His face goes a little red, and I can only hope it’s from the realization that he just equated what I do with organized crime. I might just end up going home alone tonight.
“I’m very sorry,” he says. “I was only joking.”
“Right,” I say and turn back toward the bartender. “Could I get another tequila sunrise?”
I turn back toward this handsome, if a bit precocious rogue, wondering if he’s going to pick up the tab for that one as well.
He doesn’t.
“You know,” he says, “I had a roommate once who loved tequila sunrises, too.”
Oh, watch your step.
“Yeah?” I ask. “She sounds utterly delightful.”
“Oh, she is,” he says. “I mean, she was.” He leans in close to me and says, “Do I go present or past-tense there?”
“I really don’t care,” I whisper back.
For a man so evidently skilled at picking up women, he’s really putting on a lackluster performance. And I was so hoping to find out exactly what it is that he said to those women to get them to go home with him so quickly.
Then again, I don’t really want to be just another pickup to him.
I may have unwittingly placed us both in a quagmire.
We sit awkwardly a moment.
“You know,” he says, “I think I’m doing you a disservice here.”
“Are you, now?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “I came over here trying to be Mr. Polite while trying to spare you some of my more potent charms.”
I can’t not laugh.
“Oh really?” I ask. “So, you’re telling me that if you were to really turn it on, I’d be sexual putty in your hands. Is that about right?”
“No about,” he says. “That’s exactly right.”
“Now this, I have to hear.”
“All right,” he says, “but it’s probably going to take another approach. If I just keep sitting here and turn it on, it’s going to make this whole conversation lopsided. Therefore—”
“Therefore, you want to start an entirely new conversation?” I ask.
“Yep,” he says, getting up from his bar stool. “We’ll give it, say, five minutes. Don’t go anywhere.”
Either he’s really this clumsy or this is just another part of his play. It doesn’t really matter to me; I’m finding this rather amusing.
Dane is barely out of my sight when I feel someone tapping me on the shoulder. I turn around, ready to ask how he made it so quickly to the other side of me, but it’s not him standing there.
“You’re Leila, right?”
“Yeah,” I say, using nearly all of my focus and willpower to prevent my eyes from rolling. “And you’re Wrigley.”
“Yeah,” she says. “I didn’t know if you’d remember me.”
“Well, seeing a person’s vag before seeing her face has a way of leaving an impression,” I answer.
She smiles.
“I just wanted to let you know that I know you and Dane are having a thing right now, but he really dropped the ball with me,” she says. “I’d really prefer to leave you out of it, but I’d keep my head down if I were you.”
“Excuse me?”
“Whatever happens, just stay out of my way: that’s all I wanted to tell you.”
“Listen, razor burn,” I start, “I don’t know who you think you are, but you don’t get to tell me anything about anything. I get that you and Dane used to be fuck buddies or whatever, but maybe it’s time to open your legs for someone else.”
I don’t usually talk that way, but I can’t help but feel a bit proud of myself.
Then it occurs to me that I’d probably lose and lose terribly in a fight with this chick.
Now, I’m not feeling so well.
It takes her that long before she reacts. “You’ve got quite the mouth on you for a virgin,” she says. “Anyway, I didn’t come over here to threaten you. I just wanted to let you know that, whatever happens to Dane, you might want to keep your distance for a while.”
“In what way is that not a threat?” I ask. “Just what exactly are you planning to do to him?”
“Nothing he doesn’t deserve,” she says. “I told him to find out whether his feelings for you meant anything or if he was just hard for the roommate experience. I didn’t tell him to fall in whatever and stop attending his responsibilities.”
“His responsibilities?” I ask. “And just what in the hell might those be?”
I’m starting to wonder where Dane is.
He’d better have a really solid excuse for leaving me to deal with this skank bag.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “He may not take me very seriously, but he will. You should probably start taking me seriously, yourself.”
“How exactly am I supposed to do that?” I ask. “You were classier when you weren’t wearing pants.”
She smiles at me again, and I’m thinking seriously about smashing my glass over her stupid head.
“I think we’re getting off to the wrong foot here,” she says. “After all, I was rooting for you. I just don’t like that Dane thinks he just gets to up and abandon me in the process.”
“What did you expect?” I ask. “Did you think he’d just start seeing me and not bother breaking up with you?”
“Oh, we weren’t in a relationship,” she says. “Not really. It doesn’t matter. What we did have was the kind of thing a person only finds a few times in a lifetime if they’re lucky.”
“And what was that?” I ask.
“A sexual relationship that didn’t bore me after a couple of weeks,” she answers. “I get that you two are all googly-eyed or whatever, but that’s not what makes a relationship last.”
“Oh? And what, oh great love guru, does make a relationship last?” I mock.
“Fucking sexual compatibility,” she says. “Finding someone that knows exactly how to get you off—that’s what makes a relationship last. It’s not something that a person just has with everyone. It’s like emotional compatibility, only less full of the lies and nonsense and all the bullshit expectations. Sex is honest. Emotions are the fucking lies.”
“I’ll take that under consideration,” I tell her, “but for now, I’d appreciate it if you’d get the hell away from me.”
She holds up her hands, palms toward me.
“Calm down,” she says. “I’m not here to ruin your evening.”
“Bye.”
She finally stops trying to teach me what’s really important in life and walks away.
As for me, I’m fuming as I down the rest of my drink. I think about ordering another, but really can’t see the point. Knowing me, I’ll just end up doing something embarrassing and tomorrow I’ll be twice as upset about everything as I am now.
When Dane walks over, I try to be attentive, to seem interested, but that redheaded idiot has succeeded in ruining my mood.
He asks me what’s wrong, but I’d just as soon forget that beast ever walked in here. I just tell him that I’m not feeling so well and ask if we can do this another time.
I’m not mad at him, though, even though that would make my life a little easier in the extreme short-term. Wrigley made it pretty clear that the two of them are no longer seeing one another and that’s really all I need to know about it.
Still, I’m not about to forgive her for ruining what was supposed to be a fantastic evening.
He takes me home, and I tell him that I just need some sleep.
I don’t close my eyes longer than a blink all night.
Chapter Eighteen
Borders
Dane
So, last night was a bust.
I don’t know what happened, but I’m pretty confident it didn’t have anything to do with Leila suddenly becoming ill. For now, though, I’ll just let it slide.
She’s already off to work by the time I come out of my room—I should really ask her whether she thinks we really need to sleep in separate rooms. With as close as we’ve been over the last few days, it doesn’t make much sense to create that artificial barrier.
C’est la vie.
I shower and shave and perform the rest of my morning ablutions. I’ve been doing the purchasing, but today Wilks loses his training wheels.