Maybe there will come a time that I can look Anton up for one thing or another. Maybe we don’t have to be lovers at all. He seems like he might be a good person to be acquainted with in any case.
I get up and get dressed. I meant what I said to my father about packing my things. Since he’s only given me a week to get out of here, then I’d better get started.
Donning an old T-shirt and jeans, my hair tied up in a messy bun, I get to work. I’ve got some old boxes that will work for now until I need some more. I imagine I’m going to have to put someof this stuff in storage until I can get my own place since I’ll be crashing at Ilya’s.
I start on my closet, putting the clothes on the hangers out and laying them across my bed. I get the closet about halfway empty when my phone chimes again. I pick it up and see that it’s Ilya. I glance at the time on my phone. It’s been a couple of hours since I started this. Maybe she’s just getting up too.
I answer and put her on speakerphone. “Good morning, sleepyhead,” I say.
She yawns loudly. “Good morning to you, too! Did you have fun last night?”
I wish she could see my smile. “It was something. I’ll give you that much. Never been to a place like that before, so it was an experience.”
She pauses. “You sound a little too happy right now. What happened to you last night?”
I turn to the phone and sit down on the part of my bed that doesn’t have clothes on it. “You’ll never guess who was there. Not in a million years.”
She doesn’t say anything for a second, thinking. “Was it somebody famous? Rodney told me that he thought he saw Dwayne Johnson there once. Although, it might have been Jason Momoa.”
I laugh. “As interesting as it is that Rodney can’t tell the difference between two very different men, I have to say no. It wasn’t anyone famous.”
“Okay, so somebody from high school or something? Who?”
I sigh. She is going toflip.“Anton Romanov.”
She takes a long pause before saying, “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch that. Say it again?”
“Anton Romanov,” I repeat. “He was there last night.”
“Shut the fuck up. No he wasn’t.”
“He was.” I take a breath before I say the next part. “He saw me in the voyeur room and we had a little chat… and then…”
“Youdidn’t. Jesus Tap-Dancing Christ, tell me you didn’t, Natalya Petrov.”
I have to cover my mouth to stifle my laughter.
“Nat,” she goes on. “Please tell me that out of all the men at that club that you could have had sex with, you did not have sex with the one guy you’re absolutelynotsupposed to.”
“I’d love to tell you that,” I say, a little laughter lilting my tone. “I’d be lying through my teeth.”
“Nat!” she nearly screamed. “Oh, mygawd!Have you completely lost your mind?”
I lie back on my clothes, looking up at my ceiling. “Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, I think I have.”
“But how? I mean, okay.” I hear her moving around. “I need details. Tell me every fucking thing.”
I do. I tell her how we started flirting in the voyeur room and that lead him to proposition me, and what else could I do but take him up on it? I stop at the part where we go to get a private room. Those details are mine to keep. She just whispers, “Wow. I cannot believe this.”
A little bit of that old fear comes back and I say, “You know you can’t tell anyone this, right? Like seriously. Not even Rodney.”
“Oh, my God.Are you kidding?There’s no way I’m telling anybody this. I know who your dad is.”
“Appreciate it.”
I can hear her moving. She sounds like she’s pacing the floor. “Jeez, what happened to his being ‘as old as your dad’, Nat?”
“He mostdefinitelyis nothing like my father,” I tell her. “He’s… he’s something altogether different.”
