“Two,Solnishko.”
“I need a glass of vodka,” the woman not seated next to Ana said, but Misha pointed at her with his thick finger.
“Never vodka! Drink it at home.”
“We should leave,” Vitali muttered.
“Who are these people?” I whispered.
“My employees.”
It was time to come to terms with the fact that we weren’t going to stay for long enough to try the risotto. Vitali’s hand tightened on my knee proportionally to the noise around the table growing louder and more jovial as we waited to politely make our exit. Of course, that didn’t happen.
The large man hollered something I didn’t quite catch, but I did notice Vitali’s fingers tapping harder on the table.
“Mish,” he said again, and he didn’t have to say the name twice to be heard. “Remember yourself.”
The man nodded and tapped another man’s chest with hisfist. “Mind your manners.”
“What fun is that?” Ana teased, but one look at Vitali soured her good mood. “Alright.” She turned up her nose at me. “We’re in‘polite’company after all, aren’t we?”
“To health, friends!” Misha proposed, and all the glasses clinked around the table. Vitali joined, but he did not take another sip for the rest of the evening.
The men were Boris and Ivan, and they looked like brothers, although everyone called each other‘brat,’ so any actual familial ties remained a mystery. The two women were Mila and Tamara, probably no relation.
We did stay for the risotto at the insistence of everyone at the table, and then the stuffed sturgeon, and again for the cream and berry tartlets. All the while, the table got rowdier, and the conversation more confusing. I had never felt less liked by girls or more interesting to men, as each made it a point to ask me questions that sounded like inside jokes. Vitali redirected some and stopped me from answering others, and finally said we are leaving and snapped for the attendant to bring my coat.
The women eyed it just like they’d been eyeing me all night, but the men quieted as they appraised my nearly bare and fully exposed legs. This, Vitali found pleasing as he took his time situating the furs on my shoulders, just high enough to land at the hem of the dress. He looked each man in the eye before we left.
Misha was the only one to say anything. “Looking good, boss,” he grinned. “Sure like that color on you.”
Vitali smirked.
The BMW was out front and already warmed, saving me from my regretful choice of thin clothing on a Siberian October night.
“They like to dine,” I said.
“It’s a popular spot.”
“The girls—do they work with you too?” I asked in the most nonchalant way I could manage, but all I could think about was the way the leather pants hugged their thighs, creating that beautiful gap between their legs.
“No,” Vitali said, “they’re just… around.”
Not reassuring, because he didn’t say any of them were together. Just a bunch of beautiful single women floating around the workplace, as they do.
Did they go on these ‘business’ trips to countries with no phones?
“What’s the restaurant called? I didn’t see a sign,” I asked.
“The Labyrinth.”
“Appropriately hard to find your way out,” I muttered, and he chuckled.
It was cold—so cold, but freeing in the same way the inside lounge was suffocating. Without the booming voices and rolling laughter on the background of constant chitter, the quiet felt personal between us, and not just because we were alone (we weren’t, the nice man who I thought tried to kidnap me was still smoking his cigarette) but because it made it feel like an ‘us.’
“I’m sorry. That did not go as I wished, Katya,” he said with a hint of defeat disguised as exhaustion as he got into the driver’s seat. “I think our first dates are cursed.”
I twisted my fingers in my lap and wished he’d rest his hand on my thigh again as we pulled out onto the street. “I did not think it was so bad.”
