3. Chapter Three
Chapter Three
The line was practically out the door at Perk when Mark and I arrived.
I managed to grab a table near the back while he placed our orders; once they were ready, I ran up and got them.
I went with a pretty basic chicken Caesar wrap; he’d ordered some triple-decker monstrosity of a sandwich that practically needed a whole plate to itself separate from the chips.
The girl manning the espresso machine watched me go for just a beat too long as I made my way back to my seat, which made me wonder all kinds of things.
“Alright, Tommy,” Mark said once we’d settled in.
The place was loud enough that we could talk without being overheard, which I figured was at least seventy percent of the reason he’d chosen the cafe instead of the Mexican place or the wing shop down the block.
“Gimme the play-by-play, man. Obviously your weekend went well, since you’ve been strutting around CreditCore like you own the damn place. ”
I let out a laugh. “I wouldn’t go that far—”
Mark paused, like a light bulb had just gone off over his head. I didn’t like the way his expression changed when that happened. “Oh hey, but I’ve got a different question first.”
I waited.
He leaned in, dropping his voice a touch despite the loudness of the cafe. “How’s Bailes?”
A finger of ice trailed down my spine. He knows, I thought, the words forming clear and cold in the back of my mind. I don’t know how he figured it out, but he knows it was her.
I kept my expression studiously neutral. I could not give anything away.
“She land okay? I’m just asking because she looked kinda shook on Sunday morning.
I know you’ve gotta be the stern father figure sometimes because she and Savannah are so close, but I hope you didn’t rake that girl over the coals too hard.
” He grinned sheepishly. “I mean, shit, when I was that age…”
Something inside of me relaxed. Jesus, he thought Bailey was shaken? Traumatized? He really had misread the situation, then. That Sunday had been the best morning of Bailey’s life.
And mine.
“She’s fine,” I said, swallowing a nibble of my wrap. “It was embarrassing, and awkward, but I talked to her and she’s basically okay.” I gave a smile of my own. “My days of grounding the girls are long gone, you know that.”
“You’d have to ground yourself too,” Mark said, chuckling. “She got you good with that ‘what are YOU doing here’ stuff, Tommy boy. Can’t hold onto the moral high ground when you rolled up at the Armada for a hookup, huh?”
“Yeah, something like that,” I grunted. “We’re past it now.”
Mark glanced down at his sandwich. “It’s funny,” he said, almost like he was talking to himself.
“When I first saw her, I thought Bailey was wearing your shirt. My dumb ass figured she’d been wearing something inappropriate when you caught her and you tossed your button-down on her to make her cover up.
But that doesn’t make any sense, does it?
‘Cause you didn’t even know she was there. ”
Shit. This was dangerous ground. I was instantly on my guard.
“I don’t even remember what she was wearing,” I lied. “I was just so shocked to see her.”
He laughed. “Me too. You wouldn’t believe where my mind went.”
I just might, I thought, acid filling my gut.
“Just didn’t look like something a frat boy would wear,” he said, taking another bite of his sandwich. “I guess you hit a certain age, they hand that stuff out like a uniform, huh?”
“I guess,” I said, sounding bored with the whole thing.
“What the fuck am I talking about?” Mark laughed, shaking his head. “I’m all messed up lately, Tommy boy. Me and Tina are on the outs.”
Tina, I remembered, was his latest girlfriend. The one who probably didn’t know about the whole ‘sugar baby website’ thing. “Oh?”
“Yeah, it’s rough,” he said, a tiny sliver of his gold chain peeking from the neck of his button-down.
“You gotta know something’s up when the girl keeps a go-bag in her trunk but won’t leave a toothbrush at your house.
” He grinned, but there was a tightness to it.
“Who’d have thought she’d be the one afraid of commitment, huh? ”
Something about that felt almost genuine. “I’m sorry,” I told him.
Mark shrugged. “Eh. Like Alice Deejay said, I’m better off alone,” he said, glancing at the line. “Besides, more chances for both of us to pick up some of these girls with daddy issues together, right? Unless this thing you’re doing on Friday turns into something serious.”
“I doubt it will,” I said, just glad he’d moved on from Bailey. I really didn’t want to have to answer too many questions where she was concerned. It was a good thing he’d moved on—he’d been dangerously close to the truth.
I told myself that would be the end of it.
You’d think a man who’d been wrong about so many things over the last twenty-one years would quit telling himself things like that.
“Okay, Saturday night,” Mark said, grinning as he set down his sandwich. “Tell me about the girl. Tell me about the hookup.” He clasped his hands together like an old church lady. “Was it like the first time all over again?”
“Honestly… kind of,” I said, nodding. “It was wild.”
Mark leaned forward. “Spill it.”
And so I did.
I was no fool. I wasn’t about to tell him everything; just enough to sate his curiosity without opening the door to too many questions. As I spoke, I realized I’d been rehearsing all of this mentally for a while—in the bookstore, at the coffeeshop, while I’d been staring at my spreadsheets.
“We met in the lobby of the Armada, like you suggested,” I lied.
In reality, Bailey had paced the lobby looking like a security risk while I’d been scoping out the room, and I’d invited her into the inner sanctum without a second thought.
“She looked just like her pictures. And no, I’m not showing them to you. ”
“Tease,” Mark chuckled. “You gotta at least describe her for me. Set the scene. Blonde?”
“Redhead,” I corrected, instinctively throwing him off the scent.
God help me, but as I said it, I couldn’t help but think of Lina.
Savannah’s friend, the one on the gymnastics team, the girl who’d grinned at me during the barbecue where Mark laid out the whole Sweetheart app thing for the first time.
It was probably disrespectful, but I substituted her physical attributes for Bailey’s.
Later on, I’d realize how ironic that was.
“Gorgeous, obviously,” I continued, now the center of Mark’s attention. “College student, or at least that’s what she told me. Twenty-one. Sweet. Wild.” I laughed, actually enjoying spinning the tale. “More than a little wild, actually.”
“She sounds fun,” Mark chuckled. “She got a sister you know about?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” I said. “I didn’t exactly ask.”
Little did Mark know, Bailey had something much better than a sister. The image of her and McKenna in that hotel room on Wednesday flickered through me and I nearly lost my train of thought before catching myself.
“Fair enough,” Mark said. He leaned back in his seat and made a show of looking back and forth, as if our HR department might have been deployed to Perk to spy on us. Then he leaned forward, dropping his voice. “So. How did it go?”
I grinned, thinking of Bailey. “Amazing. Best night of my life.”
I gave Mark a truncated version of what had happened in the hotel room.
I tried not to get too crude with it, but there were only so many words in the English language to describe the acts my daughter’s best friend and I had spent most of the night performing on each other.
From the look on his face, I knew even that was farther than Mark had expected me to go.
“She was… into the whole older guy thing,” I said, watching him grin at me like a schoolboy. “Insisted on calling me the D-word all night long.”
Mark whistled through his teeth. “God damn,” he said, approving. “You’ve usually gotta pay extra for that.”
“She did everything,” I said, after giving Mark the full list. “But it wasn’t just the sex, you know?
She made me feel desired. Wanted. Like that bed—and then the shower, and the counter in the bathroom, and all the rest of it—was the only place left in the world, and making me happy was the only thing that mattered.
” I paused. “I don’t think I realized how badly I needed that after Debbie.
After twenty-one years of… of you know. Of not being allowed to be that guy. ”
I’d expected Mark to cheer. Instead, lines appeared on his forehead.
“Tommy, I don’t know how to tell you this,” he said gingerly. “I’m glad you had a great time, and it sounds like this chick you matched with was one hell of a good girl. But I warned you about falling in love.”
“I’m not…”
I trailed off.
Because I was in love with Bailey.
And that was shining through my story even when I hid all the details.
“She did all that shit because you paid her,” Mark insisted.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m mad jelly—making you coffee in the morning then banging you in the shower before she leaves?
That’s service with a smile, my guy. That’s the kind of girl who definitely rates a second ‘date’ if you get the chance.
” His smile faded a touch. “But don’t get it twisted.
These are not the kind of girls you take home to Mama. ”
“I wasn’t planning on that,” I drawled.
He chuckled, then reached for his coffee. “She sounds like a little spitfire, though. The ones with daddy issues are the best—she’s probably one of those girls who does it to spite Mommy and Daddy almost as much as for the money.”
I tried not to bristle. The barb hit a bit too close to home where Bailey’s parents were concerned. I’m all fucked up and nobody knows about it.
“You must have left her one hell of a tip,” Mark said. “And I’m not talking about your John Hancock, Tommy boy. What did it come out to, by the way?”