Page 14 of Tobias

“Do you invite all your dates to the bar?” he asks, looking over at me.

I give a small shrug. “Just the ones who don’t annoy me to the point of wanting to jump off a cliff.”

“Wow. I must really be something special then.”

I chuckle.

He adds, “Do you get a lot of annoying dates?”

“Depends what you’d consider is a lot. A couple a month.”

“Out of how many dates?”

“I do roughly twenty-five a month.”

“Damn,” he comments. “And they’re all different people? Like strangers?”

“I have my regulars, but the dating business is lucrative. Foxy is rolling in the dough, for sure.”

“That’s really her name?” he asks.

“Probably not legally, but it’s what she goes by and what we all know her as.”

“How many guys work for her?”

“Around thirty.”

He huffs out a laugh. “Maybe I’m in the wrong business.”

I give him a good look up and down. He swallows hard as I do, so I do it for a moment longer just to fuck with him. “Yeah, you’d do great in my line of work.”

I look away, leaving him to stew in that as he continues to stare at me. I try my best to hide my smile. I bet his cheeks are a nice rosy pink right about now, but I’ll never know, thanks to the darkness blanketing us. My phone vibrates and I glance at it.

“Car will be here in a minute.”

He doesn’t say another word until we get to the bar.

The driver drops us off right in front, and I give him a tip from my phone as I make my way onto the sidewalk. Theo grips my arm, so I look over at him.

“Aren’t we a bit overdressed for this place?”

I glance at the bar that is a hole in the wall dive bar most people avoid. I can just barely hear the bass of music inside.

“Not at all. These guys love seeing a man all dressed up.”

His eyes narrow before they widen. “This is a gay bar?” he whispers.

“Did you expect to see college frat boys looking for pussy in a bar calledThe Butterfly?” I deadpan.

His cheeksarepink now, but I can’t tell if it’s from what I said or the nip in the air.

“I didn’t really think about it.”

“Do you not want to go in? We don’t have to. I should have told you beforehand. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s fine. It’s just…” He looks at the door. It’s dark wood, thick and heavy. On the building, in faded paint, are a bunch of butterflies and the bar name, which doesn't let anyone know what it is. If you don’t know the place, you likely won’t ever go in, and that’s how they like it.

I raise a brow when he doesn’t answer.

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