Aggravated, I shoot the vodka, wincing as it sears a path down my throat. “I said I think I might have insulted him, not that I was sure!”
Fin pushes a lock of hair behind her ear and sits forward. “Just tell us the words you spoke, and we’ll go from there.”
Sighing heavily, I shrug. “I just…he was sort of…sniffing my throat—”
“Sniffing your throat?” she interrupts, wide-eyed.
It sounds even worse out loud. “Um. Yes. I was on his lap and he was sniffing—”
“On his lap?” they say together.
I glance around in irritation. “Can you please keep your voices down?”
Max stares at me in open astonishment. “Your priorities right now are so out of whack, I don’t even know where to start. Who cares what anybody in this bar thinks? You were sitting on Liam Black’s lap and he was sniffing your throat? Shut the front door!”
“And god bless America,” adds Fin, lifting her glass to me in a toast.
I really need to get better friends.
“It wasn’t like it sounds,” I start, only to get interrupted again.
“Oh, really?” Max laughs. “Because it sounds like a certain smoking hot evil gangster got sprung when he saw you at the bar, my friend.”
“He couldn’t have gotten ‘sprung,’ as you so charmingly put it, because he was staring at my back!”
Fin says, “Your back is hot,” and guzzles her bourbon.
I drop my head into my hands and groan.
“Oh, stop your bellyaching. This is good news!”
I lift my head and glare at Max. “How, exactly, is this good news?”
“We’re probably not going to die!” She pauses. “I mean, you’re not.” She pauses again. “I wonder if he’d forgive us all for a foursome?”
“I’m not having sex with you two bozos and a friggin’ mobster!” I say with heat.
Meanwhile, Fin is looking at Max with pursed lips, like she’s considering it.
“Fin. No.”
She blinks innocently at me. “I didn’t say a word.”
“Listen, can we please focus? He knows our address. He could have ten hitmen waiting for us at home right now!”
Max shakes her head. “He wouldn’t have come to the restaurant himself if he were going to have his goons handle it. Besides, I’d get a notification on my phone if anyone broke into the apartment.”
She sits back against the sofa, crosses her legs, and gazes at me.
“No, what I think happened here is that somehow Liam Black discovered who we were, got an eyeful of you, Natalie Portman, and decided he wanted to go in for a closer look.”
I say flatly, “I don’t even look like Natalie Portman’s distant cousin.”
Fin tilts her head, examining me. “There’s a definite resemblance. Mostly that kind of bookish, nerdy, tomboy brunette thing. The hot Harvard grad vibe. I’ve always thought you were more of a Greta Garbo, myself. Very aloof and mysterious. Very ‘I want to be alone.’”
“I do want to be alone.” I look back and forth between them. “I have a very strong desire to be alone. Not here, having this ridiculous conversation, with two people who obviously took drugs at some earlier point in the evening.”
We sit in silence for a moment, until Max says suddenly, “I know what we have to do.”
“Really? What?”
“You have to call him and apologize.”
I wait for the punchline. When I realize she’s not joking, I scoff. “Oh, good plan, Einstein. I’ll just call Gangster 4-1-1 and get his phone number, then say sorry we stole your stuff, please don’t kill us.”
“No, not that we’re sorry for stealing his stuff. That you’re sorry for insulting him.”
I look over to Fin. “Help me out here.”
But Fin isn’t on my side, the traitor. “She has a point, Jules. I mean, from what you said, he told you straight out that he wasn’t going to hurt you.”
“He’s a criminal! We can’t believe a thing he says!”
“We can believe his actions. Exhibit A: you’re still breathing.”
“For now!”
“Exhibit B: we’re criminals, too, and we’re trustworthy.”
She stares at me like what she just said makes complete sense. Groaning, I scrub my hands over my face. “Your logic makes my brain hurt.”
“It’s the whole honor among thieves thing, Jules,” says Max. “The Code. He said he wouldn’t hurt you, which is basically a promise.” She pauses for effect, dropping her voice. “But he never said he wouldn’t hurt me and Fin. So you have to call him and apologize.”
I mutter, “This is insane.”
Fin says, “I think it’s worth a shot. Men like Liam Black are all about ego. Respect. Stealing from him is business, but insulting him?” She tsks. “That’s personal.”
Max adds, “Especially insulting him while you were sitting in his lap.” She gasps, her blue eyes going wide with panic. “Oh god.”
I cry, “What now?”
“Please tell me you didn’t make a crack about the size of his dick. Because then we are all dead, for sure.”
I motion to the waiter for another round of drinks. He’s been watching Max like she’s his next meal, so he sees me right away and jumps into action.
“No, I didn’t make a crack about the size of his dick.”
Max exhales in relief.
“I think what happened is that he got that I’d rather have him kill me than…other stuff.”
Fin understands right away. “Kidnapping,” she says quietly, nodding her head.
Max stares at me in confusion. “You’re saying you’d rather die than be kidnapped and held captive by that burning hunk of man?”
“Two minutes ago, you were arguing that I should’ve stabbed him in the eye.”
“Well, yeah, if you thought he was going to kill you. But I said that before I knew you two were canoodling in the back of a taxi cab. There’s a big difference between self-defense and canoodling.”
“You also said the world would be a better place without him.”
“I like to be supportive of my friends’ choices in men.” She sends Fin a pointed glance.
“Oh god. I give up.”
When the waiter arrives with fresh drinks, I’m flattened in my chair, staring in defeat at the ceiling.
“Ladies,” he says, grinning at Max. “This round’s on the house.”
“How sweet!” With a wink in my direction, a beaming Fin turns to Max and squeezes her thigh. “Honey, did you tell him we’re newlyweds?”
I have to give him credit: the waiter doesn’t fumble the drinks. His smile doesn’t falter. But still, his disappointment permeates the air.
I feel sorry for him for all of half a second, until I see the light bulb go on over his head as he looks back and forth between my two pretty friends, his smile returning.
Men.
I think god actually created woman first, then created man after deciding we needed something to vex us so we didn’t die of boredom in the Garden of Eden.