Twice as Hot (Tales of an Extraordinary Girl #2)(69)

The brother across from me grinned - and disappeared. As I gaped, I directed my attention to the one to my left. He grinned - and disappeared. I stiffened, switching focus again. The brother to my right grinned - and disappeared. What...the...hell? A magic act? An illusion? But I'd seen and heard them all.

Only the brother in the middle, the one with the freckles, remained. He grinned, too, but didn't disappear.

"How did you do that?" I gasped out.

Before he could reply, the waitress arrived with our drinks. She didn't seem the least bit surprised that more than half of our table had vanished. Calmly she set the glasses on the tabletop, gulped one down herself, patted the remaining brother on the head and scampered away to take someone else's order.

My uninvited guest scooted a glass in my direction and downed one himself.

I took it, but didn't drink.

"We're different people," he said, pounding his empty glass on the table, "but we're trapped in the same body. Make sense?"

No. "Of course."

Laughing, the brothers materialized around the table one at a time until the entire eleven-member gang was there. What kind of power was this?

"We were born this way. Eleven minds in one body, though we're all allowed to come out and play at times. Now drink," Six said, lifting my glass to my lips.

"I really shouldn't." But I licked the rim and eyed the clear liquid. If I didn't drink it, I'd look like a prude and the boys would probably leave me. If they left me, I wouldn't be able to question them like a good agent should.

Question them...yes! That's exactly what I needed to do. Sitting here looking, well, slutty, wasn't exactly good agenting. Unlike Rome, who had dumped me here so he could chat up some dumb blonde, I would be a good agent.

"Come on." Eight. "You know you want to. All the cool kids are doing it." They laughed again.

"Well..." One shot wouldn't destroy me. I knew that, at least. Still...

"Don't be a downer."

Rome might have told me not to do this, but sometimes, to get results, rules had to be broken. "All right," I said. "Fine."

They cheered me on as I drained the shot.

The tequila burned my throat and settled like lead in my stomach. Had I eaten dinner? I didn't think so, and maybe that was a good thing. I didn't want to vomit. Thankfully, though, the burn subsided and the lead turned to jelly.

"That was good," I said on a cough.

More cheering.

"What's your name?" Ten asked me.

"Viper," I said. Rome hadn't given me a name to use, and I didn't want to offer the truth, but I didn't want to lie, either, and risk not answering when I was called.

"Cool. You're a snake-shifter, then. Show us!"

I shook my head, experienced a wave of dizziness. "I'm not a shifter." Eleven frowns greeted my announcement. "Then what are you?" Crap. I'd walked right into that one. "Pleasure Girl," I said with a smile.

There was another round of laughter, as I'd hoped. There was even some backslapping and high-fiving, like they knew they'd picked the right girl to accost. Good. I had them right where I'd wanted them.

Right? Because I needed to...what? I wanted to...Shit! I couldn't remember. And asking myself all these questions was -

Questions! Yes, that was it. I wanted to question them. "So. You boys come here a lot?" I propped my elbows on the table, hoping I looked like a rapt audience rather than the cheap drunk I was beginning to fear I was.

"Every weekend," Eleven said. "Now let's talk about you, Pleasure Girl. Tell us about your man. How long have you guys been together?"

"Not long," I said, refusing to give a number. Even though our courtship had been a whirlwind, it felt like we'd been together forever.

"Do you love him? Does he love you?"

To keep from having to answer, I picked up one of the still-full glasses and pretended to sip. The others, not wanting to be left out, threw back their drinks and ordered another round. As they waited, they talked among themselves and I was thankfully forgotten - though I still seemed to be the subject of their conversation, along with the waitress and every other female in the place.

"She's hot."

"I'd do her."

"What about her?"

I was getting whiplash looking from one to the other. A few times, their banter made me laugh out loud and I realized I liked them. They even reminded me a little of Tanner.

Two called Four a * and dared him to ask the waitress for a blow job. Six dropped a pocketful of pennies on the floor and bent down to "pick them up," but used his vantage point to peer up a woman's dress. Despite their antics, I didn't sense anything menacing about them - but then, let's face it, I was not always a great judge of character.

"Okay, stop," I said, and all of them faced me. "I can't keep thinking of you as One, Two, Three and so on. What are your names?"

"Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Roman, Corinthian, Gala, Ephesian, Philip and Crunch." As their names were called, they raised their hands. I'd never remember all of them. Fine. I'd go back to numbers.

My brow furrowed as something occurred to me. All were Biblical names but one. "Why Crunch?" The guy across from me leaned forward, the candlelight stroking his face. I noticed nothing different about him to set him apart from the others. Same puppy-dog eyes, same pretty face. "That's the sound bones make when I break them."