by Watson, Meg
We don't need that kind of drama. I don’t want to wreck some girl, only to have her old man trying to hunt us down when we haven't even been here a week.
Alek takes my meaning immediately and pushes himself slightly back from the counter. The girl figures it out right away and looks up at him, startled.
“I'll just… I'll need a card and an ID to hold the room,” she says in a voice that's syrupy with disappointment. I half expect her to start apologizing.
Alek flashes her a grin that I guess is supposed to be some kind of consolation prize and slides her a card. I shift from foot to foot, eager to get the show on the road. If not this blonde, then somebody else and fast. I pivot and start walking.
“You know, you could try to be a little bit more subtle,” Alek says as he catches up to me crossing the foyer in a hurry toward the bar. “You didn't have to brush her off like that.”
“She wasn't even looking at me, Alek. You’re the one who broke her heart.”
Alek shrugs. It makes him uncomfortable to ever think of himself as the bad guy, even when it is so obviously what we are.
“Tell you what, if there's no action in the bar, you can head back over there.”
Alek cocks an eyebrow at me. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I'll just jerk off while I watch you guys, how about that?” I say.
“Wow, you would do that for me?” he says sarcastically.
I smack him hard on the shoulder. “Yeah, brother. Only for you.”
***
The bar is just what I wanted. It's wide open and even though it's early, there are at least a dozen people here with no company. The lighting is all pink and purple, lit from recessed alcoves to give the ceiling a sort of fairyland glow.
It looks like some kind of corporate place, the kind where they send people into Chicago for a few days to get a job done. People come in, check into the hotel and find themselves bored at 7 o'clock at night. They head down to the bar for company.
Here we are, ladies, more company than you bargained for.
My eyes seesaw over the small crowd. Groups of one or two. A couple of older guys in cheap suits with their eyes fixed on the muted televisions overhead, their mouths hanging open as they read the closed caption commentary of the basketball game that’s on. This is not the sort of bar where they turn on the volume for the TV if the piano is playing.
A tight, pinched-face lady looks Alek up and down as we walk past her. She's playing with a string of beads around her neck and holding a martini a few inches from her mouth. Not sure about this one. She's slightly past the freshness date, but I do like a woman who's been through the mill more than once.
I'll have to keep her in mind for later. Maybe as a snack after the main attraction.
There's a pair of thick blondes at the corner of the bar, too. They're both giggling a little too loudly at their jokes, gnawing on the end of cocktail skewers and rubbing those plump ass cheeks against the barstools. That's excellent. That's what I'm talking about. I can have them both moaning and begging for release in minutes. That's what I need, not just one woman, two. Two to go.
“Her,” Alek says in a low voice next to me.
I stop up short and look around. He’s not looking at the blondes by the bar, but at a booth off to the left in front of a violet velvet curtain and three pink pendant lights.
“Who?” I say, though I already know.
He points at the booth with his chin but I am already shaking my head. A dainty, pretty thing is just sitting there with her legs crossed at the knee. Her light brown curls catch the light as they tumble over her mostly bare shoulders.
“Alek, no. Nothing like that. How about these two blondes over here? They look like gym teachers! These could be our girls.”
Alek scowls at me. “She’s gorgeous, Roman. I want to talk to her. I’m talking to her.”
I squint my eyes closed. I don’t want to talk to her, not at all. I don’t feel like playing the big bad Russian wolf tonight for some tiny Red Riding Hood. I want a real woman. Sturdy, like I said.
But it’s too late. Alek crosses in front of me to come up behind her. I walk up to the booth to stand in front of her just as he stumbles against her shoulder from behind.
She startles and glances up at me with these big, fluttering eyelashes. The tip of her nose is bright red and her lips contract into a perfect oval as she says oh.
For second I'm annoyed at Alek’s clumsy ploy and back away. But something about her, the way that she opens her mouth right then and I can see a sweet, moist glint on her lower lip, just a drop of that Manhattan she's drinking. Something about that makes me stop.
This is bad. This is a terrible idea. She's just a tiny thing, She can’t be anything over five foot four. Smooth, glossy skin like a figurine you would find on a shelf. Long, shining chestnut hair that curls over her cheekbones. Clingy black dress that ends above her rosy, warm-looking knees.
I can see where she's got her legs crossed and how the triangular shadow that falls across her thighs is like the entrance to a carnival. Like it should be lit up with neon, maybe some stars or hearts and shit.
Alek stumbles into me and rights himself as she’s pulling herself together. He grins at her apologetically, then shoves me toward the booth. Swearing, I drop into it. Let’s just give her thirty seconds to freak out and run away. Then I can get Alek aimed at the gym teachers and we can resume a plan that has a prayer of succeeding.
She hiccups as she flinches away, and her hand slides over that oh-shaped mouth. My balls clench. I want to be inside those lips. I have to.
I should get up and walk away now, but I can't. We’re about to ruin her life.
CHAPTER 4
MARIE
There are two old guys sitting at the corner of the bar watching the Bulls game, and those are the only men in this entire place. I should not have come here. I could've gone to Excalibur or down to Rush Street maybe. There are always a bunch of college guys just wandering around there looking to get laid. That would have been a decent decision.
But if I did that, I would have immediately run into one of Daddy's guys. Maybe not, but some other family for sure. Somebody would see me and then call somebody from the neighborhood who would call Daddy who would send two or three guys to come get me. This is how it happens every time. I don't think I've ever made it to closing time at a bar in my entire life. I feel like Rapunzel half the time, locked up in the tower.
But these two guys at the bar, no way they’re family. They look like they just flew in from Boise or Cleveland or something. No way they're connected.
But on the other hand, no way I'm interested in them either. I mean it's early and everything. The cigar club usually closes around eight or nine, whenever people are done and wanting to go home. Sometimes we do stay up, and we’ll stay open as long as there’s somebody there who needs it, but tonight Daddy was done with Stosh by eight.
And so I find myself in a hotel bar downtown, drinking with the early-bird dinner special geriatrics. Great. Just great.
I pick up the paper napkin in front of me and start pinching at the corners, tearing off tiny pieces. In a few moments, I’m completely immersed in the ridiculous task of trying to turn this pointy-cornered napkin into a round-cornered napkin.
The ice in my drink slowly melts, painting the entire surface in translucent fog as I forget to drink because tearing these itty-bitty scraps off this napkin is so enthralling.
Geez. The life of a Mafia Princess. It's not what anyone would have thought, is it?
I ordered a Manhattan because they look so pretty and they sound so glamorous, but this thing is gross. It's got a cherry in it and everything, and it’s still gross. I”m taking tiny sips, trying to get my mouth used to the flavor. It's not really working.
What I really want is a Cosmo, maybe? A margarita? Or wine. I bet they have a great wine list. It's probably not very cool of me to want to order a margarita in the middle of this swanky bar.
The
bartender keeps cutting his eyes toward me sideways. I'm not sure if that's because he's waiting for me to finish this drink so I can order another one, or if he’s wondering what kind of idiot tears up a napkin and leaves a little mountain of shredded paper in the middle of one of his nice clean tables. If it were me, at the cigar club, and one of those Russian guys made me a nice volcano out of cigar ash or something, yeah. That would be weird.
Oh great. Now I'm that guy. I’m the weirdo.
So now what am I supposed to do? I take all of the little pieces of paper and pile them up in the middle of the napkin, then fold the bottom up and the top down, and then the sides over to the center. I mash it against my palm to flatten it as much as possible and then leave it in the middle of the table, but it springs back open and a few shreds of red paper puff out. I don't even have to look directly at the bartender to see him shake his head slightly.
Maybe a shot of something? Or a spritzer? A wine spritzer sounds fancy. I should do that.
Or champagne! Okay, there we go. Champagne. How can I go wrong with champagne? I may not be the most sophisticated drinker in the world, but I know a woman sitting around drinking champagne cannot possibly be mistaken for a college kid or a floozy, right?
Just as I'm about to slide out of the booth and make my order, the bartender swings around with a drink in his hand. He lays a new napkin in front of me with a meaningful glance, and places the Manhattan in the middle.
“I thought I would freshen your drink,” he says smoothly.
I smile as enthusiastically as I can. “Oh, thanks,” I say, nodding believably. “I was just about to order another drink.”
"I know,” he says confidently. When my eyebrows pinch together, he adds, “I'm a trained professional.”
I smile and nod, dingbat style. That's always worked for me in the past. I find that generally, men don't expect too much of a girl who's willing to just smile and nod. Most times, it seems to be a sort of relief.
His chest puffs up with pride as he walks away, mission accomplished. Now I don't know what to do. It was nice of him to take my napkin art away and the watery Manhattan, but now I’ve got a fresh one at full strength and everything. Ugh. I have to start all over, and I'm too embarrassed to go up there and ask for something different.
As he takes his place behind the bar again, I see him turn around and cross his arms over his chest so he can watch me. OK, I guess there are actually three men in this bar, counting him. Apparently some sick part of my brain is actually considering this guy, too.
Any port in a storm, I suppose. I'll just wait until closing time before I really make a decision. He looks older. But nice. But... married. He looks completely married. Probably got this job so that he could pick up random women who were only going to be in town for a couple of days. Yuck. I'm not giving it up for somebody like that. I mean yes, I'm on a mission here, but I don’t want to add to my trauma or anything.
Tentatively, I take another sip of the Manhattan, only taking a teeny-weeny bit between my lips. The cherry rolls down the glass and bounces against my teeth. The sweetness there is a relief. I actually just want to eat the cherry, if I’m telling the truth. But it makes the drink a lot easier to take.
I set the glass back down and stare at it suspiciously for a second. I don't shudder, and I don't want to gag or anything so it must be working. After giving it a few more seconds for good measure, I pick the glass back up and bring it to my lips, but before I take a sip I let the cherry roll back toward me and then drink around that.
Okay, this is totally working. Excellent. What's in a Manhattan anyway? From the look of it, I sort of thought it was going to be all cherry. Like maybe a rum and Coke sort of thing. It's not, though. It's, like, all booze, and not your smooth vodka booze either. Dark, scary, old man booze. The cherry was really deceptive.
But, okay, I'm feeling pretty good about this now. The piano man starts playing something I think I know, some song I've heard before. Oh yeah, it was used on a commercial. Shoot, I can't place it, but pretty soon I'm humming along anyway. I hope he gets to the part of the song where I remember the words.
There's only a sip or two left in this glass, and now I'm totally goal-oriented about it. I know once I drink this, that bartender is going to bring me another one and then I'm going to be relatively tipsy. But if I finish just this one drink, then I should be okay. I can ask him for a Diet Coke or something instead. Something with cherries, lots of cherries.
I close my eyes and tip the glass back. The cherry drops against my upper lip and I let the liquid swirl around it and then against the roof of my mouth. Then, as a reward, I let that sweet, cartoonish fruit roll over my tongue and bite down on my molars.
There you go. That's why they put the cherry in there. It's dessert.
I finally get that last bit of the drink past my tongue when suddenly I'm jerking forward, practically falling over the table. I turn in my seat, careful not to choke on the bits of cherry that are still at the back of my mouth. For a second, what I'm seeing does not make any sense.
It's a man, that much I know. He's enormous. He's built like a stone pillar, and he's got his hands up like he thinks he ran me over with his car. Which honestly, is not that far from the truth. I feel like I just got clubbed with a tree.
And then it’s another man, too, from the other direction. They look almost alike. Brothers, maybe. They both offer apologies but the sounds get crossed, cancelling each other out.
The first man stares at me hard as the room sort of swims back and forth in front of my eyes. Carefully, I swallow the rest of the cherry and just wait to catch my breath for a second, but the way he's looking at me makes my heart beat really hard. We seem to stare at each other for quite a long time before the other guy nudges him and they both drop into the booth, across the table from me.
My mouth opens as if to say something, but then nothing comes out. I bite my lips closed again. I look at the one on the left, who seems intent not to look back. He’s staring at the backs of his hands, made purple from the lights.
I've never quite seen anything like him. Is he handsome? I can't tell. It's like I can't look right at him, like meeting his eyes is physically difficult. I feel my heartbeat in my throat all of a sudden and swallow twice, trying to get it back where it belongs.
The other one is smiling at me like we already know each other, like we’re friends. He’s not hard to look at, not one bit.
The bartender slides over and places another Manhattan in front of me. The second stranger scowls at it, tipping his head to one side like a great dane. He turns his head diagonally up to the bartender.
“Not that,” he says in a low, clipped voice that seems to shoot through me like a series of arrows. “Something else. Wine. No…Champagne. Yes?”
I nod, mute and stunned.
The bartender shoots me a petulant scowl and walks away. The second stranger pooches his lips out in a contemplative expression. My eyes keep going back to the first stranger. There’s something uncanny about him. I feel naughty, just staring like this. He raises his eyes and looks back at me.
He barely blinks. His hair is close to his head, cut very short. I can still see that it's wavy, sort of coarse. It forms a kind of thick helmet over his head. One tiny piece at the top of his forehead curls back the other way, but the rest of it is so orderly it almost looks fake.
His face is broad and strong. Charcoal black eyes appraise me calmly from beneath heavy brows. His mouth is a curved, sculptural shape that forms a sort of scowling crescent over his cleft chin. I think he might be ugly. A web of scars stretches from the corner of his mouth, up and over one eye. Now that I'm looking at it, it seems as the one eyebrow was half lost in the scar. Maybe a burn or something. But it's so old that it's not discolored, maybe just slightly more silver.
He's either the most handsome or the most repulsive man I've ever seen. I can't decide which.
He folds his hands in front of him on the tabletop, basketing his fin
gers. His thumbs drum against each other as he waits patiently for me to stop staring at him, which I can't seem to do. Cutting his eyes toward the second stranger, he clears his throat softly.
Oh my God. I have to stop.
“I apologize for being so clumsy,” the second stranger says slowly. I tear my eyes away from his companion and focus on his face. At first I don't remember what he's talking about and then I recall that he actually did bump into me. That was the first thing. It feels like a month ago.
They must be brothers, but this one is beautiful. Same dark grey eyes, same coarse hair. This one is smiling, though, and the other one doesn’t look like he knows how.
The bartender comes back with three glasses of champagne and places them on the table. I don't even glance up to him to see what kind of scowl he's giving me.
The second stranger picks up the glass by the stem and tips it toward me. I pick mine up too and then pause, waiting for the first stranger to join us. He pauses for a moment, staring at me as though surprised, then raises his glass too.
Out of habit I clink my glass against each of theirs and take a sip. It's an absolute relief to have that semi sweet liquid on my tongue, the bubbles bursting against my teeth. That is definitely what I should have ordered in the first place.
“There now, isn’t that a better?” he says. I can't tell if he's reading my mind or what. Maybe I'm just that obvious. I nod politely.
“Are you waiting for someone?” he asks. I realize I haven't actually said anything yet, which is totally unlike me.
“I'm just… I'm not from here,” I say in a rush, making up the words milliseconds before they come off my tongue. “I just thought I would get a drink.”
“Do you usually drink bourbon?” he says, quirking a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at me. Gianna would be totally impressed with that eyebrow.
“Oh my God, was that bourbon? Really?”
The first stranger finally makes a noise that sounds like a coughing laugh. He smiles out of one side of his mouth and squints me. There's a big, dark gap between two of his teeth where I think there’s supposed to be a whole other tooth.