FIFTY-FOUR DINNER GUESTS FROM HELL
FIFTY-FOUR
DINNER GUESTS FROM HELL
Misha has the audacity to look unaffected when I scowl at him upon seeing our other guests.
Dima, also spotting my scowl, snorts. “I’d feel unwanted if I weren’t wanted.”
Sofia arches a brow at him. “Who says you’re wanted?”
Aspen crows, “Feel the burn, Dmitri.”
Dmitri, being a brat, flips her the bird.
But their women’s ease with one another… Misha has been hanging out with Dmitri.
Behind my back.
When I hold out the chair opposite mine, Victoria slips into the seat with the damn dog on her knee. “I’ve seen you around campus.” She angles her head to the side. “In the library, too.”
“Sofia’s studying an alphabet soup of degrees,” Dmitri chimes in from beside her, pouring a mimosa into a flute from a condensation-dotted jug. “Sofia, this is Victoria. You should have met a while ago, but Maxim hoards Victoria like he’s…” He pauses. “I don’t even know what like.”
“Stig of the Dump.”
I blink at Sofia. “Who?”
“Stig.”
“Yeah, Maxim, don’t know who he is?” There’s laughter in Misha’s voice as he slouches into the chair next to Aspen. He grabs her hand, turns her knuckles toward him, and kisses them.
What a sap.
Still, not to be beaten, before I leave Victoria, I bend down, kiss her shoulder, then retreat to the head of the table.
When I take a seat, I realize I’m in danger.
Not because I’m surrounded by assholes who call themselves my siblings, but because I didn’t realize what Victoria’s dress would do. How it would… behave.
Loose straps sit comfortably around her biceps that connect to her neckline.
That means it’s low.
Very low.
My hands turn into fists, but Victoria, unaware of the perils of her choice of outfit—or entirely aware and wishing to taunt me—demands, “Who’s Stig of the Dump?”
“A caveman that lives in a dump.”
Victoria chokes on a sip of water. “So, I’m the trash?”
“Technically, Maxim is the caveman.” Sofia wafts her hand. “It’s a children’s classic.”
“I’m glad I haven’t read it,” I snipe.
Aspen’s lips twitch. “Sofia’s always coming out with stuff like that. Don’t get her started on Voltaire. My mom had a dog called that. I thought she was talking about him at first.”
“And like I said to you at the time, how would I know you had a dog called Voltaire?”
“People know a lot of random shit about my family,” Aspen says dryly. “Perks of having a rock star for a father. And a brother, I guess. Camden’s bigger than Dad now. Not that Dad will admit it.”
“I prefer Camden,” Sofia confesses. “I did not know either of them until recently, but that song, “Laissez-faire,” it’s… What do you call it, Dmitri?”
“An earworm.”
“That’s right! I like this imagery.” She takes a sip of her own drink and turns to me. “You should have invited us to dinner without Misha having to do so. You are rude, Maxim.”
“I’m newly married. I intended on feasting on my wife today, not eating with a bunch of miscreants.”
“Lies. Misha says you have a job for me,” Dima chides.
I glare at my brother. “For some reason, we both trust you. What that says about us is beyond me.”
“Kirill’s job, right?” he asks, dismissing the shade.
“Yes.”
“I met this Kirill. Weak man. Sweet, but weak. Dmitri is annoying but clever. I’m not sure which traits are better for this job.”
Snorting, Victoria feeds Charlie prime rib from her hand after Miroslava brings it out in a small dish for him. “Sofia, you should join us at the library sometime.”
“You sit with too many young people. I’m old now. I have no patience.”
“Old,” Misha scoffs.
“Aren’t you, like, twenty-three?” Aspen inserts.
“Yes. Old. Very old. Too old for joking and messing around. These American children are too playful.” She frowns at Dmitri. “Now that I think about it, it says a lot about you.”
“Hey!”
“You take nothing seriously,” she recounts, sticking up a finger. “You make me watch Disney movies.” Another finger pops up. “You are obsessed with coffee, peanut butter, and bacon.”
“I take plenty seriously, and the movies were to help you speak better English. They’re staples.”
“Not for me. And my English is perfectly fine.”
“If we were in a Charlotte Bronte novel!” His hands fling wide and high. “This is the twenty-first century, Sofia.”
“I preferred the twentieth.”
“You didn’t exist back then.”
“I still prefer it. They’re obsessed with sports too. Don’t they know sports are a way for their leaders to control them?”
“I don’t think we put a lot of thought into it,” Victoria teases.
“No, this is the problem fucking—”
“Fucking problem,” Aspen corrects.
“Yes! Exactly.” Sofia snaps her fingers this time.
“You don’t think at all. You just cheer.
I was in the library the other day and these boys came in, chanting because they had won some foolish game.
A library! Noise. And the librarians didn’t even stop them!
If Oakwood didn’t have the best biochem professor in North America, I’d move. ”
“If I take Maxim’s job offer, Sofia, we can’t move.”
“I can move. You stay here.”
Dima pouts. “She’s always so mean to me.”
“Not mean. You’re needy. But you’re a good right-hand man. Or left-hand. Where do you sit, Misha?” Sofia inquires as servers appear at the door and start to bring in our meal.
Misha flashes me with a wink. “I’m flexible.”
With a long-suffering sigh, I pour myself a mimosa and drink it down in one.
It’s going to be a long day.