Bet Me

by Jennifer Crusie

  “The only person I want to talk to is here,” he said, smiling that GQ smile at her.

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” Min said. “Can you turn that off, too?”

  “Excuse me?” he said, his smile fading.

  “The constant line.” Min began to walk again. “You’ve got me for dinner. You can relax now.”

  “I’m always relaxed.” He caught up to her in one stride. “Where are we going?”

  Min stopped, and he walked a step past her before he caught himself.

  “The new restaurant that everybody’s talking about is this way. Serafino’s. Somebody I used to know says the chef is making a statement with his cuisine.” She thought of David and looked at Cal. Two of a kind. “I assumed that’d be your style. Did you have someplace else in mind?”

  “Yes.” He put one finger on her shoulder and gave her a gentle push to turn her around, and Min shrugged off his touch as she turned. “My restaurant’s that way,” he said. “Never go any place the chef is trying to talk with food. Unless you want Ser—”

  “Nope.” Min turned around and began to walk again. “I want to check out your taste in restaurants. I’m assuming it’ll be like your taste in cell phones: very trendy.”

  “I like gadgets,” he said, catching up again. “I don’t think it’s a comment on the real me.”

  “I’ve always wanted to do a study on cell phones and personality,” Min lied as they passed the Gryphon theater. “All those fancy styles and different covers, and then some people refuse to carry them at all. You’d think—”

  “Yours is black,” he said. “Very practical. Look out for the glass.” He reached to take her arm to steer her around a broken beer bottle, but she detoured on her own, rotating away from him.

  He looked at her feet and stopped, probably faking concern, and she stopped, too. “What?”

  “Nice shoes,” he said, and she looked down at her frosted-plastic open-toed heels tied with floppy black bows.

  “Thank you,” she said, taken aback that he’d noticed.

  “You’re welcome.” He put his hands in his pockets and started walking again, lengthening his stride.

  “But you’re wrong.” Min took a larger step to catch up. “My cell phone is not black. It’s green and it’s covered in big white daisies.”

  “No, it’s not.” He was walking ahead of her now, not even pretending to keep pace with her, and she broke into a trot until she was even with him. “It’s black or silver with a minimum of functions, which is a shame because you never know when you’re going to get stuck somewhere and need a good poker game.”

  When she glanced up at him, he looked so good that she stopped again to make him break stride. The key was to keep him off balance, not gape at his face, especially when he was being so annoyingly right about her black cell phone. “I beg your pardon,” she said stiffly, folding her arms again. “I know what my cell phone looks like. It has daisies on it. And I know I’m wearing a suit, but that doesn’t mean I’m boring. I’m wearing scarlet underwear.”

  “No, you aren’t.” His hands were still in his pockets, and he looked big and broad and cocky as all hell.

  “Well, with that kind of attitude, you’ll never find out,” Min said and walked on until she realized he wasn’t following her. She turned back and saw him watching her. “Uh, dinner?”

  He ambled toward her while she waited for him, and when he was beside her again, he leaned down and said, “I will bet you ten dollars that your cell phone does not have daisies on it.”

  “I don’t gamble,” Min said, trying not to back up a step.

  “Double or nothing you’re wearing a plain white bra.”

  “If you think I’m that boring, what are you doing with me?”

  “I saw the bra when you put the twenty in it. And you have conservative taste, so there’s no way you have a phone with daisies on it. The only exciting thing about you is your shoes.”

  Ouch. Min scowled. “Hey—”

  “And what I’m doing with you,” he said, clearly at the end of his patience, “is trying to take you to a great restaurant, which is just up ahead, so if we could call a truce until we’re there—”

  Min started to walk again.

  “No bet?” he said from behind her.

  “No bet.” Min walked faster, but he caught up with her anyway, with no visible effort. Long legs, she thought and then kicked herself for thinking about any part of his body. Or the fact that he’d noticed how great her shoes were. Which was just the kind of thing his kind of guy would do. Think about the bet, she told herself. He’s a beast and a gambler.

  The beast and gambler stopped in front of a dimly lit storefront window that was covered with red velvet café curtains. Above the curtains, EMILIO’S was written in gold script.

  “This is the restaurant?” Min said, surprised he hadn’t picked something flashier.

  “Yep.” He reached for the door.

  “Wait.” Min squinted at the card on the door. “It closes at ten on weekdays. It must be close to that now. Maybe we should—”

  “I’m Emilio’s favorite customer,” he said, pulling the door open. “At least until he meets you.”

  “Another line?” Min said, exasperated.

  “No,” he said with great and visible patience. “Keep busting my chops all the way through dinner, and Emilio will give you a free dessert.”

  “I thought you were his favorite customer,” Min said.

  “I am,” he said. “Doesn’t mean he won’t appreciate the show. You coming in or not?”

  “Yes,” Min said and walked past him into the restaurant.

  It was a minute and a half by Liza’s watch before the bullethead tapped her on the shoulder. “Excuse me,” he said, “but I believe you were staring at me.”

  Liza blinked at him. “That was disbelief. I couldn’t believe you were so slow.”

  “Slow?” He looked insulted. “Nobody could have gotten through that crowd faster than me. I didn’t even have blockers.”

  Liza shook her head. “You spotted me a good hour ago. What did you do, sit down and think about it?”

  He rolled his eyes. “I heard redheads were hard to handle.” He leaned on the bar. “I’m Tony. And you owe me.”

  Okay, here we go, Liza thought, and leaned on the bar, too, mirroring him. “I owe you?”

  “Yes.” He grinned at her. “Because of chaos theory.”

  Liza shook her head. “Chaos theory.”

  He moved closer to her. “Chaos theory says that complex dynamical systems become unstable because of disturbances in their environments after which a strange attractor draws the trajectory of the stress.”

  Liza looked at him, incredulous. “This is your line?”

  “I am a complex dynamical system,” Tony said.

  “Not that complex,” Liza said.

  “And I was stable until you caused a disturbance in my environment.”

  “Not that stable,” Liza said.

  Tony grinned. “And since you’re the strangest attractor in the room, I followed the trajectory of my stress right to you.”

  “That’s not what you followed to me.” Liza turned so that her back was against the bar, her shoulder blocking him. “Give me something better than that, or I’ll find somebody else to amuse myself with.”

  From the corner of her eye, she saw the other guy, the vacant-looking blond, lean down to Bonnie. “Is she always like this?” he said to Bonnie, and Liza turned to size him up. Big. Husky. Boring.

  “Well, your friend isn’t exactly Prince Charming,” Bonnie said, giving him her best fluttery smile.

  He beamed back down at her. “Neither am I. Is that okay?”

  Oh, come on, Liza thought, and caught Tony-the-bullethead’s eye.

  “He means it,” Tony said. “Roger has no line.”

  “After the chaos theory debacle, that’s a plus,” Liza said.

  “Poor baby,” Bonnie was saying as she put her hand on Ro
ger’s sleeve. “Of course, that’s okay. I’m Bonnie.”

  Roger looked down at her with naked adoration. “I’m Roger, and you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life.”

  Bonnie’s smile widened, and she moved closer to him.

  “Which doesn’t mean he’s bad with women,” Tony said, sounding bemused.

  “I begin to see his appeal.” Liza turned back to Tony. “What’s yours?”

  “I’m great in bed,” Tony said.

  “Right,” Liza said. “You’re hopeless, but you can buy me a drink and tell me all about yourself. And your friends.”

  “Anything you want,” Tony said, and waved to the curly-headed bartender. When she came down the bar, he said, “Hey, Shanna, you playing on my side of the street yet?”

  The bartender shook her head. “No, but when I do, you’ll be the last to know.”

  “Just so I’m somewhere on the list,” Tony said. “Shanna, this is Liza. We need refills all around here.”

  “You know him?” Liza said to Shanna.

  “He hangs out with my next-door neighbor,” Shanna said. “I get him by default because of Cal.”

  “Cal?” Liza said, and thought, Damn, I could have just asked the bartender about him without picking up this yahoo. Well, later for her.

  “You don’t want to know about Cal,” Tony was saying. “He’s no good. Women should stay far away from him.”

  Shanna rolled her eyes and moved away.

  “That’s interesting,” Liza said, smiling at him. “Tell me all about Cal and why he’s no good.”

  “I lied. He’s great,” Tony said. “We met in summer school—”

  “You went to high school together?” Liza said, taken aback.

  “We went to third grade together,” Tony said. “Although why you think this is interesting—”

  “I want to know everything about you, sugar,” Liza said. “I find you fascinating.”

  Tony nodded, accepting this as fact. “I was born—”

  “You and your friends,” Liza said. “So you and Roger and Cal—”

  Tony began to talk, while behind her, she heard Bonnie say, “You know my mama would like you,” and Roger answer, “I’d love to meet your mother.”

  Liza jerked her head toward Roger. “Does he say that to every woman?”

  “What?” Tony said, startled out of his story about being a football star in the third grade.

  “Never mind,” Liza said. “Let’s fast forward to puberty. You and Roger and Cal . . .”

  Cal watched the shock on Min’s face as she caught the full force of Emilio’s for the first time, seeing his favorite restaurant in all its funky glory, the wrought-iron chandeliers with the amber flame bulbs, the old black and white photos on the walls, the red and white checked tablecloths on the square tables, the candles in the beat-up Chianti bottles, the hand-lettered menus and mismatched silver. He waited for her lip to curl and then realized it couldn’t because her mouth had fallen open. Well, she deserved it for being such a pain in the—

  “This is great,” she said, and started to laugh. “My God, how did somebody like you ever find this place?”

  “What do you mean, somebody like me?” Cal said.

  She walked over to look at the photos of Emilio’s family for the past eighty years. “Where did they get this stuff?” She smiled, her soft lips parted and her dark eyes alight, and then Emilio came up behind him.

  “Ah, Mr. Morrisey,” Emilio said, and Cal turned to meet his old roommate’s glare. “How excellent to see you again.”

  “Emilio,” Cal said. “This is Min Dobbs.” He turned back to Min. “Emilio makes the best bread in town.”

  “I’m sure you make the best everything, Emilio,” Min said, offering him her hand. She looked up at him from under her lashes, and her wide smile quirked wickedly.

  Emilio cheered up, and Cal thought, Hey, why didn’t I get that?

  Emilio clasped her hand. “For you, my bread is poetry. I will bring my bread as a gift to your beauty, a poem to your lovely smile.” He kissed the back of her hand, and Min beamed at him and did not pull her hand away.

  “Emilio, Min is my date,” Cal said. “Enough kissing already.”

  Min shook her head at him, with no beam whatsoever. “I’m not anybody’s date. We don’t even like each other.” She turned back to Emilio, smiling again. “Separate checks, please, Emilio.”

  “Not separate checks, Emilio,” Cal said, exasperated beyond politeness. “But a table would be good.”

  “For you, anything,” Emilio said to Min and kissed her hand again.

  Unbelievable, Cal thought, and kicked Emilio on the ankle when Min turned to look at the restaurant again. The guy was married, for Christ’s sake.

  “Right this way,” Emilio said, wincing. He showed them to the best table by the window, slid Min into a bentwood chair, and then stopped by Cal long enough to say under his breath, “I sent the servers home half an hour ago, you bastard.”

  “You’re welcome,” Cal said loudly, nodding to him.

  Emilio gave up and went back to the kitchen, while Cal watched Min examine the room in detail.

  “It’s like an Italian restaurant in the movies,” she told Cal. “Except not. I love it. I love Emilio, too.”

  “I noticed,” he said. “You’re the first woman I ever brought here who was on a kissing basis with him before we sat down.”

  “Well, he’s going to feed me.” She picked up her napkin. “That’s always a good sign in a man.” She spread the napkin in her lap, and then her smile faded and she looked tense again. “Except . . .”

  Cal braced himself for her next shot.

  She leaned forward. “I can’t eat the bread or pasta, but I don’t want to hurt his feelings. Can you order something else?”

  “Sure,” Cal said, surprised. “Salad. Chicken marsala, there’s no pasta with that.”

  “Thank you.” Min smiled at him. “I wouldn’t want to ruin his evening.”

  “I think you just made his evening,” Cal said. Her lips were full and soft, and when she smiled her gratitude at him, her face changed from grim prison warden to warm baby doll, but the wicked glint she’d had in her eyes when she’d flirted with Emilio was gone, which was a real shame.

  Emilio brought the bread, and Min leaned forward to see it. “Oh, that smells good. I missed lunch so this is wonderful.”

  “It is good,” Cal said. “Emilio, we’ll have the house salad to start and then the chicken marsala.”

  “Excellent choice, Mr. Morrisey,” Emilio said, and Cal knew it was because everything was simple to make. “And a nice red wine to accompany?”

  “Excellent,” Cal said, knowing they were going to get whatever Emilio had left over and open in the kitchen.

  “Ice water for me,” Min said with a sigh, still looking at the bread.

  When Emilio was gone, Cal said, “The bread’s excellent. He makes it here.”

  “Carbs,” Min said, her scowl back in place, and Cal had heard enough about carbs in his nine months with Cynthie so he let it drop.

  “So,” he said, picking up one of the small loaves. “What do you do for a living?” He broke the bread open and the yeasty warmth rose and filled his senses.

  “I’m an actuary,” Min said, the edge back in her voice.

  An actuary. He was on a dinner date with a cranky, starving, risk-averse statistician. This was a new low, even for him.

  “That’s . . . interesting,” he said, but she was watching the bread and didn’t notice. He held half the small loaf out to her. “Eat.”

  “I can’t,” she said. “I have this dress I have to fit into three weeks from now.”

  “One piece of bread won’t make that much difference.” He waved it, knowing that the smell of Emilio’s bread had driven stronger Atkins people to their knees.

  “No.” She closed her eyes and her lips tight, which was useless because it wasn’t looking at the bread that was going t
o bring her down, it was smelling it.

  “This might be your only chance to eat Emilio’s bread,” he said, and she took a deep breath.

  “Oh, hell.” She opened her eyes and took the bread from him. “You really are a beast.”

  “Who, me?” Cal said, and watched her tear off a piece of the bread and bite into it.

  “Oh,” she breathed, and then she chewed it with her eyes shut, pleasure flooding her face.

  Look at me like that, he thought, and felt something nudge his shoulder. He looked up to see Emilio standing with a half bottle of wine, staring at Min. He nodded at Cal and whispered, “Keeper.”

  Min opened her eyes and said, “Emilio, you are a genius.”

  “The pleasure is all mine,” Emilio said.

  Cal took the wine from him. “Thank you, Emilio,” he said pointedly and Emilio shook his head and went back to the kitchen for the salads.

  When he’d brought them and was gone again, Cal said, “So you’re an actuary.”

  She looked at him with contempt again. “Please. You don’t care what I do. Take the night off, Charm Boy.”

  “Hey.” He picked up his bread. “I don’t do this nightly. It’s been a while since I picked up anybody.”

  Min looked at her watch as she chewed. She swallowed and said, “It’s been twenty-eight minutes.”

  “Besides you. My last relationship ended a couple of months ago, and I’ve been enjoying the peace and quiet.” She rolled her eyes and he added, “So of course, when I decide to start dating again, I pick up somebody who hates me. What’s all the hostility about?”

  “Hostility? What hostility?” Min stabbed her fork into her salad and tasted it. “God, this is good.”

  She chewed blissfully, and Cal watched her, trying to figure out what he was doing wrong. She should be liking him. He was charming, damn it. “So what are your interests in life besides great shoes?”

  “Oh, please,” Min said, when she’d swallowed. “You talk. I know why I picked you out, tell me why you picked me.”

  He stopped with his glass halfway to his mouth. “You picked me up?”

  Min shook her head. “I picked you out. I saw you on the landing. Well, my friend Liza saw you first, but she gave you to me.”

  “Thoughtful of her,” Cal said. “So you were expecting me when I showed up?”