41. P.I.M.P. #3
It stops an inch away, when her tongue stretches out, searching for the straw with her eyes still on him.
Tongue finds it.
Drags it closer into her mouth.
Then her lips slide down the length of the straw, taking the whole thing, until her chin scrapes the rim, daring him to keep watching.
He does.
I can’t blink.
“Nah... She deep-throating the straw?”
The shaker in his hands slows.
His brows shoot up. His smile follows.
It could be amusement.
Could be confusion.
Could be a hard-on under that bar.
“Guessin’ that drink’s goin’ down smooth, huh?” he says, voice rough.
Celie’s convulsing behind me, shaking my seat. “Oh my God, I can’t,” she gets out between gasps, wiping tears.
Then Jasmine’s in her own world, moaning into the drink. “You made drink so good.” She twirls her straw through ice. “Mmm… and you, Mister Bartender, what time you stop making the drinks… and start making trouble?”
Oh, shit. We’ve crossed over.
I cover my face. “Ease up, Jaz,” I say through a laugh. “Little mystery never killed nobody. Make him work for it.”
Celie snatches the mic, wearing that evil-cat grin. “Jaz, let him know you ain’t lookin’ for forever. Just tryna have some fun tonight.”
There’s dead air.
Then she clears her throat, and drops the line. “I don’t want… eh… big romance. Only a little fun. My hotel room? Very nice. But I am alone in it. Too quiet.” She shrugs innocent. “Maybe you help make noise?”
Laughter cracks Celie in half,
and it spills through the car.
Andrew laughs, heat spilling out with it.
He shoots his co-worker a look, then his attention’s back on Jasmine. “I’ll hand it to ya, sweetheart. You ain’t shy.”
I slap my palm over my mouth.
“He’s fucking buying it,” I gasp to Celie.
I press my mic close, every nerve on fire.
“Jasmine, ignore what I said before.
“Go in for the kill. Finish him.”
Jasmine slides forward on the stool, elbows on the bar, eyes fixed on him.
“I tell you honest, I never do this…But you make me hot,” she purrs, all sin.
“I’m yours tonight. If you want me, I wait here like good girl until ready…
Or I give you my hotel number, and you come to me. And I make sure you don’t forget it.”
Andrew’s face transforms from all play
into interest.
My palm’s sweaty on the door.
My stomach’s in a knot.
“This is it,” I say, the words like rocks in my throat. I glance back at Celie. “He’s gonna fuckin’ fold, isn’t he?”
She grins, rooting for exactly that.
She has no idea how far gone I am for him, how crippling this could actually be for me.
Neither did I, until now.
I’m one second away from pulling the plug. Because now I don’t want to know.
Andrew crooks a finger, slow and filthy, leaning in with a dirty secret waiting in his mouth, and my heart flatlines.
His mouth’s so close to her,
I imagine his lips grazing her cheek.
Then I hear Andrew so clearly as if he were whispering in my ear. “Flattered, sweetheart, but nah. I’m all set.”
He nudges his chin, a subtle point down the end of the bar at his co-worker. “My boy over there? Been eyein’ you since you walked in. Go make his night, huh?”
Everything goes silent after.
Except for my pulse beating like a bass.
Or maybe it’s Jasmine’s.
Celie stunned still, face blank.
“Wait—nah. Nah, nah, nah.” Her eyes widen.
“Tell me he didn’t just curve Jasmine.” She squints at me.
“Yo, we might need to check his pulse, ‘cause that ain’t normal. We handed this man ten-outta-ten model on a gold platter, and he deadass turned her down? The baddest woman in the city? That’s some next-level restraint…
” Her voice is still running in the background of the shock that I’m in.
I shake my head slow.
I didn’t think he’d shut it down.
Thought he’d at least take the easy way out, grab her number, toss it in his phone and never use it.
A number’s harmless.
But he didn’t even do that.
The car door opens,
snapping me out of it.
Jasmine slides into the backseat,
closes the door, exhales.
And then nothing.
No one moves. No one talks.
We sit there—
three bodies, three heads spinning.
“Well…” Jasmine tilts her head, processing the last twenty minutes. “This never before happen to me.” Her eyes narrow. “He… gay, yes?”
The quiet rolls back in.
I play it back in my head.
Did we fuck this up somehow?
“Aight, enough’a this,” Celie says. “Let’s get some fuckin’ food. I’m so hungry I could eat chopped cheese off the street.”
Jasmine giggles, crashing into her.
“Pff, I am so hungry,
“I could eat soft dick.”
Celie’s laugh explodes,
head tipping back against the seat.
Jasmine falls forward into her,
mouth hitting Celie’s shoulder.
Celie catches her breath. “I’m so hungry I’d fight a rat for a slice right now.”
Jasmine throws a hand.
“I am so hungry, I fight rat…
“then eat rat.”
The laughter rips out of them all over again. But I’m sitting here, watching Andrew behind the bar, missing him, realizing there was never going to be a win tonight.
If he folded, I’d hate him.
If he stood tall, I’d hate myself.
Tonight was only gonna prove one of two things: either he’s still the myth he was before me, or I’m not enough for the man he is now.