Dimitri

"Do you remember how I said whatever's going on with Tasha and Adrian and Rose can wait until Monday?" Ivan asked perching himself on Dimitri's desk.

"Yes," Dimitri said interested as to where this was going.

"Well, it's Monday and I may have made whatever problems that are going on worse," he said smiling.

Dimitri shook his head walking out of the office, Ivan beside him. "That can't be true because I screwed things up earlier this morning."

"I know. I saw Rose outside crying and-"

"She was crying?" Dimitri slowed walking but didn't look up from the patient's chart he had in his hands.

"Yeah but she was trying to pass it off as allergies or something but anyway I tried talking to her, reason her into straying from Adrian and into your open arms-"

"Since when do you play matchmaker?" Dimitri laughed.

"Since I had a pretty good weekend and I want to pass on the love to everyone else around me."

"So you spent the weekend with Mia?"

It was nice to hear about someone else life for a while.

"A weekend to remember," Ivan said staring off, grinning like a fool. "There was this one position-"

Dimitri held up a hand to stop him. "Not in the mood today. In fact, those are images I can go my entire life without having in my head."

Ivan held up his hands in a surrendering gesture. "Alright, our friendship has boundaries. I'll just send it in a very detailed email. Or better yet there's the video-"

"Ivan," Dimitri said warningly.

"Okay, okay, anyway, I may have overestimated Rose's attraction to you and come on a bit strong because next thing I knew she decided you two were better off apart and she went to call Adrian."

Dimitri had stopped walking then and turned to face his friend. For a brief moment he had that urge to punch someone again but just as quickly as the urge had come, it passed. He had been the one to lay down boundaries when it came to Rose; he'd pushed her away on more than one occasion. What right did he have to be angry with her for moving? It was precisely what he suggested she do.

He told himself not to care; that this was one girl only seemed to bring trouble and mayhem whenever she appeared. Where there was one girl there were more than hundreds of others waiting.

He told himself not to care, not to give it a second thought, but he found that was easier said than done, that he couldn't helped those damned feelings that wouldn't seem to go away, feelings that had once been so easy to ignore.

"It's not like Rose and I are together. As I keep telling everyone, it was a one time thing-"

"I thought you slept with her three times?"

"Whatever. It was a onetime thing that's being blown out of proportion," he clarified moving toward the examining room again. "Why do you care os much anyway?"

Ivan faked appall.

"I'm hurt. This is the second time today I've had to explain my position as best friend forever."

Dimitri quirked a brow waiting for his friend to get serious. Ivan laughed explaining, "Look, I like Rose. I've seen you two do the loo-at-each-other-and-then-look-away-when-the-other-is-looking thing, you have lunch together everday, lunches where I've actually seen a smile spread across the beautiful Russian face of yours. As a matter of fact I think this is the first time where I've actually seen you eat lunch instead of "going out for desert"," he concluded coyly. "You two have something...or you could if you give it a shot."

Dimitri looked at his friend as if he couldn't believe such words were coming out of Ivan's mouth, the Ivan who had live vicariously through Dimitri and had been the one to push Dimitri to live his life without emotions. It was the best and easy to go about life, they'd decided.

He wondered what exactky Ivan's weeked with Mia did to change his friend so much.

He sighed, reluctant to admit there was truth inhis friend's words but then he figured Rose had the right idea. If Dimitri believed in fate, he figured the fates didn't think they'd be good together. It was best to move on, forget about the little moments that had meant the most to him this past week and a half, and let life take its course.

He shurgged, at last, responding to suddenly very serious friend's statement.

"Rose is my employee, I'm her boss, we're going to leave it at that because we're not good together, there's nothing more to it than that. It was jsut sex."

"If the reason behind this decision is that you have nothing in common, I should probably tell you that you and Rose share the same stubborn trait," Ivan called.

Dimitri, again, shrugged leaving his friend behind in the hallway.

He wondered if today meant everything else would change, if things would be as easy going as they were before he'd screwed things up. He wondered if Rose would still be working for him. He found himself, despite his efforts to convince himself that it didn't matter and that he didn't care, dreading the thought of not having Rose working beside him throughout the day having nothing to look forward to.

The worst feeling was the idea that something happened between her and Adrian and she ended up finding her own happiness with someone else.