CHAPTER TWELVE
Paolo
Over the next few weeks, I found myself more and more focused on Jelly Pinkoe.
I didn’t know exactly why, but I couldn’t get her out of my mind.
I saw her every day, almost all day. I was very impressed with her at work at the hospital, and I was becoming borderline obsessed with her every night at Sugar.
I knew it was turning into a problem, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself.
And it just got worse.
One day at the hospital, I was coming out front to let a pharmaceutical sales rep know that I couldn’t meet with him that day as we’d originally planned. I hadn’t anticipated that I’d also get a real look into how Jelly ran the front waiting room.
A woman had walked in holding a crying baby in one arm while pushing her other child in a wheelchair, his broken leg supported straight out in front of him. She was frazzled as she approached Jelly. In fact, she looked like she might cry.
I knew this family, of course. She was a single mom who had just gone through a divorce from a piece of shit guy who didn’t bother to show up for appointments even though his son had a complex fracture that was going to take multiple surgeries to fix.
“Hey there,” Jelly said, standing up and automatically reaching out for the baby. “Let me hold this big guy while you sign in.”
The baby immediately stopped crying as Jelly smiled down at him and bounced him on one hip. He reached up, grabbed her hair, and put it in his mouth. Jelly didn’t bat an eyelash. She turned to the wheelchair-bound kiddo, who always looked sad in my experience.
“How’s it going, little man?”
He grinned up at her, and I froze. I’d never seen him connect with someone before. “Pretty good, Jelly.”
He knew her name.
“That’s great,” she gave him a fist bump. “Are you ready to get your butt kicked in checkers again?”
“You wish,” he said a little shyly.
“Mama,” she turned to the frazzled lady. “You sit down and look through this,” she reached for something beside her and handed it to her. “It’s the new Vogue.” She leaned towards her. “No office germs yet. You’re the first to read it.”
“Are you sure?” the mom asked, looking like Jelly had offered her a free Hawaiian vacation.
“Absolutely. Kick back and relax. I’ve got these two cuties.
” She quickly ran the woman’s insurance card and driver’s license through the system and handed them back.
Then she came out from behind the reception desk and wheeled the patient over to the checkerboard.
She sat down and the two of them talked and laughed while they played checkers together.
The baby gurgled happily on her lap, and the mother was starting to look more composed as she got a break from her stressful life.
The sales rep and I just stared as this happened.
“I think I’m in love,” the rep said, not bothering to whisper. “Is she single?”
Jelly looked up, startled. She hadn’t realized we were there.
“She has a boyfriend,” I lied in a voice that I hoped was low enough not to carry.
He sighed. “Of course she does.” He turned to me and shook my hand. “Okay, doc. See you next week. I’ll bring lunch. How many should I buy for?”
“There are six of us in the office.”
He nodded, making a note in his phone. He turned back to stare at Jelly. “What, um, does the receptionist like to eat?”
“Italian,” I said grudgingly.
“Got it. See you then.” He wheeled his case behind him, giving Jelly a wave on his way out.
Instead of going back and having my nurse call the patient back, I just did it while I was there.
The mom stood, somewhat reluctant for her break to be over. Jelly handed over the baby, and the mom automatically kissed his head. “I’ve got this big guy, though,” Jelly said, pushing the wheelchair back to the exam room my nurse was waiting in front of.
I waited by the door to the reception area for her to come back. “That was really nice what you did.”
She shrugged. “It was no big deal.” She went immediately back to work on some files she was organizing.
There was something in the way she said it that made me believe her.
Jelly seemed kind of tough, but she wasn’t.
She’d made that family’s day so much easier, so much brighter, and it was just something basic for her.
I watched her work without realizing I was doing it.
“What are you doing?” she hissed out. “You’re being weird.”
“Sorry.” I came out of my Jelly fog and started to head back to the exam room.
“Oh, and I don’t have a boyfriend, by the way. And how did you know Italian is my favorite?”
I felt myself blush, and it startled me. I couldn’t remember the last time I blushed. Second grade, maybe? “Lucky guess,” I said softly and went about the rest of my day.
That night at Sugar, I watched her some more, of course. There she was, her gorgeous body on display for men to leer at like she was some doll, just some sexy toy they could try to lure into the VIP room.
But she was so much more.
I watched as she navigated tables, expertly dodging hands that lingered too long on her ass and looking back at those men with a flirty smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
I saw how she bent over enough to let the men see just how fantastic her tits were, but not so low they basically popped out of her corset top. She was a pro.
I saw what the men thought of her, too. Sure, they wanted to fuck her. Who wouldn’t? But it was more than that. They enjoyed her company—the way she said what she thought and didn’t overly protect their fragile egos, her sense of humor, her intelligence.
Some of the hostesses were overtly sexual.
They sat on men’s laps and made sure they moved in a way to make the man hard.
They disappeared under the table for a while and whatever guy they were sucking off tried to pretend his dick wasn’t in someone’s mouth while he talked to his friends.
I’d heard some whisper, “I’m horny,” and reach out their hands to guide some rich sucker to the VIP rooms to part him from a lot of cash.
But the most popular hostesses weren’t like that. They left something to the imagination. They interacted in ways that weren’t only sexual. Jelly fell in that category.
“What the fuck, man?” I realized Javy was talking to me.
“What?”
“You’re never taking your eyes off her.”
I looked down at my glass guiltily. He was right. I couldn’t seem to stop watching her.
“You’re almost as bad as Nico,” Joaquin said casually, as if he didn’t know he was stirring shit up. “The length of time he spends in Sugar each night has increased by about two hundred and fifty percent since Jelly started here.”
My eyes shot over to Nico. He was looking back at me. We stared at each other for a second and silently acknowledged that each of us had a thing for her. Then we looked away.
“Why do I feel like you two are about to break into fisticuffs?” Leo asked. Joaquin burst out laughing, a rare thing for him, but apparently Leo’s archaic language cracked him up.
“Shut the fuck up, idiot. Here she comes.” Nico adjusted his body language to look casual.
“Hey, y’all.” She put her hands on her hips and smiled playfully. “Let me guess your order.” She tapped her cheek playfully like she had to think hard about it. “Oh, wait. That’s right. Y’all are super boring and only ever order whiskey. I’m ready for Inky over there to order what he really wants.”
Nico couldn’t hide his grin. “And what’s that?”
“You know, strawberry margaritas, mojitos, frozen daiquiris… the normal manly drinks.”
He shook his head, his blue eyes sparkling. “Just get the damn whiskey, Jelly.”
“Be right back.” She blew him a kiss and walked away. His eyes tracked her movement through the entire club.
We all stared at Nico. I was surprised, and jealous, to see how smitten he was with her.
I guessed Jelly had more than one admirer hanging around her.