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.”
