6. Alexei #2
“Named after a fucking computer error.” Dropping his arm from my shoulders, Roman casts his eyes skyward, though his tone is indulgent. “Sounds like Mickey and Lars chose it.”
“That’s because they did,” chimes in the female friend as he turns away, giving me an openly curious stare. “What happened to them, by the way?” I don’t miss the accusatory note in her voice.
This night just keeps getting better.
“Plane was delayed,” I say for the third time in as many minutes. “They got a later flight, so they should be here soon.”
And despite the fact that I’m the reason for the delay, I’m still going to find it hard not to fucking kill them both when they show up.
“Sounds like you’re going to miss out on that cozy limo ride then, Benny.” The girl grins as she nudges her friend.
Benny pouts. “Another dream shattered, Lourdes darling. Or should that be fantasy?”
Despite the hostility radiating from both faces whenever they look at me, Benny and Lourdes seem by far the least objectionable company I could pick for the ride between here and the bar.
“I’m not sure what your fantasy is,” I say, forcing another smile onto a face that doesn’t do much of it, “but I can make the dream part come true. My limo is out front, if you’d like to ride with me.”
The two of them stare first at me, then at each other, their internal conflict on clear display.
“I’m coming with you, too,” Masha says, sidling up to me and slipping her hand into mine.
“No.” Roman gives his youngest daughter a forbidding look.
“You will come with us, Masha. Congratulate your sister, then we’re taking you back to the hotel with Deda Sergei and Rosa.
” His blatant order receives an extremely mutinous expression from Masha that has me hiding a smile that is, for once, entirely involuntary.
“Go with your Papa, myshka.” I touch her shoulder briefly.
Masha turns her face up to me, still frowning. “Will I see you tomorrow? Will you still be here then?”
Suddenly, I’m extremely aware of the brief lull in conversation, as half a dozen sets of ears all strain to hear my answer.
I have the kind of giddy sensation I remember from being a kid, when I was sitting at the top of a long slide, my balance teetering before I let go.
Well, here we go, I guess.
“Yes, myshka.” I smile at her as I push off, feeling the first exhilarating rush of descent into the unknown. “I’ll still be here tomorrow.”
Roman gives me a skeptical look. “They don’t like too many people going backstage,” he says evenly. “Why don’t you take these two with you and meet us at the bar?”
“Roman—” begins Darya.
“Sure.” More than a little grateful to delay the coming encounter with Ofelia, I cut my sister off. “See you there.”
I exit the Philharmonie complex with Benny and Lourdes trailing several steps behind me. I can almost feel the twin rays of their disapproval piercing my back as I go. Oddly, I feel more of a desire to laugh than I do to take offence.
Ofelia has clearly told her friends a little more than she has her family.
I can’t quite work out if I’m happy about that or pissed off.
“Drinks?” I ask as we enter the limo, already reaching for the Scotch, which I definitely fucking need.
“We’ll have bubbles,” Benny answers for them both. “After the way our girl played tonight, it’s definitely a celebration.”
“It wasn’t just me, then?” I open a bottle of Veuve for them, genuinely interested in his answer. “I thought it was fucking amazing, but I don’t know anything about classical performances.”
“Si.” Lourdes eyes the glass I hand her like it might contain poison. “Ofelia played brilliantly. I think even Dittorio maybe stopped frowning for a moment. The conductor,” she adds, in case I somehow couldn’t manage to read the program for myself.
“She knocked it out of the fucking park.” Benny raises his glass. “To our Russian princess,” he says, clinking Lourdes’s glass without even pretending to include me in the toast. “The bitch fucking did it again.”
They both shoot me a slightly challenging glance, but I just raise my own glass and drink with them.
“No thanks to you and your late entrance,” he adds, eyeing me over the rim of his glass. He mutters something that sounds like “typical Pirate Boy bullshit,” which is clearly meant to escape my hearing, going by the sharp nudge to the ribs Lourdes gives him.
I’m not given to casual conversation, any more than I am to mixing it with classical music concertgoers. But something about a one-way ticket with no fixed plan has lent me an uncharacteristic sense of freedom, as if I’m playing hooky from real life.
So instead of just ignoring Benny’s aside as I might normally do, I take a measured sip of my Scotch and fix him with my blankest stare. “Are you making fun of my disability, Benny?”
I find the deafening silence that follows my comment absolutely hilarious, but by the panicked expressions on the faces opposite, I’m the only one who does.
“I, er—I mean—I’m sorry,” he eventually stutters out. I swear he has actually gone red beneath his olive complexion.
I arch the brow over my functional eye and maintain a wounded silence.
“Really, he is,” Lourdes adds emphatically, shooting Benny a glare that could strip paint.
I tilt my head and don’t answer, although I have to bite the inside of my mouth to stop myself from bursting into laughter. After the hardcore banter of my men, their politically correct horror at having possibly offended me is beyond comical.
“Perhaps,” I say, struggling to keep my tone completely devoid of emotion, “you could advise me on the right words to compliment Ofelia on her performance. I’m hoping for something that falls between the bitch fucking did it again and the rather banal exquisite that seems to be such a crowd favorite. ”
Benny regards me for a long moment, his eyebrows drawn together, then takes a large swallow of champagne. “Exquisite,” he says eventually, still eyeing me warily, “is what boring boomers who don’t know a fucking thing about music say to sound impressive. So definitely don’t say that.”
“I’m relieved to know I don’t fall into either category.” I pour them both more champagne. “So what would a pirate say, then?”
Lourdes snorts into her champagne glass. “What?” she says, in answer to Benny’s reproachful look. “You deserved that, and you know it.”
For a moment Benny looks like he still might throw the drink at me, or even both of us. Then he sits back in his seat and rolls his eyes. “Fine, then.” He gives me a slightly suspicious look. “Give me your best try at a compliment, and I’ll tell you how badly it sucks.”
“I told you, I have no idea about music.” I fix him with my lone eye. “I need words, Benny,” I say sternly. “Good words that will make Ofelia happy.”
Saying her name aloud feels illicit. Dangerous.
Addictive.
“Make her happy?” Benny, surprisingly undaunted, casts me an acid glance. “That would be a first for you.”
“Benny!” Lourdes hisses, glaring at him.
“Just be honest,” she says hastily, turning to me.
“Musicians are like everyone else. We hate false compliments, or people who try to sound smart when it’s obvious they don’t know what they’re talking about.
We always know when we’ve played a piece well.
What we care about is how the music made you feel. That’s the part we can’t know.”
Benny tilts his head to touch hers. “Speak sense you do, young padawan.” He glances across at me. “She’s right. Just don’t bullshit, and you’ll be fine.”
I nod. “That works for me.” I raise my glass to Lourdes. “Thank you.”
She gives me a tentative smile. “De nada.”
I swallow my Scotch and pour another. “So,” I say, turning to Benny, “if the limo ride was the dream, what, exactly, was the fantasy?”
Lourdes snorts into her glass for a second time.
“What?” she protests, holding her hands up at Benny.
“Don’t give me your death stare, you big queen.
Answer the man. Fine,” she goes on, giggling when he just shakes his head and drinks instead of answering.
“Benny was hoping that your Swedish friend might offer him a ride in his limo,” she says, giving him a sly look.
“More than one type of ride, if we’re being totally honest here. ”
“Lourdes!” Benny slaps her arm. “Two drinks, and you’re spilling all my secrets.”
“So what? It’s true, isn’t it?” She turns back to me. “Benny has had a serious thing for Lars Andersson ever since Ofelia’s twenty-first.”
Ofelia’s twenty-first.
The reference falls over the jovial atmosphere in the limousine like a wet blanket.
Lourdes reddens. Benny stares studiously out the window.
And I’m suddenly back on that darkened terrace, Ofelia’s dress bunched in one fist, her thigh under my other, my cock so hard I almost took her there and then and fuck the consequences.
Christ.
I swallow nearly the entire glass of Scotch in one mouthful.
“Well, Benny,” I say, relieved that my voice, at least, sounds normal.
“This is probably a good time to mention that Lars is an absolutely toxic fuckboy who screws anything that walks, be it male, female, or anything in between. He’ll give you the night of your life, but then he’ll ghost you worse than Casper.
I can put in a good word for you if you like, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. ”
Their heads swivel toward me so fast they almost come off their shoulders, and Benny nearly chokes on his drink. “Toxic fuckboy?” he gasps, half laughing, half scandalized.
“That’s pirate language,” I say lightly. “I could put it more elegantly, if you’d prefer.”
“Oh, no.” Lourdes waves her glass at me, laughing her head off. “Believe me, toxic fuckboys are Benny’s favorite kind. And we’re good with pirate language.” She nudges Benny. “Aren’t we?”
“Maybe.” He nods slowly, eyes still watering, and for the first time, he gives me something approaching an actual smile. “I guess it might be growing on me, yeah.”