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“Jamie!” I yell, but Dima’s laugh cuts me off.
He pulls her in for a quick hug. “You and me both.” Aleksei steps into the room, and I wave him in as Dima points to the counter that’s laid out with drinks and snacks and says, “Come in and grab a drink. The pizza is on the way.”
We decided simple would work best for tonight since the fight that I’m trying my damnedest to not think about is tomorrow. So pizza and snacks it is. I grab a coke for Jamie and myself and munch on some chips while we wait for Nikolai to show. Dima didn’t think he’d want to come since it’s sort of a couples thing, but I thought it’d be rude to not invite him, so Dima had given me a sweet smile earlier and texted him an invite purely to indulge me. He’d seemed surprised when Nikolai had immediately answered with a yes. I’d kept my gloating to a minimum.
I watch Aleksei step up behind Jamie and wrap his arm around her upper chest, giving her a kiss on the temple, and I resist the excited squeal that wants to come out of me. I’ve never seen Jamie looking so happy, and I’ve certainly never seen her in any sort of relationship that actually had meaning beyond a shared good time.
There’s suddenly a wall of muscle behind me and a strong hand on my hip. “You wear your emotions so easily,” Dima whispers in my ear, sending a rush of goosebumps over me.
I turn my head and smile up at him.
“We need to play strip poker one night. I have a feeling I would win.” He gives me a big smile and leans down to kiss me. It’s a chaste kiss since we’re around others, but it still leaves me breathless and wanting more. He notices and gives me a sexy wink. “Wicked girl,” he whispers before stepping back when there’s a knock at the door.
I watch his broad shoulders, unable to tear my eyes from him, and when he opens the door to Nikolai holding several pizza boxes, I walk over and grab the boxes from him.
“I’m so glad you came, Nikolai.”
He gives me a smile, even if it isn’t an ear-splitting one and steps inside. I imagine the woman who falls for him will run into the same problems that I had with Dima. These stubborn Russians, I think as I carry the pizza to the kitchen, they sure do make a girl work hard in the beginning. I look up at Dima’s gorgeous face and watch him laugh at something Nikolai’s said. He sure was worth it though, I admit, even the shitty part where he ignored me for days and left me standing on his fire escape in the rain.
“Can you believe this?” Jamie asks, coming up to help me with the food. She scans the apartment, eyeing the three large, much older men and then the two of us. “It still amazes me that it all worked out. I mean,” she adds with a laugh, “I never doubted you for a second, but I thought it might take a little bit longer to get Dmitri to come around to your way of thinking.”
“I can be tenacious when I need to be.”
She laughs and grabs some plates. “Don’t I know it.”
Before the guys come over for pizza, I lean in and smile at Jamie’s blissed-out expression. I’ve never seen my friend in love before, and I’m so damn happy for her. “So how’s things with Aleksei?”
Her brown eyes light up even more at the mention of his name, and she gives me a sly grin. “Pretty damn good,” she admits. Her eyes lose their shine, and her mouth slips into more of a grimace than a grin.
“What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
“No,” she says, shaking her head at me. “It’s stupid.” She waves her hand like she’s brushing away an annoying thought.
“Tell me.” She eyes me, and I give her a wink. “Tenacious, remember? You know I’ll just bug the hell out of you until you spill the beans.”
She rolls her eyes at me, but I can tell she’s fighting a grin. “I just really like him, maybe a bit too much.”
“And he obviously likes you way too much, too.” I wrap my arm around her shoulder and give her a squeeze. “He’d be a damn fool to let you go.”
Aleksei picks that exact moment to sneak up behind Jamie and wrap her in a big bear hug, making her laugh and forget all about her worries from two seconds ago. It’s obvious the two of them are crazy about one another, but I understand her fears. Loving someone so completely makes you vulnerable to so much pain, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I can’t imagine loving Dima any less than I do. It’s impossible. All I can do is love him with every single part of myself and trust in what we have. I want to enjoy every second of our life together and not waste a second of it on what might happen or what could happen. Life is too short for that shit.
I grab the plates and start handing them out. “I hope you all are hungry.”
“I know I am,” Dima whispers in my ear, making me blush.
I smile and pass him a plate that he then proceeds to fill with several slices of pizza.
“Is not the usual meal I try and eat before a fight, but will have to do.”
“Or you could just call it off,” I say, filling my own plate and joining the others on the couch. There isn’t much in the way of a dining room, so it’s balancing plates on laps and drinks on the coffee table. No one seems to mind, though. Aleksei and Jamie are on one end of the large sectional couch with Dima and I on the other end and Nikolai in the chair beside us.
Dima gives me a smile, even though I know he must be getting a little annoyed with me for asking him to call the fight off yet again.
“Is not going to happen,” he says, before taking a large bite of pizza.
Nikolai reaches for his drink and says, “He will never change his mind, not even for you. Not on something this serious. Besides, it’s already set up. If Dima were to back out now, it would not look good.”
“See?” Dima says as if that settles that.
