A Jade's Trick

by Lilly Black

  “Nic, no,” I plead.

  “Please, Ev?” she begs, then with a grin, she sweetens the deal. “We’re going to Maison Latour, and I know how much you love French food…”

  “And how much you love expensive restaurants,” I scowl.

  “So you’ll do it, right?” she asks, her eyes childlike and hopeful.

  “I’ll do it,” I relent with a sigh, “but it’s not a date.”

  “Okay! Yay!” Nicole brings her hands together in a gleeful clap, and I grab our purses from behind the bar. Before I stuff my apron in, I look inside optimistically to see if there is anything unexpected. Cain’s envelope is still in there waiting for the chance to be returned, but there’s nothing new. Seeing it, I think about what the cash in that envelope could buy because I have nothing to wear to Maison Latour, and I push the envelope deeper into my purse as I try to push the guilt of that thought out of my mind.

  “Cain did say to buy something pretty with it,” Nicole reminds me. I roll my eyes at her, but I realize that I am probably going to have to do just what she’s suggesting. It feels so wrong to spend Cain’s money on a dress to wear for another guy that to rationalize it, I start dredging up all of the anger and resentment I’ve felt over the past week, reminding myself that helping a drunk freshman get safely back to her dorm doesn’t make him a saint. It doesn’t mean he isn’t still a dog who thought a $1,000 tip would make my panties drop. He’s still the same man who probably has a bet with Steph to see who can nail me first, and now he wants to break me?

  You know what? Fuck him! Not only will I spend his money on a new dress for this date, I’ll buy something sexy as hell, and I hope the bastard just happens to be at Maison Latour to see it!

  Careful what you wish for, little girl, a voice in my head warns, and strangely, that voice sounds a lot like Cain Ballantyne.

  August 25

  Early Sunday afternoon, Nicole and I hit the mall in Mission Valley to find dresses for tonight. I don’t backslide at all, keeping my anger with Cain burning hot to allow me to spend his money without guilt, and though I would normally dread shopping, today for the first time ever, I don’t have to obsess over price tags. I actually enjoy myself.

  After mani-pedis, Nicole and I head home to get ready, and in my room alone I realize why this whole exercise is turning out to be such fun for me. This is the first time in my life that I have ever put so much effort and expense into a night out. I ran away from home before I had a chance to go to prom, and though I always claim that it’s not something I cared about missing, that’s not the truth. I was still in school when junior prom came around. I stayed at home that night, telling the kids at school I didn’t want to go because prom was stupid, but the truth is I didn’t go because nobody asked me. No one. And if not even one single guy at an insignificant New Orleans high school thought I was a worthy prom date, how could I not question the motives of someone like Cain Ballantyne?

  Evening of August 25

  In typical fashion, Nicole is still rushing to get ready to leave by 7:00 as I sit in my room tapping my freshly manicured nails on my desk. I went with my standard black on both my fingers and toes. In fact, I’m wearing all black - my dress, my shoes, my purse. I claim to think it complements me with my porcelain skin, dark brown eyes, and near-black hair, but the truth is that I like to blend in with the shadows. The Evan who bartends in bright red is more like a character I play.

  “You look like a vampire,” Nicole teases as I walk by her room.

  “I was actually going for just vamp,” I say with a laugh, indicating the front of my dress. It’s a black Jovani, long-sleeved with fabric all the way to the neck, but much of it is only a tight, black mesh that shades what would otherwise be a backless design with a plunging neckline. It’s risqué for me, but there’s something appealing to me about how it seems revealing and severe at the same time. I promised myself I’d punish Cain’s cockiness by spending his money to dress hot for my blind date, and I definitely kept my word.

  Then it happens. The knock at the door. Until now, this whole thing has just been an abstract concept, but as soon as I open that door and meet Jackson’s friend, it will be official. I’m nervous as I take a last look in the mirror and head to the door.

  “Jackson?” I ask, not making the connection between the guy standing right in front of me in the evening sunlight and the guy I saw across a dimly-lit bar two days ago. His hair is light brown hair, his eyes green, his suit grey, and he reminds me of someone.

  “Evan?” he asks, and I nod. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “You, too. Come on in. Nicole’s just finishing…” I trail off as she steps into the living room.

  “Nicole,” Jackson whispers her name as she enters the living room in her gorgeous pink mini dress. “You look…breathtaking,” he says, and even the thick shell around my awww reflex is breached as he seems so genuinely taken aback by her. With light blonde hair and tan skin, Nicole is dazzling, and sometimes I feel very pale in her shadow.

  “Thanks…uh…” Nicole says.

  “Jackson,” I whisper. She’s just taken aback by him, too. He’s handsome, perhaps a little old for her, but he couldn’t be more than thirty-five.

  “Shall we?” He offers her his arm. I follow, locking the door behind us, but as we approach the silver BMW, I become aware that my “date” is not there.

  “Toby got tied up at the office, so he’s meeting us at the restaurant,” Jackson explains.

  Toby and Jackson? Those aren’t typical California names. Sounds like Texas or someplace close to my old home state.

  “Oh,” I say as he opens the back door for me, and for the twenty minutes it takes to get to Maison Latour from La Mesa, I stress over the fact that my blind date has become more blind.

  What if Toby didn’t come to pick me up because he wants to scope me out first? What if he isn’t impressed and decides to bail before even meeting me? As I torment myself, every so often Jackson’s voice penetrates my private bubble of anxiety, and he sounds as familiar as he looks. It’s not the voice itself so much as the way he says certain words. Definitely not Texan. He sounds local.

  When we arrive, Jackson pulls up to the valet station yet insists on opening Nicole’s door himself. He’s a real gentleman, exactly what she likes, and she will be right at home here amongst all the finery. As for me, I’ll pull it off, knowing which fork to use from years of waitressing in upscale restaurants and how to pronounce the French words on the menu from my childhood in Louisiana, but I would much rather be in a more private setting, someplace dimly lit with more ambient noise drowning out my thoughts.

  As we follow the Maître d’ into the dining room and past the lone, baby grand piano, everyone whispers their conversations at tables covered in crisp, white table cloths, but I don’t see a single table anywhere with a man sitting by himself.

  Fantastic. Now I get to sit around like a third wheel and wait for What’s-His-Fuck to show up, I think, but he doesn’t seat us in here. We’re led beyond this dining room and into another where the booths are separated by thick wooden panels with decorative accordion doors along the fronts for privacy. Though I should feel more at ease in here as a piano and violin play louder, after the Maître d’ seats Jackson and Nicole and leads me away, my anxiety shoots through the roof.

  He escorts me to the corner booth, pulling back one side of the closed doors for me, and to my surprise I find Toby already seated inside, an open menu suspiciously blocking his face. The Maître d’ places the napkin in my lap and lights the candle, and a hand with manicured fingers reaches out from behind the menu, discretely passing him a tip before he leaves, closing the door. Only then does Toby lay the menu down, and I have all of my questions answered…why he didn’t meet us at the house…why he was sitting in near darkness…why he had a menu blocking his face. All of these tricks were designed to hide a certain, familiar smug grin.

  “Playboy,” I hiss.

  “Ice Queen,” C
ain fires back.

  “Toby…Tolbert.” I pronounce it with a French inflection, irritated with myself for being so stupid.

  “It’s just Tolbert. Anglicized, I’m afraid,” he corrects me.

  Tolbert like the high rise in downtown San Diego? I wonder.

  “My mother’s maiden name is Tolbert,” I say.

  “Is it?”

  “Yeah. I’m from New Orleans. Just about everyone I know there has a French last name. Where did you get it?”

  “My grandfather named me, but it’s nowhere in the family tree if that’s what you’re worried about,” he says.

  “I’m more worried about being so easily deceived tonight, but I have to give you credit. I did not see this coming.”

  “But it was a pleasant surprise,” he says, his eyes fixed and smiling.

  “We’ll see,” I say as he reaches for the bottle of wine, already chilling in an ice bucket on the table.

  “Would you like some wine?” Cain offers.

  “Would you like to explain why you’ve had me brought here under false pretenses?” I ask, ignoring his offer, and he pours himself a glass.

  “I wanted to take you out.”

  “Usually when a man wants to take a lady out, he asks,” I say.

  “And usually when I ask a lady out, she accepts, but I can tell that the usual is going to do me no good at all with you.” I laugh. He’s right, and though I should be pissed at him for tricking me, I’m secretly glad he did. This way I never have to admit that I wanted to have dinner with him, therefore if he turns out to be exactly what I think he is, I won’t have to be embarrassed in front of the universe at large for unrealistically expecting that a man like Cain Ballantyne would actually be interested in me.

  “So I guess Nicole’s in on this, too?” I ask.

  “Nicole and my brother.”

  “Jackson’s your brother?” I knew there was something familiar about him, but I would never have guessed him for Cain’s brother. Cain is a head taller, his hair and complexion are much fairer, and Jackson doesn’t have Cain’s perfect cheekbones, that subtle hint of a cleft in his chin, or the dimple on right side of his face that shows faintly when he smiles. Maybe they’re half brothers?

  “Caleb. Jackson is his middle name,” Cain explains.

  “Of course it is, Toby. God, I don’t know how I missed that,” I grumble.

  “You missed it because you wanted to miss it.”

  “Maybe I missed it because Nicole was so excited to be going on a date with your brother.”

  “I doubt that. Caleb’s married.” He pauses for a second. “To a harpy.” It makes me giggle.

  “That’s a shame. He seems like a nice guy,” I say, “but I don’t want to talk about your brother. I want to talk about you and how you can’t just go around taking what you want without asking.”

  “Forgive me. Evan Lucien, will you have dinner with me?” Cain asks, playing the consummate gentleman.

  “Well, since I’m already here and in this lovely dress some preposterously generous tipper provided, I suppose I can’t refuse.”

  “It is a lovely dress, and you look positively stunning.”

  “So do you.” I say it as if I’m teasing in order to avoid having to properly accept his compliment, but it’s still true. He looks amazing in his perfectly tailored, black suit jacket and a black, cleric-collared shirt, his eyes green in the candlelight. Cain isn’t just handsome. He’s exquisite, and as much as I want to be angry with him over this, I can’t even maintain a decent level of irritation as I’m mesmerized by the graceful seduction in every move he makes.

  Our waitress knocks, and when Cain invites her to enter, she goes over today’s specials as she looks at him like he’s on the menu. He doesn’t notice, looking only at me even when he speaks to her, which I would consider incredibly rude if I were in her shoes, but she’s more interested in being in mine, so busy undressing him with her eyes that she nearly misses as she picks up the bottle of wine and fills my glass without asking. Just as oblivious myself, I take a sip. It’s Sauvignon Blanc, my go-to wine.

  “Do you like the wine?” Cain asks when our gawking waitress is finally gone.

  “It’s my favorite.”

  “I know.” There’s that smug grin.

  “It isn’t fair that you know so much about me when I know so little about you.”

  “Ask me anything,” he offers, and I do. The appetizer is delivered, and as we share the escargot, another of my favorites, Cain becomes an open book to me. I learn that his family is from La Jolla, and he’s the middle child of three boys. Caleb is his older brother, and his younger brother, Cary was with Cain and Steph at Prometheus the night I met him. Now it makes sense. Cary is the reason “Jackson” looked so familiar to me, but I didn’t put it together because they’re ten years apart in age.

  “So Evan,” Cain says after we finish dinner and order dessert. “Isn’t it time you told me why I had to plan an elaborate ruse to get you to go out with me?” I can tell he’s not used to rejection. I saw it at Prometheus as women seemed drawn to him like moths to a flame and here by the way our waitress and other female staff members have checked on us at an inordinate frequency. It’s unnerving, and though I kind of like the idea of being with a man that other women wish they could have, I can’t shake the feeling that the same women walk away wondering what on Earth a man who looks like Cain sees in me, which only amplifies the reasons he’s waiting with bated breath to hear.

  “Why didn’t I want to go out with you…hmmm…aside from the obvious?” I ask. He gives me a calculated, blank stare, forcing me to elaborate. “For one thing, we’re from very different worlds.”

  “Don’t be absurd. We’re human. I’m male. You’re female. I like women. I assume you like men…”

  “Yes, I like men,” I say with an eye roll.

  “Because if you like women, too, I’m more than okay with that.” He makes me laugh, but the question is still out there waiting for me and he is not going to let me off the hook so easily.

  “So what is it, Evan? What is it that is making your mouth say ‘no’ when every other part of you is screaming ‘yes’?”

  “Screaming?”

  “Screaming.”

  “Cain…I….I just don’t date. I’ve sworn off men until I finish my education.”

  “A woman who looks like you and doesn’t date is a crime against all mankind,” he says, and I roll my eyes again, ignoring his compliment. “Why?”

  “I have my future mapped out, and I just don’t have time for a man in it,” I tell him.

  “Come on, Evan. You’re not being honest.”

  “And how would you know?” I ask, irritated because he’s right. I’m speaking in half truths, not wanting to face the reality of why I won’t give him a chance. He doesn’t answer me, just looking at me with those mesmerizing eyes, and taken in by his beauty, I crumble.

  “Okay, you’re right,” I admit. “There is more to it, but it’s not suitable first date conversation.”

  “Is this a first date?” he asks.

  “Cain…” I sigh. What can I say? I do want it to be the first of many, but no matter what path I take when trying to extrapolate any sort of future with him, even short term, it does not end well. “You have no idea what you’re asking for.”

  “I’m only asking for a second date.”

  “That isn’t what I meant. It’s just that…let me put it this way. I can’t tell you what my reasons are, but I can promise you that you would understand if you knew.”

  “You realize that you’ve only intrigued me?”

  “Trust me,” I say. “I’m not that interesting, but if you’re determined to learn that the hard way, we can be friends.”

  Really, Evan? What a fucking stupid thing to say! I know damn well I can’t be his friend, but while my head tries to force me to run screaming, my body refuses to ever take another chance that he will walk out of my life because of my hang-ups and defense mechani
sms. Offering to be his friend is just noncommittal enough to make my head compromise.

  “I’ll give it a shot,” he says, his dissatisfaction evident as the crème caramel is delivered by our giggly waitress, whose shameless lust only reminds me why I’m so afraid of Cain, and I decide that I would be better off to ride home with Caleb and Nicole. I excuse myself, but when I get to their table, I find that it has already been cleared and reset. In the ladies’ room, I try calling her, but she doesn’t answer.

  Great! Not only has she set me up, she has left me stranded. I’ll bet she had Caleb take her home early so she could already be faking sleep by the time I get home.

  You’ll have to wake up sometime, traitor!

  As we leave the restaurant with the illusion that the pressure is off, I ask Cain why he was at Prometheus the night he drove Drunk Girl home, and he tells me that his company, CTB Inc. has been engaged to help Steph establish a chain of nightclubs, though it’s more of a favor as acquisitioning night clubs is not what his company generally does. Still, it explains why Cain was with Dave and, more importantly, why he was with an asshole like Steph, but before he explains what his company generally does, we come to the car.

  “This is your car?” I ask, looking him up and down in his expensive suit with a raised eyebrow as he opens the door of an older model Toyota parked at the back of the lot.

  “Do you like it?” he asks.

  “It’s fine. It just isn’t what I expected of you.”

  “Well, since I have agreed to be your friend and am no longer overtly trying to seduce you, I may as well be honest. I borrowed it from my administrative assistant.”

  “And how was this car supposed to seduce me?” I ask as he gets in and starts the engine.

  “It’s just a prop. After the way you reacted to the limousine, I…”

  “So it was yours?”

  “What’s important is what it makes you think of me. I didn’t want to offend you with the car I drive,” he says as he pulls onto the road heading toward the 805.