Dmitri turned a vivid shade of crimson and choked out, “Christ, Cat!”
“Well, come on. We might as well laugh about it. I mean, it’s that or swallow the working end of my Glock. Know what I’m saying?” She went and sat on the edge of the bed and swung her feet as she said, “And you’re just such an easy mark, it’s hard to pass up opportunities to embarrass the crap out of you. Speaking of which, you missed my grand entrance earlier tonight. You would have been mortified! I marched in here and called Jamie a home wrecker. He almost peed himself!”
Dmitri pressed a hand to his mouth. “Oh God, please tell me you’re joking.”
“No, she actually did that,” I said.
“It almost misfired, though. Jamie started to run away and I had to apprehend him on the sidewalk. Oh, and in the process, I called one of your neighbors a pooper scooper and threatened him with poodle-based violence. You might be hearing from his lawyer.” She looked like she was proud of herself.
Dmitri looked stricken, so I took his hand and guided him to the bed, where I sat him beside Catherine and then sat on his other side. “Catherine, stop being funny,” I chastised her. “Dmitri’s about to have a stroke.”
She put her arm around him and put her head on his shoulder, and said, “Sorry, D. Although I actually wasn’t trying to be funny. That all really happened.”
Dmitri fell backwards onto the mattress, and I lay on my side so I was facing him. Catherine did the same thing on his other side. “See? Three-way,” she whispered to me, pointing back and forth between the three of us with a sparkle in her eyes and another exaggerated wink.
“Stop,” I whispered to her.
“He knows I’m kidding,” she whispered back.
“Still. You’re freaking him out,” I shot back.
“You know I can hear you, right?” Dmitri asked. He’d turned his head toward me, and was grinning ever-so-slightly.
“Hi baby,” I said with a smile and pecked him on the lips, deciding to start over. “I’m glad you’re home. I didn’t expect you until much later.”
“I snuck out early. I missed you.” He reached up and gently touched my face.
Catherine leapt up and said, “Wow, zero to third wheel in oh-point-two seconds! I’ll just give you two some privacy.”
Dmitri got up too and said, “You’re at the best part of the movie. Keep watching it. I’m going to get a shower and put on something not ripe with the stink of corruption. You two just relax.”
“Baby,” I said, sitting up and taking his hand, “are you ok? How did everything go tonight?”
“Exactly as expected. I kissed lots of ass, and the visitors drank about twelve hundred dollars of top shelf product, and when the hookers showed up I figured I was kind of redundant at that point, so I came home.”
“Fuck. Baby, I’m sorry.”
“I’m ok. And I’ll be even better after I’ve showered. Just go back to Alien. It has such a great ending.” He let go of me and went into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.
I stared after him, my brows knit with concern, and said, “We shouldn’t have teased him, he’s had a rough night.”
“No, the teasing was good, it cheered him up. Trust me.” She reached into the junk food stash and pulled out a movie theater-size box of Skittles, then hit play on the remote, declaring happily, “This next part of the movie is so funny.”
“Funny? You’re deeply warped. You know that, right?” And then I yelled and hid behind a pillow while Catherine howled with laughter and bounced up and down on the bed like a three year old in response to what was happening on-screen.
Dmitri emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later dressed in a black t-shirt and black sweats, his wet hair combed back from his face. Only he could made sweats look damn sexy. He perched on the foot of the bed and reached back to rest his hand on my leg, eyes on the TV screen.
He waited until the end credits were rolling and Catherine hit the off-button before turning to her and saying, “Why are you here, Cat? You’re only a couple weeks into the semester, you shouldn’t be missing school.”
“I was worried about you,” she said.
“Why? I’m fine.”
“That’s not what I hear,” Catherine said gravely. “I hear you’re not wearing your retainer. And you know you’re going to end up looking like Bucky Beaver if you keep that up.” She somehow managed to say that with a straight face.
Dmitri turned red and stammered, “Oh God. You did not tell Jamie about the retainer.”
“Oh yes I did. And I told him about your glasses, too.”
Dmitri face-planted himself onto the mattress and stayed there.
“Your boyfriend didn’t even know you wear glasses,” she said. “You big fraud! Where are those nerdtastic things? Jamie should see this.”