I tip back my drink.
The waitress scribbles a phone number onto a cocktail napkin and slides it towards me.
Just then Crystal reappears. I grab the damn thing and jam it into my pocket, more to get rid of it than for any other reason.
Crystal glares at me. Then she glares at the waitress, who’s standing just a little too close to me, gazing at me with that starving-dog eagerness.
“Is that her phone number?” Crystal seethes.
The waitress’s eyes gleam at Crystal competitively. “I wanted to ask him for some investment advice, that’s all.”
Crystal picks up her glass of wine and throws the contents of it in my face.
“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter.
“How could you, you asshole!” Crystal shrieks at full volume, so that everyone in the bar turns to look. A woman in a cheap polyester suit strides over like she’s on wheels. She’s wearing a badge that says Duty Manager. “Are we having a problem here?” To Crystal. Like she’s the one who’s been wronged. But then the woman’s gaze slides back to me. She’s got to be pushing forty and that suit is doing her no favors. I see the second it happens, when her outrage is overridden by interest, which devolves quickly into lust. Jesus. I hate to sound ungrateful here but sometimes being irresistible to women is a goddamn curse.
I stand up and sling my bag over my shoulder. “No problem at all. I was just leaving. Happy Thanksgiving, ladies.”
I throw a fifty dollar bill onto the table to pay for my drink and walk the fuck out.
I use the cocktail napkin to wipe most of Crystal’s drink from my face, then toss it. Eventually my shirt will dry in the breeze. At least I can be glad it was white wine.
I take my time, strolling along the waterfront, with its bars and restaurants and rowdy crowds of tourists making the most of the long weekend. Couples are milling around, hand in hand, and I feel that strange pang again. What would that feel like? To want to spend an entire four-day weekend with the same person?
Who cares, my subconscious insists.
Most likely, I’ll never know.
I’ll do what I always do. I’ll find a place to have a drink, I’ll make eye contact with the most beautiful woman in the room, who will inevitably fall for me. I’ll gauge whether it’s worth it, if there’s a boyfriend or husband and how livid the look in his eyes is. She’ll give me signals. Just say the word and I’ll ditch him, is usually where it leads. It’s that easy. I’ll take her back to a hotel—there’s always a spare suite if you offer a high enough price, no matter how busy the night is—we’ll fuck and it’ll take the edge off of my restlessness and my ennui for an hour or two. She’ll beg me to stay. I’ll refuse, and life will go on as it has ever since I hit puberty.
Actually, my playboy mentality started well after that. It became a coping mechanism when the world tilted off its axis after my parents clocked out. I was already living in Chicago at that point, but life took on a more cynical, pessimistic edge. When a love story of my parents’ caliber gets snuffed out in the most painful of ways, it recasts your outlook. A psychoanalyst might say I was attempting to fuck the grief out of my system, unsuccessfully.
I don’t actually think it’s that complicated. I do it because I feel like doing it. And I walk away for the very same reason.
The women I’ve known are right to accuse me of being heartless and cold. I am. I feel nothing when they cry, aside from irritation and a need for distance, once my physical urges have been met.
I’m a total prick, they tell me. And they’re right. I buy and dismantle businesses people have spent a lifetime building. I use women. I wave money and the promise of hot sex around to get whatever I want, damn the consequences or the heartbreak along the way.
None of it tends to bother me. I give shitloads of my money to charity, maybe in an attempt to level the score, who knows.
I can’t apologize for who I am. More accurately, I won’t apologize for who I am. Whatever made me this way, fate or circumstance, it doesn’t really matter. Women love me regardless. They crave a one night stand they can brag about to their friends before they retreat into their mediocre relationships and unfulfilling sex lives. They follow me and stalk me and beg for more. They cry and fall in love and occasionally threaten to kill me. Because I make them feel like no one else can. I take them places no one else has. I’m what every woman wants but very few can actually get.
Tonight, for some reason, my lifestyle sits more heavily than usual. I’m twenty-seven years old. Do I really want to live the rest of my life as an asshole and a manwhore?
Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?
A rare wave of loneliness hits me somewhere in the middle of my chest.
I almost laugh. Hell. I’m a player, I remind myself. Not some brooding goddamn romantic, like my brothers have suddenly morphed into, to my intense disgust.
What I need is another drink. I’ll drown whatever this passing wave of weakness is. I’ll catch up on some sleep. I’ll meet up with my cousins. Then I’ll return to my who-gives-a-fuck lifestyle. Chicago’s a good place for that. It’s easy to disappear into my haven of wealth, where no one and nothing can touch me.
The warm weather down here in Key West seems to be thawing out something inside me. I’m not sure the feeling is a good one.
I get to the end of the row of restaurants, where a wide-open dock area is scattered with public benches and colorful flags that wave lightly in the tropical breeze. A jazz band is playing from a raised stage at one end. A crowd has gathered.
The red sun dips its lowest edge into the farthest point of the ocean, painting the sea, the sky and the world itself in various shades of crimson, almost like the night is on fire.
The last bar of the long row is small and quaint. The place could do with some refurbishments, but its large deck is inviting, with colorful tables and a killer view. I decide to grab a drink and some dinner.
I step inside.
The interior is infused with old-Florida charm. The walls are rustic, unpainted Dade pine and the bar is lit with hanging pendant lights. The many sets of French doors that lead out onto the expansive deck are open, so the red sunlight spills in and gives the whole place a warm, tinted glow.
It’s busy but not overly crowded. I can’t help thinking they could do a lot more with this place. It’s an absolutely prime location. There’s a jet ski dock and even a small sandy beach.
I walk up to the bar where a bartender is polishing glasses.
“What can I get you?” he asks.
“A Dos Equis with a lime wedge and a Jack Daniels on ice.” Might as well get shitfaced after the day I’ve had. At least I got my cuff links back.
I take a seat at the far end of the bar, next to the open set of doors, that takes full advantage of the view. My drinks are served and I order a steak. Then I scroll through a few of my messages and my stats.
It’s then that two women enter the bar through a side door behind me I hadn’t noticed until now. One follows the other behind the bar. They must work here.
One of the women is roundly pregnant, with tied-up brown hair and pink cheeks. Her eyes are bloodshot and shiny, like she’s been crying.