…
“Well, this is turning into a real laugh a minute.” Dax plunked his empty glass on the bar at Edward’s.
“Sorry,” said Marcus, the CEO of the Rosemann Agency.
“Don’t be,” Dax said. “I started it.” And indeed he had, telling Jack and Marcus about how he’d thought he had an investor hooked for the restaurant app, and after weeks of wooing, the guy bailed. He was back to square one with the project. It was getting to him more than something like that usually would. Normally, he could shake off this kind of setback, but in recent weeks he’d been impatient, touchy…a real charmer, in short.
Normally, he wouldn’t have spoken so openly in front of Marcus. Dax and Jack were fairly tight, but Marcus, the third CEO from the forty-ninth floor, while not unfriendly, wasn’t really one to hang out. But he was glad the adman had decided to join them, because Marcus had suggested an intriguing lead, promising to introduce Dax to a friend whose holding company owned a bunch of restaurants. Then, to Dax’s utter shock, Marcus had launched into a harrowing tale about his mother’s recent death from breast cancer. Marcus hadn’t seemed like the kind of guy who was close to anyone, much less his mother.
Jack, of course, had not made an entry into the Sweepstakes of Woe. He was currently living the charmed life, both personally and professionally. In fact, as the drinks flowed, Dax had a fleeting thought of telling him about Amy. Just to see what he thought.
But he quashed the idea as soon as it arose. There was nothing to discuss. Amy was interested in hookups. So was he. And hookups didn’t last more than a couple of dates, so they were over.
“Let’s go somewhere else,” Jack said, looking at his phone. “Cassie’s at a karaoke bar.”
“I am not doing karaoke,” came Dax’s reflexive reply.
Jack raised his eyebrows. “And you think I am?”
“I don’t know,” Marcus said. “I can see you maybe rocking some Johnny Cash, Lou Reed. Something grumpy.”
Dax laughed. It was true. Historically, Jack had been kind of a grump. And as if on cue, his friend shot Marcus a quelling look. It was nice to know that although Cassie had lightened him up a lot, he hadn’t changed elementally.
“No singing,” Jack said. “But girls.” He grinned. “They have a way of lightening the mood, don’t you find?”
“I’m out,” Marcus said. “I believe a couple of my copywriters are at this karaoke extravaganza, and I make it a policy not to socialize with my employees.”
Dax rolled his eyes.
“We can’t all hang around coding with a bunch of bros all day,” Marcus said. “Anyway, I have a ton of work to do this weekend. We’re pitching on Burger Prince.”
“Well, that’s something new.” Jack delivered the barb with a smile. Marcus had been trying to diversify his client base. But the fast-food accounts, it seemed, just kept coming out of the woodwork.
“Hey, gotta pay the bills.”
Jack was already signaling the bartender for the check. “All right, let’s hit the road.”
He was assuming Dax was coming, obviously. Didn’t notice Dax hesitating. It was better to know, so he spoke up. “Do you think Amy’s with them?”
Jack’s head shot up from where he was signing for the drinks. “Why?”
Because he hadn’t spent nearly a month going out of his way to avoid seeing her at work only to run into her at ladies’ night. He shuddered to think what she might be wearing. To imagine the karaoke mike pressed up against her red lips.
“No reason.”
“Well, let’s go then.”
He was stuck. There was no credible way to beg off. And in truth, with a few beers in him, his defenses were down sufficiently that he didn’t want to.
“Where the hell is this place?” Dax asked once they’d been in the cab for a good fifteen minutes.
“Some dive in the burbs,” Jack said. “I know. They couldn’t just do karaoke at the Gladstone like normal people. Apparently this place is less overrun by—and I’m quoting Cassie here—hipsters doing ironic versions of Heart songs while inexplicably looking down their noses at unironic renditions of Katy Perry.”
Dax grinned despite himself. Sounded like it was right up Amy’s alley.
“So you and Amy seemed like you were pretty tight for a while there.”
“Yeah. She was helping me manipulate my mother into buying a condo.”
“I know, but weren’t you canoeing and stuff on the island, too?”
What was this? The Inquisition? But then he remembered that time Jack had caught them making out in the elevator. “Yeah, she came out a couple times.”