I have no fucking idea what she said, but I nod with my mouthful of pastrami and reach across the table to snatch the lonely pickle on her plate. It’s a sin to waste food.
“So, what do you suggest we do?” she presses.
Fuck.
“About what?” I reply, forcing the pastrami down my throat. She sighs exasperatedly and flips her Pocahontas like hair over her shoulder.
“You weren’t listening!”
“I’m sorry, repeat it one more time, dollface,” I say, grinning at her sheepishly. It’s a piss-poor consolation prize for not paying attention to her. The last thing anyone needs is for those blue tips to turn red. Graham will have my ass, I’ll be stuck planning this party by myself and everything will turn to shit.
“You need to figure out a way to get Tig and Delia to the party.”
“Whoa,” I say, nearly choking. “Why are we giving me the hardest job?” Tig and Delia own a tattoo shop on Eighth Avenue and unless there is an apocalypse there is no way in Hell they’re going to shut down their shop on my account.
“Someone has to do it.”
“And we think that someone should be me?”
“Why not? You’re going to have to connive a way to get them both out of working. It’s a miracle they showed to my wedding, and that was just a small thing in City Hall.” She pauses to frown. “If you had a girlfriend, this would be easier.”
How does me not having a girlfriend relate to any of this?
“Excuse me?” I question.
“We could tell them you were proposing or something. They wouldn’t miss that for anything.”
She’s right.
Because they’d have to see me down on one knee to believe it was happening.
Like Antonia is a no-fly zone, so is fucking marriage.
“Right, okay, so marriage and a girlfriend are not an option,” I tell her.
I can’t believe I have to even say that out loud.
Crazy, I tell you. The whole fucking female species is absolutely nuts.
“That’s a shame,” she volleys, taking a massive bite of her sandwich. “I saw you checking out my new intern and…” her voice trails as she chews. “…don’t try to deny it or spin me some bullshit story like you did with her. Checking out her tailpipe? Really, Marco? Is that the best you could come up with?”
I thought that was pretty creative.
“And did you really pull her over and give her all those tickets?”
I stare at her blankly.
Is she kidding me with that question?
“You make it sound like I did something wrong.”
She shrugs her shoulders.
“I mean, you didn’t have to give her three tickets. Hell, you didn’t have to give her any at all, you could’ve let her go with a warning. Especially if you’re attracted to her.”
“It’s my job to give tickets.”
She rolls her eyes and takes another bite of her sandwich.
“You’re a cop Marco, not a fucking meter maid, and Tig told me a story where you pulled over three girls in one day and got all their numbers.”
“It was one time, and I was fresh out of the academy,” I argue, silently cursing my cousin.
He’s worse than a gossiping woman.
“So, you didn’t pull over my intern because she’s smoking hot?”
When did the conversation go from planning a surprise party to me picking up chicks? I need to start paying more attention to people when they talk and stop robbing food from their plates when they’re not looking. Then I can avoid ridiculous conversations like this one.
“You know what I think.”
Christ, please make it stop.
“Maybe you did pull her over because she disobeyed some traffic regulation, but once you got a dose of her, you wanted more. Let’s be real, Marco, you like them hot and feisty. You wanted to see if you could get a rise out of her, so you gave her three tickets. But you dropped the ball. Instead of getting her digits and a date for Friday, you’re the one who got a rise. Am I right?”
And this is why we stopped talking on the regular even before she got herself a husband. Soraya has no fucking filter and no problem sticking her nose in other people’s business.
“You’re out of your mind,” I scoff, shoving another pickle into my mouth. “She sped right through a red light. Hot or not, I would’ve pulled anyone who did that over.”
“Ahah! So you admit she’s hot.”
“Well, I’m not denying it,” I say, crunching down on the pickle. “Why the hell do you have an intern, anyway?”
“Ida has taken a lighter load, so now that I have more responsibilities, Antonia is the one who will be filtering through the submissions.”
I ponder that, trying to picture the Harley riding hottie behind a computer screen from nine to five.
“She doesn’t seem like the type for office work,” I comment.
“You know her five minutes.”
That may be true, but I’m a good judge of character and confining that woman to a cubicle for eight hours a day would be as successful as trying to baptize a cat.
“Shit,” Soraya says, glancing down at her phone. “I have to go. Graham is tied up at the office and I have to get Chloe from school.”
She reaches into her bag for her wallet and I stretch my arm across the table, gripping her wrist.
“Get out of here,” I tell her. “I got lunch.”
We go back and forth for a moment and she offers to leave the tip. When I finally convince her to put her goddamn money away, she hitches her purse over her shoulder and tosses me a saucy grin, advising me to make nice with her new intern the next time I drop in for a party planning session.
She’s barely out the door when my phone dings with a text.
Soraya: You should send her one of those edible fruit arrangements. I hear she’s a fan. Oh, and don’t forget to figure out a way to get Tig and Delia to the party.
There’s no use in arguing with Soraya and so I don’t bother with a reply. Instead, I order myself another pastrami sandwich to go, pay the bill and drag my ass out the door. Before I start my journey back to Brooklyn, I make a pit stop to where I pulled Antonia over. I decide if I find her license in the street, it’s a sign to make nice with the fiery intern. If it isn’t there, well, then I guess I’ll push her out of my head, like all the others.
It’s a good plan.
A solid one.
So tell me how come I don’t follow it.
Chapter Four
Antonia
Stalking through the clubhouse, I slam my helmet down on top of the wooden bar. My eyes connect with the man standing behind it and a groan erupts from the back of my throat. How do you make a horrible day worse? Throw the guy you once thought you loved into the mix.
Sergio, more commonly known around these parts as Hound, turns around from the fully stocked shelves behind the bar and meets my gaze. Raising a pierced eyebrow, he drinks me in. There used to be a time when the way he looked at me excited me and made me feel wanted. Then I realized I wasn’t special, that he looked at everyone with a pair of tits and a vagina the same way—hence his road name.