Alexi lounged nearby, his chair tipping back haphazardly as he texted on his cell.
“Nadezhda back in the States?” I asked him, noting how intent he was on reading and replying.
He spared me a glance and a grin—all I needed to answer my question. Then he returned to what he was doing.
“So,” Smith announced, clearing his throat and rising from his seat, “the first matter of business—”
Amy groaned, “Business? Isn’t this supposed to be fun?”
“Just the turn of a phrase,” Smith assured her, looking her over skeptically. He had a gift for occasionally backhanding someone with a wry cynicism, but I knew he’d keep his mouth shut about Amy.
He knew she was my best friend.
And I knew—god help him—he was still crushing on me. Hard.
It was flattering, really, having a guy with a full scholarship to nearly anywhere—based on his brain alone—crush on you, especially when it appeared Pietr had nearly become his geeky doppelgänger.
I did a double take.
Well-combed hair, button-down shirts, downcast eyes …
I was sitting between two studious, bright (and decidedly pale, I added to the checklist—Pietr was going to need some light other than what bounced back to him off his computer monitor’s screen) guys. One who’d crushed on me since we started our frequent flirters club in the school van taking us to and from our Service Learning project, and … Pietr.
And as clever as they both were … I would’ve accepted a less studious Pietr if he’d just returned to studying my lips. Or my neck. Or …
I straightened, suddenly warmer than the room should make me. I looked at Pietr. He was looking at a paper. The same type of paper Smith thrust in my direction.
“… character design,” Smith concluded.
I gulped, hoping I hadn’t missed anything vital.
The next twenty minutes were a blur while I tried to catch up and fill in the blanks that had gaped open while I’d fantasized about Pietr kissing me. And holding me … Maybe Pietr was exactly all he could be as a simple human. Maybe if you wiped all the alpha out of any of us you were naturally left with someone gentle and kind and too willing to please and study and …
Focus, Jessie, focus …
Dice were rolled, numbers were scrawled on my paper by a doting Smith, and people began babbling knowledgably—even Amy and Max—about a game I was already struggling with.
Smith seemed a bit disappointed in my lack of focus, but he coddled me, repeating things more slowly—and was he using simpler words?!—than with everyone else.
Dude. I was frustrated, not stupid.
Finally my character sheet was filled out and approved. By none other than Smith: self-appointed Dungeon Master. Where was Amy with a snide remark about the odds of that?
But leaning against Max and looking as comfortable as I’d seen the two look together in a while, Amy merely yawned and asked, “What time is it?”
“Ten-seventeen,” Max reported as Pietr pushed up a sleeve to check his wrist.
Pietr raised wary eyes at his brother and nodded at the accuracy of his statement.
“Sounds like time to call it a night, boys,” Amy said, slowly rising from her chair and stretching. “Some of us”—she reached down and tapped Max’s stubbly chin—“should call about the status of our job applications in the morning.”
I froze, astonished by how focused she’d become on something other than Marvin’s funeral.
Also in the morning.
“And on that note…” Alexi tucked away his cell phone, rose, and looked at the character sheet sitting before him. “Am I supposed to do something with this?”
Amy snorted. “Give it to me, Sasha. You’re enough of a character. I’ll make you into something new and shiny.”
“Shiny is overrated.” Alexi looked at Smith. “Smith,” he said after a long pause that told me he was working on remembering the name, “thank you so much for starting us on what will surely be an exciting adventure of the imagination.”
I blinked.
Smith knew a dismissal when he heard one and clambered to his feet, quickly collecting his things. He cleared his throat, managing to get Hascal and Jaikin to look away from Cat. For a moment.
“Oh.” They both stood, both apologized, both stumbled over themselves telling Cat what a pleasure it was to meet her … and both headed to the door, Smith lingering a moment longer to wish me good night.
“It was a great deal of fun introducing you to the realm of D&D,” he said. “I hope we can make this a weekly event.”
Oh, god.
Pietr rose and came to where we stood in the foyer. “I intend to set a schedule of that sort,” he announced.
“What if you get a job and have to work?” I asked, silently hoping. It sucked to spend a Friday night without Pietr, but if it meant spending a Friday night without Smith’s awkward advances and playing a game I somehow missed the point of, I’d send him away.
“I’ll make it work,” Pietr countered.
Smith nodded and the three of them left, leaving Pietr and me alone in the foyer.
He reached over and gave me a hug, pulling away as soon as I started to relax in his grip.
“You’ll make it work, huh?” I asked, looking up into his eyes.
“Da.”
I hoped the game night schedule wasn’t the only thing he’d find some way to make work.
* * *
I waited a few more minutes after Smith, Hascal, and Jaikin had gone and I cleared my throat to get Amy’s attention. She looked up from where she sat beside Max, playing with his hair, tugging at individual curls just to watch them spring back into place.
Her lips pursed. “I know,” she muttered.
I shrugged. “It has to be your choice. If you want to stay here tonight…”
“Sleep all alone,” she added, her lips turning down at their ends.
Max leaned back and shook his head. “We’ve had this conversation.”
“I just can’t,” she whispered. “I don’t know why.… I trust you, but I can’t sleep in a bed with you. Even though I know nothing’s going to happen.”
He shrugged. “Like Jessie says: your decision.”
“I’ll pack a bag.” She brushed the hair back from Max’s eyes and then headed to the basement.