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Fine, that wasn’t fair. I took full responsibility for what happened. I’d played that night hundreds of times in my head over the past few years, and the only excuse I could come up with was a moment of sheer madness. It was like gambling away your entire life savings at the casino.
“She might forgive me.” I slammed a bread roll onto my plate.
“I might become a space cowboy.”
“No, you won’t.”
“My chances are better than yours, though,” he replied flippantly, popping a piece of cheese between his lips. “If Dylan’s forgiveness is what you’re after.”
“You seem to be taking a lot of pleasure in my misery over my fallout with your sister.” I squinted at him.
“A lot? No. A very modest amount? Sure, I’ll stand behind that.”
Lyle and Randy—the owner of the local food mart—whooshed past us in the cluttered living room, cutting the line to the quiches. Randy sent Row a fuming glare that concentrated enough hostility to fuel a nuclear bomb, baring his teeth at him.
“Hey, Casablancas. Come to ruin another fine piece of this small town?” he all but spat at Row’s feet as we stood on the buffet-style line along a table.
Whoa. What the hell? Row was royalty in this place. Staindrop’s golden boy. He had been handled with adoration and respect before he’d gone on to become the American Alain Ducasse. His shitty attitude added to his mysterious aura and bad-boy persona.
“I think I’m going to spare her.” Row dunked a sponge cake in an unidentifiable syrup, sniffing it before tossing it into his mouth. “Not my type and talks a mile a minute.”
Too stunned to be properly offended, all I could do was stare at him, jaw on the floor.
“I wasn’t talkin’ about Calla. I was talking about this house.” Randy balled his free fist, taking a step in Row’s direction.
“Talk all you want about either. As always, no one’s listening.” Row smirked defiantly.
Randy shoved his plate in Lyle’s chest, stepping into Row’s vicinity with his fist raised above his shoulder. “You got somethin’ to say to me, Chef?”
“Yeah, actually.” Row ate the rest of the distance between them, dropping his plate at the table with a loud clank. “Eat. Shit.”
Gasps erupted from every corner of the room. Whispers and loud shrieks ensued. And poor Lyle, who still looked only half-recovered from our Meat Loaf conversation, pushed Randy to the other side of the room, shoving at his chest like he was breaking up a bar fight.
“Knock it off and show some respect to Artem. Now’s not the time to discuss such things,” Lyle hushed his friend, and the two were immediately swallowed by a human frock of gossipers. Everybody’s eyes hung on Row’s face, and nobody came to his defense.
“What things?” I turned to look at Row, awestruck. “What did you do to make Lyle and Randy, two of the sweetest people on planet Earth, mad?”
He turned to glower at me. “Why don’t you ask them?”
Wasn’t it obvious? “Because I’m incapable of starting a conversation without turning it into a lovefest for everything nineties related, and I will probably give both of them a ten-minute lecture about the origin of ‘Kiss from a Rose’ by Seal, which, by the way, is one of the greatest songs of all time. Ask anyone with ears.”
“You can’t help yourself, can you?” He gave me an exasperated look, shaking his head. “Well, I think I’m gonna let you brew in the unknown a little longer.”
“What an ass.”
“You know, I had the same thought when I walked into this place and you had your back to me.”
“Are you flirting with me or ridiculing me?” I stomped. Actually stomped. The man was insufferable.
“Neither.” He picked up his plate and resumed his feast. “Just fact-stating is all.”
Tapping my finger over my mouth, I asked, “How come you didn’t kick Tuck’s butt for getting together with Dylan?”
“Who says I didn’t? Relocated his nose the first time they got together. Then closed the trunk door on his fingers, breaking four out of five, after their post–pregnancy test breakup.” Pause. “Accidentally, of course.”
“No, you didn’t.”
A somber nod. “He’ll never be able to jerk off again. His fingers look like deep-fried Cheetos.”
