“She might,” Grisha says. “She don’t like men. Just like Elsa.”
“I like you,” I say to Grisha, sweetly. “But then, you’re not much of a man.”
Grisha laughs and takes another swig of his drink. He’s drinking directly out of a bottle of Stoli Elit. “Want some?” he says to me.
“Sure,” I say, defiantly. There’s plenty of people here who will rat me out for drinking, but at this moment I really don’t give a fuck. I take a long pull, enjoying the bright citrus flavor of Grisha’s expensive vodka. I could take a bath in that.
Grisha is squinting at Sebastian. “You look familiar,” he says.
Sebastian nods like he gets that a lot. “I played point guard for the University of Chicago,” he says.
Grisha shakes his head. “No, no,” he says. Then he snaps his fingers. “Ah! I know your brother Nero. We raced each other once.”
Sebastian grins. “Did you win?”
Grisha scowls. “No! He’s a tricky fucker. Took twenty K from me.”
“That sounds like Nero,” Sebastian agrees.
Bored of my cousin, I pull Sebastian away from Grisha. If I let him, Grisha will go on about drag racing all night long. And I’ve heard more than enough on that particular topic.
I’d rather hear more about the other thing Sebastian mentioned.
“You’re an athlete?” I ask him.
He shakes his head. “Not anymore.”
This is the first time I’ve seen the smile fall off his face.
“You played basketball?”
“Yeah,” he says.
“Were you any good?”
“Yes,” he says, without arrogance. “Pretty good.”
“Why did you quit?”
He hesitates just a fraction of a second. “I got bored of it.”
Hmm. I think this good boy Sebastian just lied to me.
That heavy pull of vodka is starting to take effect on me. I can feel pleasant warmth spreading through my chest. My mood lightens ever so slightly.
“You want a drink, too?” I ask Sebastian, in an almost-friendly tone.
We head into the kitchen, where Grisha has a veritable cornucopia of alcohol laid out: liquor, mixers, beer of all types, and a horrific-looking punch that I wouldn’t drink to save my life.
“What do you like?” I ask.
“You ever drink tequila?” Sebastian asks me.
I wrinkle my nose. “Does this look like Tijuana?”
Sebastian just chuckles. “It’s not so bad,” he says. “You just have to take it right.”
He grabs my hand, his large, warm fingers closing around mine. This is presumptuous, but I allow it out of curiosity. He pulls me over to the countertop, where I see several bottles of Patrón.
Sebastian pours us each a shot. I go to pick it up and he says, “Hold on.”
He takes my hand and turns it over, exposing my wrist. Then he brings his lips to the delicate flesh where my veins show blue beneath the skin. He kisses me there. It’s only a brief kiss, but I feel the fulness of his lips and the surprising heat of his mouth. It sends a shiver all the way up my arm. He looks at me with eyes that are large and dark, beneath heavy brows.
“Now the salt,” he says.
He picks up a shaker and sprinkles my wrist with salt. It clings to the spot where his lips touched.
“Like this,” Sebastian says.
He licks the salt off my wrist. His tongue is rough and hot. He takes the shot in one gulp, then bites a wedge of lime. Then he sets down his shot glass with a flourish.
“Try that,” he tells me.
We’re standing very close to each other in the hot kitchen. His method of taking a shot is ridiculous. But I can’t deny that my heart is thumping and I feel a strange compulsion to do exactly as he said. There’s a kind of elegance to his movements — I want to see if I can imitate it.
I take his hand, which is almost twice the size of mine. His fingers are outrageously long. I bet he could span two octaves on a piano.
I turn his hand over and see a smooth wrist, lean and brown, with tendons running up the forearm. I raise his wrist to my mouth and press my lips against his skin. I sprinkle salt on the damp patch. Then, looking Sebastian dead in the eyes, I run my tongue up his arm. I feel his flesh shiver, and I see the twitch of his jaw. I taste the burst of salt.
I take the shot, chasing it with lime. It still tastes awful, though admittedly not as bad as usual.
I’m wondering if I’d taste tequila on his mouth if I kissed Sebastian.
Of course, I’m not going to kiss him.
But I find my eyes lingering on his lips, which are full and finely shaped. I’ve never seen a man with a face like this. With his thick, dark curls all around his face, he reminds me of a saint in an oil painting.
He’s so unlike the boyeviks I usually see. At first that. made me disdainful. But now I find myself...intrigued.
“Do you want to dance?” Sebastian asks me.
There’s plenty of people grinding against each other in the living room. Grisha’s house is five stories stacked on top of each other. It’s in awful condition because he’s always throwing parties, and always pissing off his housekeeper so she quits and he has to hire another.
I know all Grisha’s friends. I don’t want to dance with Sebastian under their watchful eyes.
If we went upstairs, we’d find people fucking in every available room, or playing blackjack on the level above. On the rooftop Grisha installed a cedar barrel sauna, big enough to fix eight, and a large hot tub next to it. He won’t let any girls in the hot tub unless they’re topless.
None of that sounds appealing to me. Instead, I say, “Come on,” and I pull Sebastian in the direction of the basement.
The basement is unfinished, so not many people want to come down here. Bare lightbulbs dangle from the ceiling, and the floor is cement. It’s much cooler than upstairs. It smells damp, and the ceiling thuds alarmingly overhead, as if it might collapse from the weight of everything above.
Sebastian has to duck his head to go down the stairs.
I find the light switch, surrounded by bare metal without any proper cover, and I flip it up. The bulbs crackle on, casting light in swinging circles.
“You play pool?” I ask Sebastian, casually.
“Sometimes,” he says.
I take two cues down off the wall, handing the longer one to Sebastian. I take my favorite.
“What about a friendly wager?” I ask him.
“Sure,” Sebastian says. “How much is friendly?”
“How about a hundred to start?”
He lets out a low whistle. “Let me see what I’ve got.”
He takes out a billfold which looks plenty thick. He slips out a hundred dollar bill, without flashing the rest of the cash. If Grisha were doing that, he’d be sure to let me see exactly how much he was carrying.
Sebastian lays the bill on the polished wooden rail of the pool table.
“What about you?” he says, teasingly. “How do I know you’re good for it?”
“You won’t be seeing my money,” I inform him. “Not now or after.”
Sebastian laughs. “I like the confidence,” he says.
He racks the balls, and I take position to break. I split the stack cleanly, sending balls ricocheting in every direction across the smooth green felt. I like the location of the stripes, so I take those. I already sank the 9. I line up my cue behind the 11-ball. I can feel Sebastian’s eyes on my body as I bend over the table. I’ve got to bend over a long way because of my heels. I can feel my skirt pulling up.