Chapter 3
ALEX
Just as I’m leaning in to tell Danny I’m going to go for a little walk, some other guy approaches the hot judge-y blonde.
This guy’s wearing a black and silver shirt, his slicked-back hair looks as hard and shiny as the exterior of a brand-new Corvette, and as an added bonus he has aviators propped up on top of his head.
I’m not a total cynic—this guy could be perfectly nice.
He could even be the guy she came here with—wait, never mind.
He’s touched her three times already, and her body language tells me loud and clear that she isn’t interested.
I slowly rise, rolling up my sleeves as I stroll over and watch the interaction play out.
She hasn’t smiled at him once, but she looks him straight in the eyes when she responds to whatever he’s saying.
By the time I’m three feet away, the guy’s walking off like a kid who just got sent to the principal’s office.
I give her a moment to herself before stepping in to rest my forearms on the railing next to her. I wait for her to acknowledge me. She seems surprised to see me, but one corner of her mouth quirks up and she turns ever so slightly to face me.
“I was coming over to tell that guy to leave you alone, but you did not need my help.”
“I’m definitely capable of repelling men on my own. But thank you for your concern.”
One of the few benefits of being in a place this loud is that you have an excuse for leaning in close to talk to a beautiful woman.
We basically have to yell to be heard, and every now and then the bass will kick in or some idiot hoots and hollers, and good luck hearing anything else. But now I need to know more.
“Mind if I ask how that conversation went?”
“He asked me if I’m having a good night.
I told him I’d rather be at home reading with my dog.
He told me he’s allergic to dogs. I told him I might be allergic to his aftershave.
He said we could go back to his place to take a shower and I could wash it off of him.
I told him I’d already showered once this month so no thanks.
And then I asked him if he’d like a breath mint.
” She shrugs, her eyes wide and mischievous. “Blammo. He left. Go figure!”
Blammo. Now I’m thinking about showering with her. I lean in a little closer. “Does your dog know how to read?” I ask.
A really intoxicating smile spreads across her face. “See, now that’s the kind of reaction I always hope to get when I tell people that.” Her eyes are blue and sparkling behind those glasses, even in this crazy lighting, and I like those eyes and I have so many more questions.
It takes me a moment to realize that Barry is calling out to me from his table. “Hey! Alejandro! You want some of this champagne?”
I signal to him that I’m good and ask the lovely lady if she wants any.
Shaking her head, she grins as she asks, “Your name’s Alejandro?”
“Kind of. What’s yours?” I hold my hand out to shake hers.
She stares down at my hand while she shakes it and says something.
“Emily?” I practically shout.
“Emmy,” I think she says.
“Oh, Emmy.”
“Kind of.” She looks down at my hand again, smiling, because I haven’t let go of hers, and I like her smile.
I don’t want to, but I loosen my grip and we lock eyes as she lets her hand slip away.
“What’s a cool girl like you doing in a place like this, Emmy?”
“I’m not cool,” she insists, touching her hand to her chest. “At all. My new roommate—housemate—Franklin… I mean, I just moved in with him, but we’ve been best friends since high school.
Anyway, he made me come out tonight and he made me wear this and he made me drink two shots of J?germeister.
” She holds up three fingers and then thinks about it for a second and adds another finger.
Uh-oh.
“And that was after the two boxes of sake at the sushi place. Is that what they’re called? Boxes?”
Yeah, she’s tipsy. Now that she’s only holding on to the railing with one hand, she sways a little and has to catch her balance.
“It’s called a masu,” I inform her.
“Who’s a masseuse?”
I lean in even closer. “The wooden box cup.” I mime drinking from a wooden box cup. “It’s called a masu in Japanese.”
“Ohhhh. Masu.” She appears to be very pleased that I know this. “I like that. Thank you.” She smiles at me appreciatively and laughs a little as she says, “You smell really good.”
“Thank you. You smell really great for someone who only showers once a month. Where’d you go for sushi?”
“It was downtown and really good and supposedly not that expensive for LA, but I thought it was expensive.”
“Sounds like Sugarfish.”
“Yeah, that was it! People take sushi pretty seriously here, don’t they?”
“It’s LA. We take sushi and ourselves very seriously. You new in town or just visiting?”
She nods. “Just moved here. My friend brought me out to celebrate. We were going to go somewhere else, but then he got a text from a guy he has a crush on, and he promised we’d only be here for half an hour.” She rolls her eyes. “That was an hour ago. I lost him. And he’s not answering his phone.”
“That’s annoying. You want me to help you find him?”
“How would you do that, exactly?”
“I’d follow you around while you look for him and make sure no other guys ask you to shower with them.”
She studies my face for a few seconds, furrowing her brow. “You’re a rather earnest fellow, aren’t you? What do you do, anyway?”
Shit. I don’t want to bring up being a director yet in case she’s an actress. I shrug. “Little of this. Little of that.”
“Oh my God—same.”
“Yeah?” She doesn’t seem offended by my being vague.
“Yeah, it’s so weird. I never meet people in the exact same line of work as me.”
“Guess that makes us competitors.” I give her a very earnest wink. “Bet you’re good at it, though.”
“It’s important to me to be good at everything I do.” She gives me an exaggerated wink, and I don’t know if she’s insinuating blow jobs, but I’m a guy so of course I think she’s insinuating blow jobs.
She grins, looking away from me, gripping the railing, and I like her hands.
She’s swaying again, on purpose this time, to the rhythm of the music.
And starts absentmindedly singing out loud, until she realizes she’s singing along to a really dirty song called “Go To Town” by Doja Cat.
But instead of covering her mouth and giggling as I expect her to, she continues to sing the words, “If you're down, boy, really down, Baby let me watch you go to town,” and then glances over at me before quickly looking back out at the dance floor, and fuck me, who is this person?
“You like this song, huh?”
“Oh yes. It’s one of my top three favorite songs about cunnilingus.”
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone make that word sound so cute.
She smiles, shaking her head, then finally meets my gaze again. “You have to stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
She laughs and says, “Like you’re… Like you…” Her expression turns serious, and I catch her staring at my mouth, her nostrils flaring slightly. I’m aware of how her body has tensed up.
And part of my brain is thinking about what I’d like to do to release that tension for her, but I’m pretty sure I don’t have horndog face right now because I’m having all kinds of thoughts and she’s only naked in half of them.
“Like I what?”
She blinks, shakes her head, and wraps one leg tight around the other, as she looks down at the crowd below us.
Guess she’s not going to finish that sentence.
Ten o’clock is pretty early in nightclub world, so things haven’t gotten insane here yet.
But Emmy seems genuinely surprised by what she sees around her.
She’s still shaking her head. “Do all those people really want to be here?” She snaps her head to look at me.
“I mean…do you? Sorry? I don’t mean to assume that you aren’t a shallow party person.
” She covers her mouth. “Shit. That’s judge-y.
I can’t assume that everyone here is a shallow party person.
I’m not usually this judge-y.” I start to answer her, but she says, “That’s a lie.
I just lied. I’m totally this judge-y, all the time.
I just don’t usually say this stuff out loud… You were saying?”
“I was saying that I just came here to say hi to a few friends. I don’t think anyone has ever lain on their deathbed and said, ‘I just wish I’d spent more time in da club.’”
“This really isn’t your scene, then?”
I want to tell her that taking my kid to Disneyland is my scene when I’m not working or going to screenings, but it’s way too soon to bring that up and far too loud.
She keeps studying my face, waiting for an answer, but this isn’t the time or the place to get serious answers from people. A quick glance around before saying, “Um…I better go dance and pretend to have some fun for a minute or my friend will murder me. Wherever he is.”
“He sounds like a great friend.”
“He is, actually. In the long-term, big picture kind of way.”
“You want a little help trying to convince him? I’ve gotten pretty good at pretending to have a good time at parties and bars lately.”
“That is kind of sad, and I’ve never felt so sorry for someone who’s so ridiculously handsome and confident, but yes. Please pretend to have fun with me.”
“Unless you want to go someplace quieter. Like an Abercrombie & Fitch store. Or an airport runway. You can keep trying to call your friend and tell him to meet you there.”
She seems to actually be considering this option, and even though I’m willing to do a pretty long list of things with her at this point, I really fucking hope she wants to get out of here so we can continue talking without getting laryngitis.
“Will you dance with me?”
Shit.
I hate dancing.
Hate it.
I only ever danced in public with my ex-wife when I was drunk, and even then, I hated it.
But I don’t want hot, intriguing, judge-y Emmy with the glasses to dance or shower with anyone else tonight.