“Hmm,” Dimitri muses, staring at me. “You will bring me.”
Nicole makes a sound of protest that makes me wince. I don’t know the way to melt her exterior yet, but I’m pretty sure it’s not by bringing her husband on field trips she disapproves of. “Sorry, big guy. But if the wife thinks it’s a bad idea—”
“I’m not his keeper,” she cuts in, bristling. “It’s not a good idea because he’s a wanted man. We don’t know how manybratoksare still out there looking for you, Dimitri. Underground anything means gambling, and gambling means Russians. That’s what you said, right?” Her voice gets high at the end of the last sentence, charged with emotion.
She doesn’t strike me as the type to start crying to manipulate the situation, so when I see a tear fall from the corner of her eye, even I’m alarmed.
Dimitri nods and crosses the distance between them, pulling her into his embrace. He places a kiss in the center of her forehead and murmurs to her. I hear, “You are right, mymed. I was not thinking,” before his voice drops too low and listening starts feeling like eavesdropping.
Without meaning to, I’ve made another misstep. Fuck.
Once they finish their discussion, I try again. “If you’d like, I can teach you a move—I can’t do it, but you can probably manage because you’re so tall. It’ll land with you sitting on his face,” I offer, waggling my brows, hoping to dispel the tension I didn’t mean to create.
She smiles, but it’s wobbly. “No, thanks.”
“We will resume tomorrow,” Dimitri decides, sweeping his palm up and down her back.
She and Dimitri leave the gym, and I turn to Eleanor, kind of at a loss. She makes a commiserative face at me. I can see in her eyes how much she hates this—people being at odds, feeling like she has to pick a side.
Definitely an air sign. My money’s on Libra.
We decide to finish our workouts. After I show her a few moves, she demonstrates some of the ones Dimitri has drilled into her. An hour later, we’re both sweaty and sore, but it feels good. Nothing like punching someone wearing boxing mitts to work out some of your irritation at being the outcast who can’t find the right thing to say.
“Want a beer?” Eleanor suggests as we climb the stairs.
I chuckle. “I’m no expert, but don’t they recommend water after a workout?”
She shrugs. “Mac says the first one is hydrating.”
“I’m good, but Iamhungry.”
“I can help with that.”
We head to the kitchen, but of course there’s no such thing as a simple snack with Eleanor. She immediately puts me to work: sous-chef onion chopper. “You just didn’t want to cry,” I accuse, wiping a tear on my shoulder to avoid touching my eye with onion hands.
I’m going to have to find Wesley’s secret stash of chips—he’s always pulling a bag of something crispy and delicious out of nowhere. I just can’t seem to find a time to look when no one else is in the kitchen.
“Can I ask…” I begin.
“She’ll come around,” Eleanor answers with so much certainty, I almost wonder if Ididfinish the rest of that sentence.
I chew on my lower lip. “You sure? She seemed pretty upset, and I just…” I sigh. I don’t want to turn this around and imply that it’s only Nicole’s problem, since I feel like we got off on the wrong foot and that’s on both of us, but I’m genuinely at a loss at this point. “I don’t know what I did, so I don’t know what to do. Ya know?”
Her smile is sympathetic. “I do. And trust me, it wasn’t about you. She was kidnapped a few months ago,” Eleanor tells me somberly, her eyes dropping to the pan she’s stirring. “She’s been having panic attacks since it happened.”
“Oh,” I say. I nod, like I understand, but secretly my stomach twists into a knot. Once the truth comes out about the kidnapping situation, it’s only going to complicate things.
But, as Abuela always says (even though she means it about cleaning houses), one mess at a time…
“Nicole is a really good person, and she’s probably my best friend at this point,” Eleanor says, and I tamp down on a flare of jealousy. I want her to say that about me. I want Nicole to say it about me, too. I just… I want in. I want to wedge myself in the middle and turn this into a trio where we laugh together and support each other.
I want it so badly I can taste it. And it tastes kind of like onions.
Eleanor continues, oblivious to my reaction. “But she’s complicated. I won’t go into too much detail, because it’s not my story and I don’t talk about my friends behind their backs… but I’d say this to her face. I have said it to her face, actually,” she amends with a little laugh. “Nicole is so far in her own head sometimes, she can see out her ears. She had a rough childhood, I think. It made her so kind, but it also makes her doubt people’s intentions.”
The words hit a little too hard in a way I doubt Eleanor meant them to. They sting as they settle. “I can relate to that.”
“And she’s pretty guarded. She’s afraid of rejection, so she rejects people first. She’s working on it.”
