We’d get back to using each other soon enough. Just as soon as I had him convinced this naïve little small-town girl had finally gone loco on him. I had to be close after this past week.
I’d turned myself into a careless, irresponsible, completely helpless damsel in distress. I’d chosen Grand Central Station at one in the morning and Chinatown at midnight for Episodes Three and Four. I snickered, thinking maybe he’d finally had enough, but part of me didn’t want to stop. I was having too much fun.
He must have been questioning his own abilities as a Detective, because I hadn’t given the Brat Pack a single problem. Just him. He’d even called Gloria, asking if something had happened to me because I was acting strange.
Something had happened, all right. I’d successfully put him in his place, and he’d apparently moved on. I frowned. According to the Brat Pack, Dylan had a date. Penelope was a red-hot masseuse he’d been casually dating before I had invaded his life. But since I hadn’t agreed to “hang out with him,” he’d decided Penelope would do as a Valentine’s date.
Bet he wouldn’t be her friend tonight.
It shouldn’t have irritated me. I should have been glad he’d moved on in the dating department, but darn it, I wasn’t. So I’d found out where he was taking her, and I asked the Brat Pack to fix me up with my own date. If he could move on, hypothetically, then so could I. After all, we never were “really” dating.
Besides, tonight wasn’t about jealousy, it was about my final stand in the payback department. One final stand. That was it. Really. Sigh.
I didn’t believe me, either.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Figured, Dylan would take Penelope to Dominic’s. He only took me to his place. I guess that was all a hypothetical date warranted. No need to impress me before moving on to dessert, which was all I had been to begin with. Bart, my hot-beefcake-with-no-taste date, bypassed the valet and parked his pickup in a handicapped spot at the expensive restaurant.
I had to slam my shoulder into the truck’s rusted door three times before it opened, not that Beefcake would think to help me. He might have been attractive and packing some good-sized produce, but he couldn’t have had more than a peanut for a brain. Preppy Khaki Man must have chosen Crude Bart as his form of payback for the whole smelly-feet incident.
Bart tossed his key to the doorman who just blinked at him, then Bart sailed through the door and let it close in my face. I sighed. “Sorry.” I smiled at the doorman.
“No, problemo.” He pulled the door open wide.
“Thank you.” I walked into the restaurant, smoothing my hands down the front of the little red dress I’d borrowed from Gloria. The one that made her look like a goddess and me a two-bit hussy. Given my height, it barely covered my insecurity but showed off my legs perfectly. Only, Gloria’s breasts were so much bigger than mine. The neckline plunged well below my non-existent cleavage. I’d had to go without a bra and tape the red shimmery material to my nipples. I only hoped the overall effect would work on Dylan.
I wanted him to suffer.
Beefcake shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he stood in the lobby, waiting to be seated. “There you are. What took you so long?”
I stared at him, wanting to knock him upside the head. “I had a little problem with the door.”
“I know, man, that sucker was heavy.”
“Ya think?” I took a deep breath, putting Beefcake’s manner’s--or lack thereof--out of my mind as I searched the restaurant for Dylan.
“Be right back. I gotta go fill the pool,” Beefcake said.
“Huh?” I asked, still scanning the interior. “They have a pool?”
“You know. See a man about a one-eyed snake.”
I looked up at him, half listening. “What are you talking about?”
He gaped at me as though I were the one with the low IQ and spoke in a loud, slow voice. “Drain... the... main... vein.”
My eyes sprang wide. Good Lord, who talked like that on a first date? Who talked like that, period? “Couldn’t you have just said you needed to use the facilities?”
He stared at me blankly.
“The bathroom? The john? Never mind.” I shook my head. “I get it. Just go do your business.” He walked away, while I stepped out of line and waited for him on a bench in a cozy corner. The heels I wore were killing my feet. “Fixing me up with Bart was a good one, Khaki Man. I’d call that more than even,” I mumbled to myself as the restaurant door opened.
Dylan came in, followed by some blonde bombshell. I snatched up the menu beside me and sank low as I hid behind it. I peeked around the edge and watched the maitre d’ sit them at a table close by. Close enough for me to hear her high-pitched, nasal voice. I winced. And if I hid over by that fake tree, I could probably hear what they were saying.