Page 18 of With Wine Comes War

“I’m so happy to hear from you. What can I do for you?” Only she would ask me how she can help me when I’m supposed to be helping her.

“Ella, I haven’t been a very good friend to you. I promised to help you, and I ghosted you.” Emotion was bubbling up in my chest and tears were threatening to spill over.

“Now, don’t you say that. You did no such thing. You left us in very capable hands. Mr. Grant is wonderful. He’s no “White Girl Rambo'' like you, but he ain’t scared of those people either.”

I managed to chuckle, warding off the tears. That was the nickname her grandson, Darius, gave me after my confrontation with the kidthreatening me with a knife. Not a good day but at least I can laugh about it now.

“Grant is my mentor and taught me everything I know,” I tried to assure her. “But the reason for my call is because I’m still your friend and I’d like to come see you today. Darius too. I have a lunch meeting then I could head over, if that works for you?” I mentally crossed my fingers while chewing the inside of my cheek.

“Yes ma’am, you just come on over when you’re done; Darius and I will be here.” She sounded excited and I let out the bated breath and the anxiety seemed to go with it.

“Wonderful, I look forward to seeing you.”

“Same sweetie.” There’s another weight lifted off my shoulders. I sighed with relief as I hung up the phone and stuffed it into my purse.

Amelia and I are meeting at Benitas, the bistro across the street from her office. I know she only has an hour for lunch, and I don’t want to make her go far. I definitely don’t want to have lunch in the office where I could chance running into Roman.

She was walking across the street when I spotted her as I was parking the car. I hopped out and she squealed when she saw me and raced over, throwing her arms around me. She towered over me and her hug swallowed me. She was effortlessly beautiful and as sweet as she was pretty.

She put her hands on my shoulders and took a good look from head to toe as I got my bearings and caught my breath from her excited assault.

“Girl, how do you manage to look as good in workout clothes as you do in business suits?” She continued to scan me as I gave her the ‘you must be kidding me’ look. I felt like a bum and hadn’t really put any effort into my outfit today since I had training this afternoon and was completely makeup free.

“You’re crazy.” I took a step back and crossed my arms over my stomach self -consciously. “I apologize for my get up today. I have another meeting after this then a kickboxing class and no time to stop home and change.” She was dressed like a supermodel in a burgundy sheath dress that fit like it was painted on a body to die for plus a pair of four-inch stilettos. And here I am in Lululemon and tennis shoes. I hope we can hurry inside so no one sees me with her standing out here. They’d probably think she was feeding a homeless person.

She locked her arm through mine like she had no problem being seen with me and dragged me into the restaurant.

“How do you like that class?” She asked curiously after we sat down with our food. Maybe she wanted to take it too. I mean the classes have saved my life, literally.

“I love it.” I admitted then took a small bite of my sandwich and finished chewing and swallowing before I spoke again. “It was pretty brutal at first but now it’s almost relaxing.” I remembered the first day I took two classes back-to-back, and it took me thirty minutes and a pep talk to pry myself off the floor. Now I feel like I could recruit people to take this class.

She laughed as she insisted, “Maybe I need to sign up!”

That would be awesome. I hope she’s serious. I enthusiastically nodded my head.

“Yes, I’ll have a collection of friends in the class with me. A bunch of badass women.” She smiled and flexed her muscles jokingly.

We laughed and enjoyed lunch until suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. I caught a glimpse of Roman out of the corner of my eye. One whiff of his cologne made my heart speed up and my eyes automatically close. Not this, not now. If I hold my breath, maybe he won’t see me either. I held still and stared at Amelia like a statue. That night I was attackedcame back in a rush. My hands started to shake so I gripped the edge of the table for stability.

Amelia saw my face and asked, “Alex what’s wrong?” Roman hadn’t seen us when he walked in because he was looking at his phone. Amelia hadn’t seen him because she was telling me a story she was really into, and I had hoped to keep it that way, but I was terrible at hiding my facial expressions.

I whispered because I was literally holding my breath, “Nothing.” I swallowed hard and took a breath then accidentally let my gaze veer towards Roman. Amelia turned to follow my line of sight. She looked back like it was no big deal.

She shrugged her shoulders and muttered reassuringly, “At least he’s eating again.” I swung my head back to look at her in shock. What the hell did she mean by that?

I harshly whispered after taking a deep inhale, “He wasn’t eating? Why the hell not?” She was surprised by my response and pushed back from the table, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Woah, that sounds an awful lot like caring.” She cocked her head to the side and raised her eyebrows. “He’s had a rough few weeks too, Alex.” She almost sounded like she was accusing me of being the cause of whatever was wrong with him. I calmed down and took a couple more controlled breaths.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you.”Pull it together, just get through this next couple of minutes and then you can decide if spending time with Amelia is going to be worth it in the future.

“You should really talk to each other. This is hard to watch from my perspective. If you want me to be there with you, I will.” This might not be the right time to have this conversation. I started collecting the trash on the table to throw it away and get out of here.

I began, “Well, let’s you and I do this again and maybe you can think about signing up for kickboxing classes to hang out more.” I didn’t make eye contact with her again. She got the picture that I wasn’t talking about Roman anymore.

“Sounds like a plan. I’ll have to think about kickboxing though, I bruise easily.” Don’t know why I didn’t believe her, but we could find something else to do.

“You and I will have to come up with something else, like mani-pedi day?”

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