Cassie mock-palms her own face.
“What do you mean I’m lying? I do so not lie. I don’t have to prove anything to you. So what if I come to your party alone? It doesn’t mean I’m a frigid old maid. Puh-leez. OK, OK, OK, I’m coming this weekend. Yes, alone because my rich boyfriend is in Tokyo. Yeah, text me the details and spare me the snark. Goodbye.”
Sam clicks off.
“Oooh, can you believe that witch? She’s been such a putz to me since the day she was born and dropped her dirty diaper on my head. Now all I have to do is find some hunky guy photos to put on my cellphone display by this weekend, and that’ll fend her off for another week. Or two.”
“Sam, you told Lori the guy is your fucking boyfriend. That’s huge.”
“So what if I told her that? We’ll be breaking up by next Monday. That’ll be an angle in line with my life story, seeing the way I seem to be fucking up all my relationships. Hey, where’s my coffee?”
“You didn’t order it.”
“Damn, I knew something was missing in my life.”
Cassie smiles and grasps one of Sam’s hands. “Hey, kiddo. You don’t need a man to complete your life. That’s what you’ve been saying all this time to me, remember?”
“Yeah, I know.” Sam signals the waiter. “One black Americano, please. No sugar.” She turns back to Cassie. “But now and then … it’s kinda nice to have a pretend boyfriend. You know, the kind you can borrow for a weekend party or some office function or some high school reunion . And return him on Monday to wherever he came from.”
Cassie laughs. “Hell, you’d probably have to pay for that. He’s called an escort. A discreet term for gigolo.”
“Well, sure, and he doesn’t even have to bang me.”
“Girl, sex has gotta be the best part about a hiring a gigolo.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Then what is? The scintillating conversation? The recount of experiences past shared?”
The waiter comes back with the coffee. He’s has a brown mop for hair and dimples. He says, flashing a grin, “One black Americano, no sugar. Would that be all, Miss?”
Cassie says, “You’re kinda cute. You don’t happen to have anything on this weekend, do you?”
“Excuse me?” The waiter raises a quizzical brow.
“Um, she was just kidding.” Sam shoots her best friend a glare. As the waiter knowingly walks away, she hisses, “Don’t embarrass me.”
“Honey, you’re gonna be plenty embarrassed this weekend when your sister discovers you don’t really have a boyfriend, hot photos downloaded from Fotolia notwithstanding.”
Sam sighs and she grips her coffee mug. “I know.”
2
“Take it,” Brian Morton says to his best friend, Caleb.
“I can’t take your money.”
Brian rolls his eyes. “There’s plenty of it where it came from.”
“Brian, I know your family owns Morton Enterprise Ltd., but this is my Mom we’re talking about. I can’t take your money to pay off her mortgage.”
“If you don’t, the bank is going to foreclose and she’d be out in the streets. You’ll be forced to take her into your apartment and she’s gonna seriously cramp your sex life.”
“Or the lack of it.” Caleb bends over mutinously with his cue to aim a ball into the right hand corner pocket of the pool table. He misses. “Damn.”
Brian looks up to see a redhead at the bar eyeing him. Her eyes roam appreciatively up and down his leather jacket clad body. So what’s new? He gets looks like that from women and quite a few men all the time. With his striking features and six-foot-two frame, he cuts quite a figure in the smoky barfly crowd.
He blows the top of his cue and strides to the other side of the table.
“Think of it as a loan,” he says. “You can pay me back… with interest.”
The white ball strikes a green ball and the latter rolls into the middle pocket.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Cut it out, Brian. I’m not taking your money and that’s final. I don’t need you to bail me out every time I’ve got a problem.”
Brian shoots a yellow ball into a pocket. “I didn’t hear you complaining when I bailed you out from jail when you were caught with that underage hooker.”
“I thought she was nineteen! And I paid you back so that doesn’t count.”
The redhead at the bar is tweezing her hair. She licks her sultry lower lip. Brian grins as he bends over to sink yet another ball. At the doorway is another woman who is clearly making her intentions known to him. She’s a ballsy blonde type who looks like she can give amazing head.