Under the Table(12)
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She watched the emotions play across his face. He was debating whether or not he wanted to open up. If he could trust her.
“You’ll think I’m an idiot.”
“Probably,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean you won’t feel better unloading. I already think you have a freaky Jekyll-and-Hyde thing going on.”
They exchanged small smiles, and the tension started to ease.
“Remember me mentioning I’m a terrible judge of character?”
“Of course.” She remembered the entire night from start to finish.
“My first stop in the States after my grandfather died wasn’t New York. It was Las Vegas.”
“You wanted to move there?”
“I was considering it. I thought it would be warm, which I was used to. I didn’t think it would be as hot as it was. There’s no ocean breezes in the desert. But I had heard it was amazing there, full of every sight and sound imaginable. I didn’t care all that much about gambling. There are casinos back home, though I could count on one hand the times I had been to them. But I had money to burn and wasn’t opposed to it either. I booked myself a fancy room at a ritzy hotel for an extended stay. I figured I’d take a little time to live the high life and splurge myself out of my grief.”
He paused. They sat alone together in silence until Zoey reached out, placing her hand on the butter-soft leather covering his leg. “That’s hardly a crime, Tristan. Even if you lost a fortune, it was yours to lose.”
“Agreed. But I don’t know, I didn’t expect so many people being rude and drunk and inappropriate. And everyone seemed to be with groups of other people they knew. Bachelor parties and brides wearing sashes and tiaras, all partying with their friends, having a blast. Extended families on vacations and reunions. Stuff I watched from the safety of a slot machine. I was in the adult entertainment capital of the world, and within two days I felt like I was alone on Mars.”
He began to frown. Zoey got it. It was a feeling she knew well.
“That night I went to the bar to have a nightcap. That’s when I met Veronica. She was beautiful, effervescent, friendly. I got up the nerve to nod in her direction and she struck up a conversation. Next thing I knew, I was buying her a drink and we ended up talking the rest of the night away. We started meeting every night at the bar, around the same time. We talked about deep and meaningful subjects. It was like she was reading my mind most of the time. I really felt a connection with her. I was smitten even before she turned on the flirting and touching.”
Zoey thought she would save him and cut directly to the chase. “Let me guess, she was a gold digger who took you for everything you had?”
He gave a pained shake of his head. “Not everything. Just the thousand dollars she said I owed her.”
“Oh, my God.” She raised a quick hand and added a cough to mask the laugh that escaped before adding, “She was a hooker.”
This time Tristan nodded. “She used the term call girl, which is kind of ironic, since I never got her phone number.”
“You knew prostitution is legal in Vegas, right?” Zoey felt so sorry for him.
“Yeah, but I thought you had to go to an actual bordello. It felt so natural being with her. When she suggested going back to my room to have sex, I couldn’t get her out of the bar fast enough. The whole elevator ride she was all over me. I thought I was the luckiest guy alive.”
“She didn’t make herself clear?” Zoey asked in disbelief. “Isn’t there some sort of protocol for those things? Like, don’t you have to agree to the price or something?”
He shrugged before returning all his concentration to his sock-covered big toe. “She may have, I don’t remember. I already felt guilty for having sex without any emotional commitment. As soon as it was over, she started putting her clothes back on. To lighten the blow, she told me she was giving me her discount rate because she had genuinely enjoyed talking to me. To say I was humiliated is an understatement.”
“So why did you pay her? You could’ve told her to get lost.” Zoey asked the question despite knowing the answer. He was a gentleman who sounded like he spent his young life taking orders like a good soldier.
“I was so mortified by my own stupidity, I just wanted to get her out of there. It was a small price to pay. What if she called the cops or made a scene? I would’ve died on the spot. And I’ve read stories about pimps. I don’t know if she had one, but I wasn’t willing to take the chance of finding out.”
“I forgot about them. Yeah, you did the right thing.” She wanted desperately to say something that would wipe the self-recrimination off his face.
“We used a condom, but I walked around for a year waiting to drop dead from some disease before I went to a doctor here in Manhattan and confessed. The only saving grace was what a nonissue the whole episode was to him. He told me with what he’d seen over his career, on a scale of one to ten, my story was a two.”
“You checked out okay, right?”
“I’m fine.” He tried to smile and shrugged again. “Still a pretty pathetic way to have your first sexual encounter.”
Oh, hell no! Zoey’s inner voice shouted. He was too nice a guy to have been dissed and dismissed in such a fashion. Did guys value their virginity the same way girls were supposed to? It didn’t matter what the correct answer was. She hadn’t known Tristan long, but she was sure he valued his.