Burning Down the Spouse

by Dakota Cassidy

  Taking a sip of her water, Frankie swished it in her mouth before speaking. “So you think Chloe messed with the schedule because she’s jealous of me?”

  “Yep. So you’d come in late and Nikos would fire you. Thus, eliminating the competition in the race for the smokin’ hot Greek guy.”

  Frankie whispered her response. “Have you taken a good look at me lately, Jasmine? I couldn’t compete even with double Ds and a Brazilian butt implant. I look like shit. Chloe has nothing to be jealous of, and I’m not in a race for anything but the will to want to survive.”

  Jasmine handed their waiter the menu after giving him her order. “Next time say it like you mean it. You are, too, interested in Nikos. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s a good thing, a sign, as Maxine would say, that you’re moving forward. It’s healthy.”

  Frankie spouted off her order to the waiter and waited until he left to address the very unhealthy crush she couldn’t deny she had on Nikos. “First, Nikos is way too charming for this girl. That kind of charming, his kind of brick shithouse, always turns into a lying, cheating slug. I know, I was married to one. Second, he’s my boss. That can’t be smart. Third, I’m pretty sure when Maxine sat down and wrote all that gibberish, she meant for us to play on a team within our leagues. You own a league all unto yourself. The rest of us are just dust in your wind. So I concur—it is not healthy to be interested in a man who can have any woman he wants. It’s like hoping Clive Owen will show up and take you to prom.”

  Jasmine flicked her glass of wine, a gleam in her eyes. “So you admit you’re interested?”

  “No.” Oh, wait. She kind of had. Shit.

  “Your lips say no, but your scrawny, underfed body and its unique language says yes. Own it,” she demanded, nabbing a piece of bread from the basket in the middle of the table. “And stop putting yourself down. You were no slacker in the looks department, Francis. You’re just on a bit of a beauty sabbatical because you feel like crap. Once we get some food into you and some color in your cheeks, you’re going to show that sneaky, cutthroat bitch Chloe what hot really looks like. And Nikos is a good guy. He’s nothing like Mitch. Plus, Nikos is attracted to you at a level all women can only wish a man as treacherously beautiful as him would find them attractive.”

  Frankie’s unplucked eyebrow rose. “Which level is that, Jasmine? The homeless bag lady level?”

  “Oh, that’s a load of crap. He’s attracted to the hot mess you are—in spite of the hot mess you are. That’s something to take note of when jumping back into the dating pool.” Jasmine slathered a thick layer of creamy butter on the fragrant sourdough bread and handed it to Frankie. “Now eat. Your ass needs something to form middleaged lumps on.”

  Frankie took a bite of the bread, savoring the tang of the sourdough, carefully planning her next words. No matter the outward comparisons she saw between Mitch and Nikos, despite the idea they both had more charisma than a television evangelist looking for charitable donations, there was no stopping her next question. “So what’s the deal with Chloe and Nikos, and you, for that matter?”

  Jasmine brushed the crumbs from her hands with a glib smile. “Is that a question from the uninterested?”

  Frankie’s eyes guiltily strayed to the checkered tablecloth. “No, it’s a question from someone who ironically wants to keep her job and not end up on the playground alone without her bazooka for backup.”

  The waiter planted their plates of spaghetti in front of them, making Frankie squirm in anticipation of Jasmine’s answer. She nodded her thanks before picking up her fork to twirl the noodles, pretending nonchalance.

  “Nikos and I chatted when I first came into the diner a year ago. No big deal, clearly no attraction between us.”

  “I think you did the world a favor by not hooking up with him. There’s only so much Brangelina perfect the world can take,” Frankie teased.

  Jasmine waved Frankie off with a dismissive chuckle. “Either way, I never thought twice about Nikos and the same went for him. Yes, he’s divine on a million levels, but we just have no chemistry, and at the time, chemistry was the last thing I was thinking about anyway. But Chloe saw him talking to me as one usually does with a frequent customer and later made a snide remark. I set her straight in the most polite way a woman who’s basically been called a whore can. She didn’t like that, so she accused me of leaving without paying my bill. Thankfully, the customer who sat at the table next to mine said Chloe had picked up the money I’d left. Naturally, Chloe played like she’d forgotten due to the stress of lunch hour—which is a total load of shit, but it did get me free coffee for life. So when I say watch out for Chloe, I mean watch out for her. She’s sneaky and conniving.”

  Things to ponder. “She definitely doesn’t like me.”

  “That’s because she’s threatened by you and the attention Nikos pays you. Now, do you really want to know what’s up with Chloe and Nikos?”

  No. Yes. No. Oh, fine. Yeeeesssssss. She wanted to know if her obsession for Nikos really was like waiting for Clive Owen to show up and take her to prom. “Sure,” she said, feigning indifference.

  “Chloe’s the girl Nikos is supposed to marry.”

  Well, damn. It would appear her Clive Owen forecast was looking cloudy with a chance of thunderstorms.

  Nikos pulled out a chair for his friend, waving off Winchester. “I got it from here, Win,” he said with a smile. “I’ll bring him home, too, if you have something else you want to do.”

  Win slapped Nikos on the back with a grateful smile. “Thank you, sir. I can’t tell you the grumpiness I’ve had to contend with since the lovely Jasmine turned our fair Simon out like so much stale bread. He’s been incorrigible.”

  “Women,” Simon muttered, placing his cane between his legs under the table.

  “Yeah,” Nikos agreed, sitting in the chair opposite Simon with a wave good-bye to Win. “They suck. So what happened to make the great Simonides strike out? Not that I’m not glad you shot it all to hell, because I am. I like Jasmine, and I’d have totally blown your cover in the interest of keeping her from getting hurt. But I’d love to hear how it happened anyway. I mean, are you slacking these days or what? Didn’t you give her your bank statement with your opening line?” he joked.

  Simon sighed. “I would have if she’d given me the frickin’ chance. She blew me off too fast. I even played the blind card, and still, she shut me down.”

  Nikos laughed, smiling at the waitress who’d brought a bottle of red wine and popped it open, pouring it into their glasses. “You really need to knock off the ‘I’m disabled’ line, pal, especially with smart women like Jasmine. So explain to me why Jasmine blowing you off is such a big deal.”

  “Have you seen her, Nik?”

  “Uh, question is, have you?” he snickered, knowing Simon wouldn’t take offence.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I have. Before the accident. You know I have.”

  “But that was five years ago,” Nikos reminded him. It worried him that his friend still held a grudge over a betrayal he hadn’t known existed until much later in his life.

  Simon grunted. “I bet she hasn’t changed much.”

  Nikos had to agree. “Nope. She’s still as hot as she ever was. She’s also still a woman who doesn’t deserve your scorn—even if it’s only by proxy.”

  Simon ran his fingers over the table with a light touch until he located his silverware. “It’s not about that anymore. I don’t want payback.”

  Nikos searched his friend’s blank eyes. “Then what do you want?”

  “Her.”

  “Don’t you say that about all the women you manage to woo into your den of iniquity?” Since his accident, and his subsequent divorce, Simon was all about the prey. Women were his favored sport.

  “It’s different this time,” he offered, his tone quiet.

  “How’s that?”

  “Can’t explain it. It just sort of clicked for me.”

  Nikos shook out his napkin, placing
it on his lap. “That I get.”

  “Ahhhh. What’s this I’m hearing?”

  Even blind, Simon could still read his best friend of over ten years like a book. “Nothing.”

  “Bullshit,” Simon accused.

  “Okay, maybe it’s bullshit.”

  “So spill it. What’s her name?”

  “Frankie.”

  “The new girl at the diner Mama Voula was talking about? The one who was married to the famous chef? The new not so Greek girl?”

  Nikos rolled his tongue in his cheek, fighting the twist of his gut when Frankie’s name was mentioned. “Yeah. That’s her.”

  “Shit, man. Your mother’s going to have a heart attack when she finds out.”

  There was that. “There’s nothing to find out, Simon.”

  “Hah! Don’t bullshit the bullshitter. I can hear it in your voice. You like her, and you know damned well your parents aren’t going to approve because she’s not Greek. Because she’s not Chloe. You know, the woman they handpicked for you to find marital bliss with?”

  “That’s sort of the point. Frankie isn’t Chloe. It isn’t like I haven’t told the family and Chloe my feelings on that particular subject.”

  Simon slapped his hand on the table with a bark of cynical laughter. “Like that’s stopped Voula from hoping Chloe will grow on you? Be real, Nik.”

  “What Mama wants doesn’t change how I feel about Chloe. She’s a good waitress, and that’s about all the admiration I can summon up for her. Period. Though, she could make things sticky for Frankie at the diner, no doubt. Not to mention Pop’s all in an uproar because she’s doing what he’s always considered his job, while he’s forced to watch TV and mope himself into retirement.”

  “So what are you gonna do?”

  What was he going to do about his growing attraction to Francis Bennett? “If I’m realistic, there’s really nothing to do. Not now anyway. Frankie’s pretty shot down after her divorce and touchy as hell.”

  Simon wrapped a hand around his wineglass and saluted Nikos. “Right up your alley, buddy. Opa!” he muttered the Greek sentiment for happiness, though the real intonation behind it was “good job on finding yet another wounded soul, knucklehead.”

  Nikos frowned, tamping down his irritation at Simon’s cynicism, grabbing a slice of bread to stuff in his mouth. “You sound a lot like Cosmos.”

  “That’s because Cosmos was right there with me after Anita. Or don’t you remember how much puke we cleaned up as a tag team after one of your all-nighters?”

  Nikos flinched. “I say we can all discussion of women and focus on grub. I’m starving.”

  Simon didn’t respond. Instead, he cocked his blond head to the left, putting a finger to his mouth to quiet his friend.

  Nikos gave a glance around the restaurant. “What?”

  A smile spread over Simon’s face—wide and genuine. A rarity, indeed. “Did’ja hear that?”

  “More fan girls who want to help you on your journey to self-fulfillment?” he cracked with a laugh. It was uncanny the ability Simon had to hear a gushing fan long before Nikos was even aware they were in the same room. Though by now, he was used to the kind of attention Simon drew whenever they were in public together.

  “Naw, man. It’s Jasmine.”

  “You’re delusional. Wishful thinking because you crapped out with her. Now you’re hearing her everywhere. It’s your ego’s imagination.”

  “Nuh-uh. She’s sitting to the right and toward the back of the restaurant.” Rising, Simon grabbed his cane and his wine.

  Nikos was up, wineglass in hand, too, and hot on his heels, hissing, “Where are you going?”

  “To eat with Jasmine, dipshit.” He grinned, clearly pleased with his choice.

  “If she wanted to eat with you, she would have said yes when you asked her out the first time, Simon,” Nikos growled in his friend’s ear.

  But Simon wasn’t listening; he was barreling ahead much like the quarterback he’d once been, rounding the big white columns at a speed Nikos marveled at.

  Simon stopped short in the corner of Little Anthony’s, throwing his arm with unbelievable accuracy and placement around his friend’s shoulder just as Jasmine laughed. “Did I tell you, or did I tell you Jasmine was here? I didn’t just hear her either. I smelled her perfume. Very distinct. Magically delicious.”

  Hoping to thwart Simon’s intent to crash dinner, due to the pair of big, amber eyes looking at him with accusation like he’d just interrupted a discussion about feminine products, Nikos nodded with a cluck of his tongue. “You did. What you failed to hear with those big ears of yours was Jasmine’s date. She’s not alone.” There. Mission aborted due to unfriendly fire.

  “Oh, Nik. You have crappy game. You couldn’t lie if someone gave you cold hard cash to do it. Jasmine’s date is a woman. I can smell her perfume. So either join me, or turn tail and roll. I’m goin’ in.”

  Nikos sighed; there was no stopping Simon when he got it in his head he wanted something.

  Yes, Simon’s balls were a thing of beauty due some primitive, cavemanlike admiration. Big and clanging, they fueled him toward the Jasmine goalpost, dragging a reluctant Nikos in with him.

  And given that Frankie was scowling at him as though he were Hannibal Lecter rudely interrupting her dinner and demanding she hand over her thigh for him to snack on, this would be the time to display his very own set of balls.

  In resignation, he acknowledged there was nothing to do but play along. So mission reevaluated. Proceed with caution due to unfriendly female.

  Nikos smiled from behind Simon and cooed, injecting as much charm as he could into his greeting, “Heeeeey, ladies. Lonely?”

  “Dude,” Simon whispered over his shoulder. “Very lounge-lizard leisure-pants-ish, maybe even a little stalker creepy. Cool it.”

  “This from a man who smells his woman out?”

  Using his cane to find his way to the edge of the ladies’ table, Simon murmured, “Follow my lead, brother. We’re goin’ in.”

  Gun loaded, locked, and ready.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  From the “no longer so much reluctant as just plain old, had it up to her eyeballs” journal of ex-trophy wife Frankie Bennett: I’m never going out of my aunt’s house again. I don’t care if the apocalypse is slated to hit only Jersey and safety awaits me in like, Fiji. I’d rather skip the sunburn and end it all in a fiery ball of Garden State Parkway and tsunami-like waves from the Jersey Shore. I want to go back to my cave. Call me melodramatic, but I personally believe I excelled at cave dwelling and was best left alone to do just that. Dwell. Oh, and I thought I was warming to Maxine Barker and her hokey-schmokey, helpful, ex-trophy-wife tips. My asshattery. Let me show you.

  Jasmine gazed in total silence at Nikos and his friend, her haughty glare a sight different than the warmth of the laughter in her eyes just moments ago.

  The blond, very large man with Nikos leaned down, with great precision for someone who was blind, directly in front of Jasmine. “Miss me, pretty lady?”

  “Like I’d miss a public flogging.”

  He chuckled, low and with delighted relish. “Kinky.” His vacant but warm eyes strayed in Frankie’s general direction, a hand potentially capable of wrapping itself around her neck extended toward her. “I’m Simon. Nice to meet you, and you smell great.”

  Frankie took his hand and almost giggled until Jasmine gave her the girlfriend frown. The one that meant she was to find this man neither amusing, good-looking, nor, God forbid, charming. Like it or not. Frankie cleared her throat and put on her most stern frown in defense of the woman she liked more and more and hoped to appease in order to cultivate their budding friendship.

  “Frankie Bennett, and thank—” Jasmine gave her another girlfriend glare of fire and brimstone, thwarting further planned courtesies. She clamped her mouth shut with a wince of apology in Jasmine’s direction.

  His jovial smile widened. “Really? The Frankie Bennett? I’m so
jazzed to meet you.”

  Frankie’s face fell in an instant. She shot a frost-filled dagger of a glance at Nikos, who feigned ignorance, before responding with intentional ice in her tone, “Yes. I’m the Frankie Bennett. The crazy, ex-media-proclaimed-trophy wife of celebrity chef Mitch in the Kitchen. And double yes to your next question. I’m also the woman that fully intended assault with a deadly wooden spoon upon Mitch Bennett’s lying, cheating person, during a live broadcast of his show.” She gave Nikos another narrow-eyed gaze, slamming her fork down on her plate of half-eaten spaghetti so he’d be really clear about her displeasure at turning her into a sideshow freak.

  Simon guffawed, clearly thoroughly amused by her blunt statement. “You sound like my kind of girl, but that’s not what I meant. In case you missed my clumsy approach, I’m blind. I didn’t see the show, but it damned well makes me wish I could still use the old eyeballs. Must have been awesome retribution. I’m sure whatever happened, the punk deserved it.”

  “Always with the blind card,” Jasmine huffed, slinking downward in her chair when Frankie gave her a look of admonishment. No matter the reason Jasmine didn’t like Simon—and she’d held nothing back in showing her displeasure—he’d taken Frankie’s side.

  You had to like that in a guy.

  Simon chose to ignore Jasmine’s jab; the dazzling smile he wore never left his face. “I meant you’re the Frankie Bennett Nikos is always talking about. Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. That’s all he does. Frankie this and Frankie that.”

  Oh. Well. That was a whole different ball of Frankie wax, now wasn’t it? The warmth Jasmine was so determined to stomp out in Frankie returned—tenfold. So Jasmine and her wadded knickers be damned. And Nikos with the murderous glance at his friend Simon be damned, too. Damn everything but the music of Simon’s words to Frankie’s crush-starved ears.

  “What Simon means is,” Nikos interrupted, all smooth and unruffled, “I told him about how lucky we are to have found someone as good at peeling onions as you are.”