Page 17 of Honey, Honey
I paused and reassessed her. She wanted something from me. Even if I wasn’t going to give it to her I wanted to know what it was. From the look of her it wasn’t the small talk that I’d dreaded. She was blushing, the blood rising to her cheeks and painting a pretty pink flush across her pale cheeks. She had plump lips she’d painted blood red and she bit her bottom lip, A flash of teeth and a nervous giggle aimed my way were meant to entice, even if I could tell she was too scared to voice what she wanted from me. A woman like this would wait for me to make the first move. She’d fall in line the second I showed her the smallest bit of interest, which suited me fine. I wasn’t going to so much as breathe in the server’s direction, and I wasn’t putting off the most sociable aura, which would take care of any lingering doubt. On another night I might indulge her, might encourage the little display of cleavage she was currently treating me to with her artfully crossed arms that boosted her tits into a generous display of skin. She was beautiful but she wasn’t the woman my body wanted, not the one that made my dick twitch and my palms itch.
No, that belonged to someone else. That belonged to the beautiful woman running through my damn brain. A woman that I’d spent all of five minutes around, a woman that I’d claimed as mine and then walked away from.
My gut twisted and I frowned. “No, nothing,” I told her, looking away. I poured myself a glass of beer and reached for the bottle of soju. “Thank you.”
“If you change your mind…” she said, voice going soft in a way that I knew. I’d heard it a hundred times before. It was the voice subs used when they wanted to pull my eye, when they were letting me know that they saw something they liked in me, and that if I was game so were they.
I raised my eyes to hers, and gave her a slight shake of my head, but even then I said, “I’ll find you.”
She beamed at me, my dismissal too subtle. “See that you do, handsome. I’m Melissa.” She winked at me and I almost chuckled at her little display of flirtation, but she was gone and dashing out the door with a giggle.
I downed half of the beer before I poured the other half of it into my glass. I added an equal amount of soju to my glass and then took a healthy drink of that before I turned my attention to the grill. If my hands were busy then I could go on autopilot. The calm that I was looking for used to come easier before I went legitimate. Mostly because when I was working on a mark, when I was hunting someone down or enforcing the boundaries, it was natural. I never thought so much as reacted, it was one of the reasons I was so good at what I did.
It came naturally. I didn’t have to think to be a killer.
I just was.
That calm and Zen gifted by giving over my body to the task at hand was good for the stress. But now it was all meetings, conference calls, endless email chains. And deals gone wrong, fucked over by rats like Martin D’Amato. I grit my teeth and added meat to the grill, the sizzle of it a good chaser to remembering what D’Amato’s smarmy smile looked like at the end of the video conference.
He’d swooped on a deal I’d had locked down, raised the price by 25% even though it wasn’t worth that. He was going to be losing money by going through with it but I knew full well, it wasn’t about profit with that fucker. It was about screwing me over and letting me know he’d done it on purpose. D’Amato was sending a message with the shitty deal, and unlucky for him he now had my full attention.
“Gonna get that little shit,” I said to no one, flipping the meat and taking another swig of my drink. I was going to need at least two more of these before the night was over. I glanced over at the button at the side of the table that would bring my server, Melissa, running back and sucked on my teeth. I’d wait some before I resorted to that. I wanted to enjoy a little peace and quiet before I called her back in. After today, I’d earned that much.
Chapter Eight
HONEY
“This is so fun!” Tiffany was red faced and giggling. “Everything here is so yummy. You know that right?” She asked our server who laughed and nodded at her. “Isn’t it amazing?” She asked me.
“It is, especially when we’re drunk,” I replied, throwing back the last bit of soju in my glass.
Tiffany scoffed. “We are not drunk. We both agreed to get a little tipsy, and that’s what we’ve done.”
“Sure, sure,” I laughed. “But we’re calling a rideshare after this.” While Tiffany might be in denial about our current state I knew better, the warmth in my belly had spread to my limbs, the rain outside was forgotten in favor of the easy laughter and the slight sway I felt when I stood up. I was drunk, all right. We both were and even if she didn’t believe me, I’d make sure she got home safe and sound.
Tiffany rolled her eyes but then a second later she brightened up. “Okay, fine, then I’m going for it,” she said, snapping the seal on the bottle of soju with a turn of her hands. “But that means we need more beer, because I can’t just do shots of this stuff.”
I pushed away from the table and stood up with a wave of my hand. “I’ll go ask for more.”
“Awesome! You’re the best, Honey!” She called after me and then added, “Oooh! Can you get more kimchi too?”
I laughed as I started to wend my way backwards through the crowd and held up a hand with a thumbs up. “I’m on it!” I walked out of the back dining area we were sitting in and turned down the hallway towards the front of the restaurant. The kitchen was between the two seating areas and I was pretty sure I’d have a better chance of snagging our server’s attention that way to get the beer and kimchi Tiffany wanted. Besides, the bathrooms were this way which my body suddenly let me know I needed badly.
I was making a beeline for the bathroom with a little more sway in my step than normal, when I ran into our server, a bubbly woman with dark hair. I think she’d said her name was Melissa, so I went with that when I called out to her.
“Hi, Melissa?” I tried.
She turned immediately to face me. Bingo. “Can I get you anything?”
“Yes, I was worried I got your name wrong but I’m glad I was right! And sorry for coming to find you but it seemed a little easier that way since stuff was really busy tonight, you know?” She nodded, still waiting for me to go on. I gave her an apologetic smile. I was rambling, the alcohol obviously loosening me up. I licked my lips and cleared my throat. “We were hoping for two more beers and more kimchi, when you had a chance.”
“Got it.” She reached into her apron and pulled out her notepad, scribbling the order. “I’ll get that to ya in just a bit, okay?”
“Thanks, a lot. Appreciate it.” I nodded, swaying slightly and made to move towards the restrooms but Melissa stepped in close, a conspiratorial smile on her face that made me stop.
“It’s just that there’s this super hot man in one of the private rooms. He requested me specifically.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Oh, wow!” I exclaimed, because that seemed like the thing she wanted to hear from me. I was half a bottle of wine and a beer, plus a couple of shots in, so I couldn’t be sure. I put a hand out on the wall because I was right earlier—I wasn’t tipsy. I was drunk. And, I was doing what drunk girls the world over did best, I was being supportive as hell when a woman was dishing on some hopeful man news. Why she was choosing to tell me this information I had no idea, but I was going to cheerlead as best I could, because that’s what you did.
