Wait for It by M O'Keefe

Author:M O'Keefe [O'Keefe, M]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780399593956
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2017-02-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Tiffany

He did have a drink. He had a drink and crystal glasses for the drink. And ice. He had ice in a car. The strange absurdity of it. The outright decadence of it was…giddy-making. It turned me around. It turned me inside out.

“What else have you got back here?” I asked, trying to get comfortable with the heavy glass in my hand and the soft leather at my back. I had my legs stretched out, careful that there was no chance any part of my body would accidentally brush any part of his.

“What would you like?”

“A shrimp ring?”

He smiled and poured more alcohol into another crystal tumbler. He’d taken off his jacket and now he just wore the vest with the shirt sleeves rolled up.

The forearms were out, like the man had no shame.

He looked like a bruiser in a turn-of-the-century crime drama, with the bruises and the muscles and the vest. He looked raw. And I felt raw, and the air I breathed felt like gasoline on the fire inside my body I wanted to pretend didn’t exist.

“No shrimp ring,” he said. “But I’m under orders from your sister to take you to Salsa’s for margaritas.”

“Oh, Salsa’s is good. Have you ever been?” As soon as I said it, I couldn’t quite imagine him in the quirky restaurant with its mismatched lights and the dandelions in jars on the table.

“No.”

“We don’t have to go there if you don’t want.”

“If it sounds good to you it sounds good to me.”

“You don’t care?“

“I’ve told you. Tonight is about you.”

I sighed and looked out the window, watching the neighborhoods increase in concrete as the buildings got bigger as we made our way downtown.

“You all had the stomach flu,” he said.

“Yeah. All weekend. It’s been…long.”

“And you do it all by yourself?”

“Is this your plea to let your mom know about the kids?”

His silence forced my attention back to him. “You are incredibly suspicious,” he said.

“That’s funny coming from you.”

“I have no ulterior motives with you, Tiffany. I have been up-front at every turn.”

He had. He really had. Between paying me to stay away and paying me for this date, he’d been nothing but honest. Cold and calculated, but honest. I had to give him that.

“You’re right. But most people aren’t.”

“That’s why I am. Cuts down on the drama. Rest assured, Tiffany, I will ask you for everything I want.”

Oh boy. He was talking about sex. That was a sex reference.

With a deep internal tremble, I took a sip of whiskey, holding it in my mouth for a moment before swallowing. The bartender at work had told me to do that. I could sense no appreciable difference.

“Were you alone all week?” he asked. “With everyone sick?”

“I’m not alone,” I said as if the realization was a surprise. “Not entirely. I have friends and my sister and a system that usually works. It just fell apart this week.”

In the quiet and safety and decadence of this car, my past week was actually funny now. Ridiculous in its hardship.

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