“Just shut the fuck up, dude.” I turn away from him, wrapping my arms around myself.
In the alleyway, Elodie’s muffled cries are getting louder and louder. Thankfully, it’s the front entrance of Le Bernadin that’s busy and not the rear of the building. For once, there isn’t a single person in sight. No one around to hear Elodie’s rising pleasure except for me and Pax. Her pants are cut off, just as it seems she’s about to start screaming at the top her lungs, and I can’t help but look. Wren has his hand clamped over her mouth, blunting the one last final cry that comes out of her. His forehead is pressed against hers, his mouth moving quickly; he’s saying something to her, some whispered sweet nothing as she bucks against his hand, her back arched away from the wall, but I can’t hear what he’s saying.
“It is kinda hot,” Pax’s voice purrs in my ear. I haven’t noticed him drawing nearer again. Now, he’s standing right next to me, close enough that his chest brushes my arm again when I spin to look up at him. He sucks on his bottom lip, one eyebrow arched as he gazes back at me. “If I told you my dick was hard right now, would you judge me for it?”
I roll my eyes, hating the heat that explodes across my cheeks. “Yes.”
He lets out a bark of laughter, pulling on his smoke again. He holds it out, not to me, but to Elodie, who emerges from the alleyway, straightening her dress, followed closely by Wren at her heels. “There you go, Stillwater. From the sounds of things, you need this more than I do.”
Wren smirks like a fiend. “What about me?”
“You need to wash your hands before we sit down to dinner, ya dirty fuck.”
43
PAX
* * *
Le Bernadin is one of the fanciest restaurants in all of NYC. Most people have to wait months to get a reservation, but my mother’s well known here. Wren played a serious card when he had Meredith call and ask for a table—she’s got so much pull here that the sour-faced asshole host manning the front desk doesn’t even say a word about our attire when Jacobi gives him my mother’s name. They don’t card us when he orders a bottle of wine, either.
I drain my glass in seconds, glad of the nice little buzz that hits me, while the others umm and ahh over the menu, trying to decide which obscenely priced entrée they’re going to order. Wren gets surf and turf. Elodie asks for some kind of pasta. Chase gets the chicken special. I don’t even bother to look at the menu. When the waiter asks me what I want, I only have one question.
“What’s the most expensive item you guys sell?”
He looks confused. “I’m sorry? The most expensive meal, or…?”
“The most expensive thing that you sell here.”
“That would be our nineteen forty-six House Montreux Champagne, sir. It was bottled in celebration, after the of World War Two.”
“How much?”
The waiter shifts uncomfortably. “Sixteen hundred dollars for the bottle, sir.”
“Great. I’ll have that.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I—” He laughs nervously. “I can’t serve you a bottle of champagne in place of meal.”
“Why not?”
“I’m bound by state law not to over-serve alcohol. You’d be drunk if you consumed an entire bottle of champagne without eating anything. There’s also the fact that you’re…ahh…”
“Underage?”
He flinches. Clearly, he’s been told to give us whatever we want, even though we’re under twenty-one, but his conscience is giving a hard time over this one. “If you leave here drunk and find yourself in any trouble with the authorities, we’ll lose our license. I will also lose my job and be personally fined—”
“Fuck’s sake,” Wren hisses. “He’ll have the surf and turf, too. Medium rare. And bring four flutes. We’ll share the bottle. Problem solved.”
The waiter scurries off before I can shut down Wren’s resolution. My friend points a finger at me across the table. “Don’t look at me like that, dumbass. We’ll share the fucking champagne, since I’m paying for it. I assume that’s why you ordered the most expensive thing in the entire restaurant.”
“It is,” I admit.
“You’re a fucking brat.”
“No one asked you to drive out here and fuck up my weekend.”
“All right. What do you need? Weed? Molly? Fentanyl? A fucking pacifier? You’re beginning to get on my nerves, dude. We came. We’re here. We’re off the mountain, in the city, at a really nice fucking restaurant. We are going to have a good time. Get with the program, or you won’t be the only one in a bad fucking mood, okay?”
I glare at him.
He glares at me.
The waiter arrives with the champagne. He pops the cork with a fucking sabre, and the tables around us all clap and cheer as the cork flies up toward the ceiling. Wren doesn’t blink, and neither do I. Our tense staring match ends when the waiter pours a small amount of the pale, bubbling golden liquid into a flute and offers it to me. I smile tightly, taking it from him, tasting it with enough pomp and ceremony to make my mother proud. For a second, I consider being a dick and telling him it’s bad, but…ahh for fuck’s sake. What’s the point? “It’s great. Thank you.”
The waiter breathes a sigh of relief. So does my friend. I give him a salty half-smile, not even meaning it a little, tiny bit, but he accepts it for what it’s meant to be: my full and complete resignation. Brawling with Wren’s always fun, and I wouldn’t normally turn down the opportunity for a tussle, but Hilary will literally have me murdered and dumped in the Hudson if I show up for tomorrow’s shoot with a black eye and a busted lip.
And anyway, this level of bellicosity is hard to maintain, even for a professional asshole such as myself. We eat. Elodie chats freely with Chase, not even remotely embarrassed over the fact that we just watched her come. Chase is reserved at first, but as the champagne and the wine begins to kick in, she loosens up a little bit.
Wren couldn’t give a shit about Chase. He makes a good show of looking back and forth between the two girls, but I know my boy and his true focus is locked on Elodie like she’s the only living, breathing creature in the universe.
I pretend not to give two shits about the conversation that takes place around me, and I’m pretty sure I do a decent job of affecting some serious boredom, but the truth is I’m kind of rapt.
“Is your mom coming back here for graduation?” Elodie asks.
Chase shakes her head. “She only just got posted. I won’t see her until Christmas.”
Posted. So her mother’s military, too.
“Where’s she stationed?” Wren asks. The suck-up.
Chase does her best not to look at me. “Germany.”
Elodie takes another bite of her pasta. “I’d ask if you’re missing her a lot, but I know how little you saw her before anyway.” Elodie’s an army brat. She knows about military life. Her father, an army general, is currently hooked up to a life support machine in the outskirts of Tel Aviv. But the less said about that, the better.