Chapter 32 #2
Nicole makes a sound of protest that makes me wince. I don’t know the way to melt her exterior yet, but I’m pretty sure it’s not by bringing her husband on field trips she disapproves of. “Sorry, big guy. But if the wife thinks it’s a bad idea—”
“I’m not his keeper,” she cuts in, bristling.
“It’s not a good idea because he’s a wanted man.
We don’t know how many bratoks are still out there looking for you, Dimitri.
Underground anything means gambling, and gambling means Russians.
That’s what you said, right?” Her voice gets high at the end of the last sentence, charged with emotion.
She doesn’t strike me as the type to start crying to manipulate the situation, so when I see a tear fall from the corner of her eye, even I’m alarmed.
Dimitri nods and crosses the distance between them, pulling her into his embrace. He places a kiss in the center of her forehead and murmurs to her. I hear, “You are right, my med. I was not thinking,” before his voice drops too low and listening starts feeling like eavesdropping.
Without meaning to, I’ve made another misstep. Fuck.
Once they finish their discussion, I try again. “If you’d like, I can teach you a move—I can’t do it, but you can probably manage because you’re so tall. It’ll land with you sitting on his face,” I offer, waggling my brows, hoping to dispel the tension I didn’t mean to create.
She smiles, but it’s wobbly. “No, thanks.”
“We will resume tomorrow,” Dimitri decides, sweeping his palm up and down her back.
She and Dimitri leave the gym, and I turn to Eleanor, kind of at a loss. She makes a commiserative face at me. I can see in her eyes how much she hates this—people being at odds, feeling like she has to pick a side.
Definitely an air sign. My money’s on Libra.
We decide to finish our workouts. After I show her a few moves, she demonstrates some of the ones Dimitri has drilled into her.
An hour later, we’re both sweaty and sore, but it feels good.
Nothing like punching someone wearing boxing mitts to work out some of your irritation at being the outcast who can’t find the right thing to say.
“Want a beer?” Eleanor suggests as we climb the stairs.
I chuckle. “I’m no expert, but don’t they recommend water after a workout?”
She shrugs. “Mac says the first one is hydrating.”
“I’m good, but I am hungry.”
“I can help with that.”
We head to the kitchen, but of course there’s no such thing as a simple snack with Eleanor. She immediately puts me to work: sous-chef onion chopper. “You just didn’t want to cry,” I accuse, wiping a tear on my shoulder to avoid touching my eye with onion hands.
I’m going to have to find Wesley’s secret stash of chips—he’s always pulling a bag of something crispy and delicious out of nowhere. I just can’t seem to find a time to look when no one else is in the kitchen.
“Can I ask…” I begin.
“She’ll come around,” Eleanor answers with so much certainty, I almost wonder if I did finish the rest of that sentence.
I chew on my lower lip. “You sure? She seemed pretty upset, and I just…” I sigh.
I don’t want to turn this around and imply that it’s only Nicole’s problem, since I feel like we got off on the wrong foot and that’s on both of us, but I’m genuinely at a loss at this point.
“I don’t know what I did, so I don’t know what to do. Ya know?”
Her smile is sympathetic. “I do. And trust me, it wasn’t about you. She was kidnapped a few months ago,” Eleanor tells me somberly, her eyes dropping to the pan she’s stirring. “She’s been having panic attacks since it happened.”
“Oh,” I say. I nod, like I understand, but secretly my stomach twists into a knot. Once the truth comes out about the kidnapping situation, it’s only going to complicate things.
But, as Abuela always says (even though she means it about cleaning houses), one mess at a time…
“Nicole is a really good person, and she’s probably my best friend at this point,” Eleanor says, and I tamp down on a flare of jealousy.
I want her to say that about me. I want Nicole to say it about me, too.
I just… I want in. I want to wedge myself in the middle and turn this into a trio where we laugh together and support each other.
I want it so badly I can taste it. And it tastes kind of like onions.
Eleanor continues, oblivious to my reaction.
“But she’s complicated. I won’t go into too much detail, because it’s not my story and I don’t talk about my friends behind their backs…
but I’d say this to her face. I have said it to her face, actually,” she amends with a little laugh.
“Nicole is so far in her own head sometimes, she can see out her ears. She had a rough childhood, I think. It made her so kind, but it also makes her doubt people’s intentions. ”
The words hit a little too hard in a way I doubt Eleanor meant them to. They sting as they settle. “I can relate to that.”
“And she’s pretty guarded. She’s afraid of rejection, so she rejects people first. She’s working on it.”
Oof. She’s two for two here. Sounds like Nicole and I have more in common than either of us would like. It’s not the kind of common ground you find easily with new people, but it does help put some things in perspective.
I regard Eleanor out of the corner of my eye. “You know, you’ve got this whole… wise beyond your years thing going for you. Kind of freaks me out.”
“I know,” she agrees, suddenly somber. “I’m actually 30.”
“Really?”
She sighs and lowers her knife, swiping her hair out of her eyes. “It’s the bangs, right? Makes me look younger? It’s kind of hard to take me seriously?”
I laugh, shaking my head at the ridiculousness of it. “Yeah. It is the bangs.”
“I knew it,” she laments. “I keep thinking I should let them grow out so people will take me more seriously, but I just hate my big, dumb forehead.”
“I’m sure it’s not—”
She lifts her bangs, showing me. “See?”
Mac chooses that instant to stride into the kitchen, chuckling when he sees what we’re doing on the other side of the island. “Is she showin’ you her forehead? Darlin’, I keep telling you, it’s a beautiful forehead. Sexy even, because it’s got your brain in it.”
“Boo!” She scoffs and reaches for the bowl in the middle of the island. She throws an apple at him, which he easily plucks out of the air before it can hit. “I know you love me and you’re trying to be sweet, but you sound condescending. No one has a sexy forehead. That’s not a thing.”
He takes a bite, kisses her cheek as he passes, and leans down to whisper something in her ear that makes her blush chin to hairline, disappearing right under those hotly contested bangs.
“I’m in the middle of something, but I’ll find you later, darling,” she says, a polished, northern pronunciation of every letter that almost feels like a mockery of his slow drawl when he calls her the same thing.
I consider the two of them, letting my mind drift back to Wesley.
There are some similarities in how they act that I can’t help but notice.
In fact, I’ve seen the way Mac looks at Eleanor reflected in not just my man, but also in the occasional softening of Dimitri’s scowl.
The three of them are cut from the same cloth.
“Can I ask something else?” I say once Mac is clear of the room.
The secretive smile she’s wearing doesn’t falter. “Shoot.”
“The way Mac is with you, and how Dimitri is with Nicole… it’s sweet how protective they are, but doesn’t it sort of grate on you? Doesn’t it seem kind of…”
I trail off, considering how Wesley’s been since we got here. He’s so much more relaxed now that the danger isn’t imminent, but he’s also so focused. He’s got a mission, and I feel like he’s shutting me out.
“Controlling?” she suggests.
My shoulders round as she puts the word out there so I don’t have to. Clearly, she gets it. “Yes! Doesn’t that bother you?”
“Oh, Mac can totally be a controlling asshole. But it comes from a good place.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “So that makes it okay?”
She shrugs. “It does for me. I know better than to stick my nose into this particular argument, though, so I’ll just say this: you’re the only one who gets to decide if that makes it okay for you.”
I open my mouth to change the topic, then snap it shut, considering her.
Eleanor knows Wesley—has known him longer and maybe knows him better in some ways since they’ve lived together this long.
Maybe I can… share how I’m feeling with her.
Maybe I can actually open up to a girlfriend and get advice.
It’s something I’ve never done. I’ve never bared myself to someone like that—never sought advice for my love life. Never had someone so close to the situation. Never felt like someone would understand, or care enough to listen.
And it certainly doesn’t hurt that she’s so wise.
“He’s just so possessive!” I blurt.
Eleanor snorts and dissolves into knowing laughter that’s so bright and happy, I have no choice but to join her.
“Welcome to the Hitmen of Ulysses. For the admission price of your life being in mortal danger, you get a growly, possessive Neanderthal who loves you out loud, fucks like no one’s business, and might plant a tracker under your skin. ”
My eyes widen at the specificity of that last one. “Did Mac—”
“No,” Eleanor giggles, totally unbothered. “Well, not yet, but he’s made too many comments for it to be a joke.”
“I think if I even casually mentioned that to Wesley, he’d start designing one from scratch.”
She nods. “He would.”
I sigh. “It’s like, he’s so demanding. And, I mean, sometimes it’s really hot. I mean really hot—”
“Wait!” she cries, trotting into the pantry and emerging with a bottle of champagne and two glasses. “This is the kind of conversation you have over a glass of wine.”
I don’t have the heart to tell her I probably won’t like it, so I hop up onto the stool at the island and watch as she tilts the glasses and pours one for me.
When she’s done, she takes a long sip, smacks her lips and sets down the glass.
It makes a little tinkling noise on the marble.
“Okay, go.” She leans forward onto her elbows, propping her chin in both hands.
I use the stem to spin my glass, putting off taking the first sip.
“It feels weird to even complain because he just wants to… take care of me, but it feels more complicated than that. I don’t know; I’ve never been in a serious relationship before—let alone one like this.
It feels like… he wants so much from me. ”
“Too much?” she asks, taking another sip, tone completely free of judgment.
“I don’t know. I mean, I want to give him what he wants, but I don’t think I know how… I think I’m afraid. And I’m not even sure why. It’s stupid to be afraid, right?”
“No, it’s not,” Eleanor counters immediately. “I know what you mean. It’s like, what if you give him so much that you lose part of yourself?”
Not even thinking about it, I take a small sip from my glass.
The bubbles burst on my tongue, and it feels odd, but the taste is…
interesting. Better than communion wine, I’ll give it that.
“Yeah, kind of. I feel like he wants me to need him. But I don’t need anyone to take care of me.
Frankly, I don’t really understand why he wants to. ”
She takes a sip, thinking. “Need and want aren’t the same thing. And letting someone take care of you doesn’t mean you can’t do it yourself,” she points out. “And it doesn’t mean you have to let him either. You have to talk about it and find some kind of middle ground, where you’re both happy.”
“Talk it out,” I repeat, shaking my head. “Easy as that, huh?”
She grins. “Communication. Frankly, that’s my answer to most problems.” She spins her glass, takes another sip, and refills it. Mine is still mostly full. “Wesley’s pretty good at communicating though, right?”
“About some things,” I agree. “But…”
But lately, there’s something kind of off. Why did it feel like he was so much more open with me before we got here? Why did I feel so indispensable when I was mermaidav to his SpyderMan, but ever since we got here I feel like nothing more than the Brat to his Sir?
“I think you’re right. Things were different before—online—and then I think we jumped straight into this physical relationship and this really rigid sexual dynamic.” Eleanor’s brows go up at that, but I roll my lips inward on the smile. I’m not quite ready to share everything.
“We need to figure out how to be just Madison and Wesley,” I decide.