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I think I feel bad for Eve Furino.
5
Eve
After everything that happened at The Floating Crown in the past two days, I’m not sure if Makayla will show up for our regular happy hour before dinner shift. I wouldn’t even blame her for blowing me off. I don’t suspect many people know the full extent of my familial connection to the Bratva, but the tension in the kitchen was palpable. It is clear I’m on Cal Higgs’ shit list, and Makayla would be smart to stay away from me. She must be a kind dummy, though, because she walks through the door of the café combo bar one minute early.
The Lounge is a bit too hip for my taste, but it is close to the restaurant, which means we can drink slightly more than we should and then leave our cars in the lot and walk to work. The booths are made from reclaimed car seats, none of the chairs match, and instead of windows, there are floor to ceiling glass garage doors that can open up when the weather is nice, allowing you to feel the breeze and be attacked by flies indoors. The cocktails are all things I’ve never heard of that cost twice as much as anywhere else and the barista looks at me like I’ve just murdered his cat every time I ask for half and half in my coffee.
“Eve!” Makayla says, the excitement in her voice substituting for an actual hello. She wraps her purse around the back of her chair and then peeks in my cup to see what I’ve ordered. She winces. “Did the barista shame you?”
“Mercilessly,” I laugh.
“When are you going to learn?” she teases. “It is like dumping ketchup on a perfectly cooked steak. They buy fancy coffee and prepare it so you don’t need to add anything.”
“Fancy or not, it still tastes like burnt bean juice without some cream and sugar,” I shrug.
Makayla shakes her head, lips pursed. “For a chef, your coffee palate sure is abysmal.”
“I’ll survive somehow.” I hold up the drink menu. “This week’s special is a Sweet and Sour Chicken Toddy.”
She wrinkles her nose in disgust. “That is disgusting. Give me a second, I’m going to go order it.”
I laugh as she walks over to the bar and orders her drink. The bartender gives her a big smile and leans across the bar like the three customers in the room are being too loud for him to hear her otherwise, but Makayla just orders her drink, drops a tip in the cup, and walks back to the bar, oblivious. Every time Makayla and I go out together, guys practically throw themselves at her, and she either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. I’m always half-tempted to tell her to flirt back and try to find herself a nice guy, but I’ve had enough people in my life pressuring me to find a relationship. I don’t want to do the same thing to Makayla. Whatever her reasons for not engaging—disinterest or naivete—they are her own.
“The bartender seemed surprised I wanted to order it,” she says, settling into her chair. “It might be the first one they’ve sold all week.”
“I’d expect hipsters to be more adventurous.”
“They are,” she says. “But just with their milk substitutes. Did you know oat milk is a thing now? I thought milking nuts was strange, but now we are milking grains, too. That’s pretty adventurous.”
I genuinely laugh. Head tipped back, eyes closed, and it feels good. I haven’t laughed in days.
Apparently, Makayla has noticed. “You must be feeling better than you were last night.”
I sigh. “How much of that did you see?”
“Enough.” Her thin lips pucker into a nervous knot and she stares down at the table, her finger tracing the wood grain. “Who was that guy in the kitchen all night? He freaked me out. I thought Cal would kick him out, but he didn’t even look at him.”
I shrug. “I don’t know his name.”
“Is he…” she hesitates, trying to find the right word. “Dangerous?”
I don’t want to lie to Makayla, but I also don’t want to tell her the truth. She is one of the only normal friends I’ve really had in my life, and I don’t want her getting tangled up in my mess. So, I settle for a lie by omission. “Not to you.”
This doesn’t seem to comfort her. “Are you in trouble, though? The table you served last night looked at you like they wanted to eat you.”
The bartender walks to our table and leans over Makayla’s shoulder to place her drink in front of her, his body pressed close to her shoulder. Makayla doesn’t act bothered or surprised. She just thanks him without looking up and then turns her full attention back to me. I see the man visibly shrink as he walks away, disappointed in her apparent lack of interest.
“They were assholes,” I say, remembering the cold dread that slipped down my spine every time I had to get close to the two Volkov men. Ivan dealt in humiliation and insults, but his son—Luka, if I heard Ivan correctly—was an enigma. Whereas Ivan smiled like a hissing cat and showed his claws whenever he could, Luka sat back. He observed. He tracked me with his eyes like a bird of prey tracking a mouse, but he did not pounce. That was more unsettling than anything.
When I saw him pull his blade while I was bussing the table, I thought he would come for me. I ran to my car after my shift, certain he would slip from the shadows and plunge the blade into my chest. And when I got home, I locked my doors and watched my windows, waiting for him to appear. But he didn’t come.
What did he want? To marry me? Certainly not. I didn’t understand Luka’s motivations, but I knew he was not the marrying type. So why did he offer? Especially when it so clearly went against his father’s wishes. Was he just trying to mess with me? Perhaps, that is his plan. To torture me with the anticipation, with the uncertainly of how or when he’ll strike. He wants me to drive myself crazy with worry, but I won’t give him the satisfaction. In fact, I won’t think about him at all.
“Handsome assholes,” Makayla says quietly, as though she is ashamed to have to admit it.
“Yeah, isn’t that the worst?”
