The Will(24)

When he lifted his impassive eyes to me, I greeted, “Hello, Jake.”

“She finally uses my name,” he muttered in return.

I pressed my lips tight, uncertain what to make of this.

“Got your message, babe,” he said.

Well, that didn’t take long.

“Good,” I replied quietly.

“Hauled your ass to a titty bar to see me,” he noted.

“Uh…yes,” I agreed to the obvious seeing as we were both standing outside said titty bar.

“Classed up the joint in there, Josie,” he went on to remark and I blinked.

“You saw me?”

“Got cameras everywhere, inside and out,” he stated, jerking his head toward the building.

“Of course. Yes. I noticed the ones outside. It’s quite good you have an eye to the security and safety for your establishment.”

His lips twitched before he returned, “Yeah, good for my establishment when drunk, horny *s wanna do shit that makes them even bigger *s, someone sees it, it stops before it starts.”

I found his comment intriguing and thus observed, “You seem not to have a great deal of respect for your clientele.”

“Most of them pay for their drinks, give the girls bills to pay for their show, got no problem with them. It’s the drunk, horny *s who suck.”

I would imagine this was true.

“Of course,” I murmured.

He said nothing, just held my eyes.

I found this uncomfortable and didn’t know how to begin to say all the things I needed to say.

Therefore, unfortunately, I decided to stall.

“Well, Jake, I don’t know if you have advisors that see to this kind of thing, I would guess you do as your club is quite refined, but I’d have a word with them, whoever they are. The redhead is very attractive but with her skin tone, a darker auburn would suit her far better. That said, she’d make a striking brunette.”

He stopped holding my eyes and started staring at me. There was a nuance of difference but I could sense that difference. Most definitely.

“And,” I sallied forth when he made no reply, “the blonde could use a keratin treatment. Her hair is remarkable but she’d find it much more manageable on a day to day basis and with her, well…moves, I believe she’d also find it quite beneficial with her…um, work.”

He again said nothing, simply kept staring at me.

I, for some unhinged reason, kept chattering.

“It was well-chosen, the platform pumps for your waitresses. Platforms elongate the legs beautifully but they’re also very comfortable. Further, they’re attractive.”

When I finished this inane statement, he burst out laughing, the deep richness of it ringing through the cool night air.

I decided again to press my lips together as this would stop me from speaking.

When he’d stopped laughing but was still smiling, he caught my eyes again and whispered, “Lydie was right. Adorable.”

“Pardon?”

“Nothin’, babe,” he murmured but his voice was stronger when he said, “You got something to say?”

Well, here it was. I could delay no more and not only couldn’t I, I shouldn’t as I was making a fool of myself.

“This morning I behaved badly—”

“Yeah,” he interrupted me, his voice gentle. “You mentioned that shit on the phone, Josie. Heard it. Got it. We can move on from that.”

That was very kind.

I nodded while taking in a deep breath.

Then I said, “I’d like for you to come to Lavender House for dinner tomorrow night.”

His head tipped to the side and he asked, “Yeah?”

“Yes, I think…” I hesitated then admitted, “Actually, I don’t know what I think except for the fact that you’re correct. Gran clearly very much wanted us to get to know each other and, well…we should do that.”

“Yeah,” he said again and it was gentle again. “We should.”

Now was the hard part.

“I, well…I’m just uncertain how she wanted us to get to know each other and we should probably discuss that. But I…well, that is to say I believe—”

“Babe,” he yet again interrupted and it was still gentle, but this time more so, “This is not that. You’re pretty, really f*ckin’ pretty, and you got a lot goin’ on and all of it’s real good. But you’re not my thing.”

I was confused.

“Your thing?”

“My type,” he explained. “I get off on big hair and big…” he hesitated, his lips again quirking before he continued, “other stuff and don’t mind my women showin’ skin. You’re a seriously good thing. You’re just not my thing.”

I understood what he meant and three seconds ago, if I was told I’d be given this knowledge, I would have guessed that I would find it a relief.

Having it, I didn’t feel relief. I felt a number of things but none of those things were relief. They were far from it. They included my brain again feeling fevered and my skin again prickling, all over, like jolts of electricity were dancing across the entirety of it. I wanted to claw at it, rip it off and this made all of it worse because I didn’t know why.