body, serumed and moisturized my face, gunked the product in my hair that helped define my curls, donned panties and tee and wandered out.
Knox was lounging in front of another game.
“I put your dress in a plastic bag. I’ll drop it by a dry cleaner when I can drive again,” he shared.
I stood there and said nothing.
“I got the shoe from Jacques. Sorry, baby, I put both right in the trash. Don’t think they’re saveable.”
“Where’s my stroganoff?” I asked.
He unfolded from the couch. “Sit. I’ll get it.”
Jacques snuffled my ankle, then sat on his ass and looked up at me, disappointed that I no longer smelled of food, or was covered in it.
I moved to an armchair, not the couch, and sank in it.
I became Jacques’s favorite again when Knox handed me the pasta bowl filled with stroganoff. He also set a glass of red wine on the coffee table in front of me.
He refolded into the couch.
“Tara, one of Cheyenne’s friends, texted me,” he announced.
I was shoveling mushrooms, filet mignon, noodles and sauce into my mouth, thus did not reply.
“She assured me we wouldn’t have any more problems with Cheyenne,” Knox went on.
I chewed. I swallowed. I remained silent.
“She also apologized. She said she didn’t know Cheyenne was pulling that shit. They’ve had a talk with her, and she tells me Cheyenne realized she’s been being crazy and promised neither of us would see her again.”
“That must have been some text,” I remarked.
“It was,” he agreed.
I shoved more food in my mouth.
“Brady and I ironed things out,” he declared. “There was history of his I didn’t know, he didn’t know some of my history. We both now know where the other was coming from and we’re cool.”
They were cool.
Just like that, they were cool.
“You got beer and bro time, but your ex-girlfriend threw four”—I put my fork in the bowl so I could hold up four fingers—“four bowls of borscht at me.”
“Baby.” That word trembled with suppressed humor.
“You think this is funny?” I asked quietly. “She assaulted me in a fancy restaurant run by the Russian mob.”
“Alexeyev didn’t look upset,” he pointed out.
I slammed my bowl down, stood and shouted, “Your ex-girlfriend assaulted me, Knox!”
Jacques barked.
“Beautiful…” he started.
And one could say there was no suppressed humor in this infinitely new tone.
“…you need to find this funny,” he warned. “And I need to find it funny. Because if I don’t find it funny, I’m gonna find it something else, and neither of us, along with Cheyenne…”
He took a breath in, his nostrils contracted, then they flared.
Oh boy.
“Especially Cheyenne,” he went on, “will think anything is funny.”
I thought it prudent to sit and grab my bowl, so this was what I did, and not only because Jacques was sniffing at the edge of the coffee table.
“Are you okay?” Knox asked.
“We rolled down three steps.”
“Are you hurt?” he asked softly.
“No.” I huffed. “I suppose I should take this win and move on. Even the patrons gave me a round of applause when Dimitri marched us out of there.”
I heard Knox swallow his chuckle.
I slid my eyes to him.
“I will find it funny, I promise,” I said. “Right now, it’s not funny. I really liked those shoes.”
“I’ll buy you a new pair, baby,” he murmured.
I shoved more food in my mouth.
“That smells good,” Knox remarked.
All right.
It wasn’t his fault Cheyenne was a lunatic.
And Dimitri did find it funny, so no hitmen were receiving orders to whack those crazy broads who made a mockery of his classy restaurant tonight.
I got up, moved to him, sat close and offered him the bowl.
He took it.
He ate some.
“Fucking hell,” he muttered with his mouth still full.
“You should taste their borscht.”
Knox’s body gave a start.
I’d give it to him, he tried. I could see him trying. I could see how much it took from him.
Then he failed and burst out laughing.
I did too.
So I guessed it was funny.
Whatever.
He and Brady had worked things out.
Cheyenne was out of our lives.
We were together.
And moving on.