"What can I get you?" the bartender asked into the tense silence, having that perfect timing of a man who had been in the industry - and had seen more than his fair share of drunken assholes - for his entire career.
"Edison here drinks the evil stuff," Lenny informed him, drawing my attention back to her, seeing her cheeks already going a little pink. I'd been around a lot of liquor - and drunk women - in my life. And if there was one phrase that was true, as I had once heard in some ear-wig of a country song, tequila makes her clothes fall off. You couldn't be around a woman drinking tequila without seeing her stripping out of something.
"Is that right?" the bartender asked, producing vodka without having to ask, pouring it straight into a rocks glass, somehow knowing exactly how I drank it. You know, when I couldn't - as Lenny was currently doing - drink it straight from the bottle.
"Gimme the remote, Donald," she demanded, but did it with grabby hands that seemed almost out of character for her, leaving me to wonder if it was the tequila, or her simply liking the old man.
"No more of that satan crap," he told her as he pressed the remote into her hand.
Lenny rolled her eyes. "Can I help it if Marilyn Manson often suits my mood? No, I can't."
But she didn't turn on Manson; she found a classic rock station, and cranked it up, almost loud enough to make conversation impossible.
"Glad you could stop by," Meryl told me, moving to cup me on the shoulder before thinking better of it. "We can use some fresh blood in here."
"Yes, I think he gets it, boss," Lenny told him. "He really wants you to come back. And bring a dozen of your friends. Who will spend lots of money. And maybe if they are all as equally you know as you, that it might bring in a female crowd who would never normally come in a place like this."
"As equally as what as me?" I asked, wanting to hear her say it.
Her eyes rolled. "You know."
"Maybe I don't."
"Liar."
"Maybe you're too chickenshit to say it."
There it was.
I had her.
She even knew I had her.
But she couldn't let the challenge go anyway.
"As good-looking, you needy fuck," she told me with an eye roll.
"You're pretty good-looking yourself," I told her, clinking my glass to her bottle, then tipping it back for a drink.
"Don't bother," said some other random man at the bar, younger, with an edge to him, something inside telling me that, in this neighborhood, that meant he was likely involved with Third Street. "She's a dead fish."
It was none of my business, but I could feel my anger rise up.
"Don't," Lenny said over the brim of her bottle. "He's not worth it. Pretty sure your president wouldn't want you starting some underground war because that fuck is mad he couldn't get in my pants."
"Fair enough," I agreed. "Are you feeling better?" I asked without thinking, then immediately worried that she wouldn't want the reminder of this morning.
She surprised me by shrugging. "I was shaky for hours," she admitted. "Even after a shower, some food, and a nap."
"It's just the adrenaline. You'd have been better to take a walk, or clean your apartment. Something active. If it happens tomorrow, don't take a nap after."
It wasn't exactly subtle. I wanted to know if she planned to come to another class without outright asking her. I figured that I would get away with it when she was feeling the tequila.
"Good to know," she said simply. There was a long pause before she spoke again. "Can I try pressure points on you tomorrow? I think it would be more useful for me to learn how to use them than to know how to tolerate them."
"Useful for what?" I pried, wondering if she was drunk enough for that.
"I might be feeling this," she said, showing me the bottle she had already taken a healthy amount of liquid out of and into her bloodstream. "But I am not that girl."
"What girl?"
"The kind that spills her secrets when she is drunk."
"Nah," Meryl agreed, face red again, but this time from the whiskey he was downing like water. "She's not that kind of drunk girl."
"What kind of drunk girl is she then?" I asked.
"The kind that puts on old school rock or R&B and puts a show on for all the guys around."
"Is that right?" I asked Lenny who was mid-chug.
"I would deny it," she said when she swallowed. "But the last time I got drunk, Pony came on and I ground on that jackass," she confided, jerking her chin toward the gang member with the big mouth, allowing his comment to make a lot of sense. Drunk Lenny might have been willing to dance, but she didn't strike me as someone who made that poor a choice, no matter how wasted she was.
"So if I maybe went over there and put No Diggity on..."
She gave me something close - so damn close - to a smile at that, leaving me to wonder what it would take to make her smile, and how brilliant that would look on her gorgeous face. "I'm not that drunk yet," she informed me.
An hour later, though, she was.
That drunk, that is.
She had enough tequila in her system to keep a whole frat of girls silly and slutty all night.
Still, though, not a single smile.
She somehow managed to laugh at something Meryl had said to her without actually smiling.
She hadn't, though, as I had predicted, stripped out of any of her layers. She still had her damn motorcycle jacket on.
But she was currently moving toward the stereo, shaking her hips a little as she stood before it.
Not a minute later, I heard it.
No Diggity.
When I looked again, she was standing in the middle of the makeshift dance floor, head tipped to the side, challenge in her eyes.
And, well, she wasn't the only one who had a hard time backing down from one.
Besides, was there really any way to back down from a situation that might end up with her, as Meryl had suggested, grinding on me.
I could never claim to be much of a dancer, but when a beautiful woman wanted you to dance with her, you fucking danced. Case closed.
I tipped back the rest of the drink - my first and only - and made my way over toward her.
She didn't come to me.
Hardass to the core, she stood there with her chin raised, waiting for me to come to her.
So, of course, I did, moving in until my front brushed hers, feeling her breasts - free of a bra - slide across my chest. My arm moved around her lower back, pulling her hips flush against mine, and I didn't imagine it when her breath whooshed out of her on a slight gasp.
One of her arms raised, the hand hovering for a second before sliding over my chest then around my neck.
"This doesn't mean what you think it means."
"And what do you think I think it means?" I asked, reaching out with my free hand to swipe her hair behind her ear.
"You think I want to fuck you," she said, always choosing blunt over coy, something a man had to appreciate.
"I know you want to fuck me," I told her, ducking my head down slightly, keeping my voice low even though the music was high enough to guarantee the sound wouldn't travel. "But this is just a dance. I get that."
"I never said I wanted to fuck you."
"Love," I started, turning her slightly so that no one at the bar would see when my hand slid up, brushing the side of her breast. "All I have to do is this," I told her as my fingers slipped out, very nearly brushing her nipple, "and you shiver."
As if on cue, she did.
And this time, with her facing me, I got to watch the way her eyes went heavy-lidded, how her lips parted slightly.
Seeming to notice how my focus went to her mouth, she pressed in even closer, going up on her toes a bit, her mouth getting closer to mine.
I wanted it too.
That was the worst part.
I fucking wanted it.
But she was drunk.
And I had rules.
I shook my
head as she got closer, an action that seemed to have the same effect as if I doused her in ice water, making her shock back so hard that if I weren't holding her so close, she would have broken all contact.
There was offense in her eyes, along with anger and, if I wasn't mistaken, a tiny sliver of hurt.
"When I kiss you, Lenny, I want you to remember it. And not regret it. It can't be like this."
"Fine," she hissed, jerking back harder, digging her nails into the wrist of the arm that was still around her, making me let her go. "Your loss."
With that, she turned on her heel, walking away, grabbing her bottle of tequila, and moving over to the far end of the bar to strike up a conversation with a quiet man who had been nursing a ginger ale all night.
It would seem weird if I hadn't come across men like him before. The clean ones. The ones that broke the addiction, but couldn't shake the habit.
I spent the next few hours being asked a shitton of questions, mostly by Meryl who was clearly wearing his business cap this evening.
It wasn't until she stood up and declared while slamming the empty bottle of tequila down on the counter, "Okay. That's it. I'll see most of you tomorrow."
I wondered if I was included in that or not, given the course of the night.
But then my attention was on the way she wasn't walking straight.
"She's not driving, is she?" I asked Meryl as I watched her back.
"Nah. She's too smart for that. She's walking."
"In this neighborhood? At night?" I asked, my voice clearly taking on an angry tone. There was clueless and then there was careless. Meryl was being the latter of the two.
"Think she's any safer with one of these fucks escorting her?" he asked, waving to all his patrons.
"No," I conceded. "But she would be with you."
"But here I am with a business to run. And she nearly killed me the last time I offered to get her a cab."
I could hear the front door open and close again. Before I knew it, I was on my feet, slamming a fifty on the bar as a tip on my free drink, then following her out.
"Gary, fuck off!" Lenny called without turning around. She walked for a few yards before she reached the end of the working streetlights, bending down suddenly to reach inside her boot where, I imagined, the switchblade was currently situated.
But crouching wasn't a great idea when you were drunk, and she began falling backward, sure to end up flat on the dirty sidewalk. But I was right behind her, hands going under her underarms, grabbing her, holding all her - not very considerable - weight for a long second. "Ugh, you," she said, tilting her head back to look up at me. "What are you doing here?"
"Walking you home."
"I am hardly a girl in need of an escort. I can take care of myself."
"Normally, I wouldn't doubt you. But I want to make sure you get there safely." I helped her back onto her feet.
"Fine," she conceded, straightening her jacket, then reaching to zipper it, hunching into the warmth. "I could drive you so you're not cold," I offered, getting only a grumble from her as she started walking again, a little straighter and sure-footed this time.
I bit back a curse when she moved to run across the street toward an apartment building, one I was familiar with because of what syndicate operated there.
Of fucking course she would be living in the Third Street building instead of, say, the much safer one owned by Shane Mallick.
"Alright. I'm here. I'm safe. This is where I am supposed to say 'thank you.'"
But not actually say it.
"What?" she asked, raking a hand through her hair, making it rearrange, falling softly to frame her face again. "Seriously? You're going to do the door thing?" she asked, looking at me like I had sprouted another head. "Fine. Let's go then," she demanded, waving a hand to the door that didn't even lock.
She took me up the stairs because, apparently, the elevator made a churning sound that reminded her of the old movie cliche of them plummeting, and she'd much rather trip over the junkies passed out in the stairwell and avert her eyes from the Johns getting blowjobs from the hookers who were looking to get in from the cold for a bit.
I had thought she was exaggerating, but we absolutely had to step over two junkies, one passed out, one in the process of shooting up. I didn't see - or hear - any Johns getting sucked off, thank God, but I didn't doubt her anymore about the validity of that claim.
"Okay, this is me," she informed me, stabbing her key into her lock. "I do not need you to come in and inspect things. Good night, Edison."
"I'll see you tomorrow, love," I offered, waiting for her to close herself inside and slide the locks.
On the cold walk back to my SUV, I had the strange, distinct feeling that things had just changed.
Why they had changed, and what change that was exactly was beyond me.
But there was no shaking the sensation.
I couldn't wait to see what the next day would hold.
FIVE
Lenny
I woke up with my mouth tasting like yesterday's news, on my couch, Docs still on, one arm still stabbed into the sleeve of my jacket that I had half-dragged over myself like a blanket.
There was a slight jackhammer sensation in my temples, and a general dryness to my mouth, skin, and eyes. But it was nothing like the raging hangovers other people would have having drunk half as much alcohol as I had last night. You couldn't drink like I occasionally drank if you were laid up for a whole day after, nursing a migraine, mainlining Gatorade, and trying to soak up the booze with grease and carbs.
Me, I needed a shower, a tooth-brushing, a cup of coffee, and a glass of water, and I was fresh as a daisy.
But none of those little remedies could take the memories out of my brain, and I suddenly found myself a little jealous of blackout drunks who weren't plagued with their bad decisions the next day.
Because, what the hell had I been thinking?
Okay, well, I knew it the second that the tequila hit my tongue that I would likely do something I would at least roll my eyes over the next day.
I hadn't planned on trying to freaking kiss Edison.
That was other-level stupid.
Just normally.
But especially so when I had to get up and face him this morning for training.
I had a feeling it wasn't going to be something that stayed as a tequila-soaked memory. Edison's words had stuck with me too.
He didn't say if about kissing me.
He said when.
He planned on revisiting the events of the night before, but in the stone-cold sober light of day.
Christ, maybe even today.
Ugh.
Like I needed that thought in my head.
Today of all days.
That was the only reason I had agreed to be stupid and take Meryl up on the offer of booze. I knew today was going to be hard. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays were always hard. The worst, actually.
Usually, I tried to train extra hard before I went, tried to get the excess energy out, tried to exhaust my body in the hopes that it would be cathartic emotionally.
It really didn't work at all, but I kept hoping.
Hell, if nothing else, when I went into work arched over like an old lady with whole-body arthritis, the guys there tended to overlook the fact that my eyes looked red and swollen.
The tequila was just a way to forget for a little while, to get rid of some of the stress that I carried with me every second of every day.
If I made some stupid choices while escaping, well, I guess that was a fair trade.
At least I didn't sleep with him.
First time I get laid in about a year, yeah, I wanted to be able to enjoy that with a clear head.
If I were being honest with myself, I would admit that Edison was totally the man I would love to break my dry spell.
The why could be looked at shallowly or with depth.
He was hot. Case closed.
But also, there was ju
st something there. There was a connection. There was the odd feeling like maybe, just maybe, he got me.
No one ever got me.
Hell, people barely even tolerated me.
I didn't even blame them for that.
I was a bitter shot to take with no salt or sugar.
I certainly never thought any less of you if you didn't want to be around me for any longer than was absolutely necessary. And very few people would even want to put up with me.
Meryl did for who-knew-what reason.
Maybe just because I was the only woman willing to work there, and he liked seeing tits and ass around. Maybe it was more. I didn't know.
I couldn't, however, figure out what the deal was with Edison.
He could have literally any woman.
Why would he bother with little ole damaged me?
It was a question that was not answered a few hours later, after having spent another hour with him, this time being the one inflicting pain that he took with an admirable hiss when I had cussed him savagely.
He said nothing at all about the night before. In fact, it was like nothing at all happened.
For reasons I was choosing not to analyze, I was somehow offended by that.
I tried to shrug it off as I went home for a quick shower and change.
I didn't eat.
I couldn't eat.
I almost never did on these days.
The visiting days.
My stomach rolled too much to even entertain the idea. Before or after.
The drive was one I could do in my sleep, having done it every single day for three months, then three days a week for the next three months. It was a drive I was maybe terrified never to do again, no matter how much it made my gut hurt, how much it made my heart crush to dust in my chest.
The drive would be easier to accept than the reason I would no longer have to make it anymore.
I parked in the lot, taking my ticket, pocketing it in a way that was all-too-familiar. Taking a deep breath, I pulled the sour and salt scent of the Navesink River into my chest, hoping it could steady me as I let myself in through the revolving doors big enough to fit a small bridal party in each little section.
Edison Page 6
