AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 2
Fox
Eight Years Later
“Hello? You still alive in there?”
The bar is vibrant with activity, mostly students from the local university blowing off steam. It’s an easy place to blend into and the constant flood of people make it so the young woman across from me doesn’t get the wrong idea.
I look at her and nod. “Barely,” I answer.
Darla leans forward with her elbows propped on the table between us and studies me with narrow, inquisitive eyes. They wander my face, my arms, my shirt, anything that’s visible. After all this time, she’s still trying to figure me out. Can’t say I blame her, though. I’ve been paying her for this for a few months now and all she’s gotten out of me is a few free drinks and surface-level conversation. Not her usual clientele, I’m sure.
“Why do you always request me?” she asks with her high-pitched voice.
“You don’t have other regulars?” I ask, deflecting the question.
“Oh, I do…” She glances around the bar for prying ears. “Most of them request me because I look like her and they always wanted to fuck a movie star.”
I nudge the condensation on my glass. “Her?” I ask.
“You know. Her.” She giggles. “Roxie Roberts.”
“Never heard of her.”
She slaps the table. “Oh, come on. Roxie Roberts. The girl from those Night Trials movies. Backseat Driver. Before the Storm. You know her. You have to know her.”
“I don’t know her.”
“Everybody knows her.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“She looks like… well, this.” She sits back and frames her own face, gesturing extravagantly.
I let my eyes follow her fingers, traveling from the swooping neckline on her top to the golden crown of her head. Long, blonde hair. A slight curve to her hip. Thin, cherry-red lips that stretch out wide when she smiles. Bright, blue eyes and dimpled cheeks.
She’s not wrong. She does resemble Roxie Roberts, other than her voice.
I scratch an itch in my beard. “Well, if that’s true, I bet you make some good money off those suckers,” I say.
“You bet your ass,” she says. “It’s kind of a pain, though. I have to stalk the tabloids to make sure I stay up with her looks or else I lose clients. She went red for like a month last year and my boss got so many complaints when I didn’t dye my hair quick enough to match hers.”
I shrug. “Every job has its drawbacks.”
“So…” She leans forward again, arms folded on the table. “If you have no idea who Roxie Roberts is, then why do you request me every time?”
“I like consistency.”
Her eye twitches with the slightest annoyance. “Why do you pay for this?”
“You’d prefer it if I didn’t pay you?”
“Why does an attractive guy like you need to pay a woman like me to come out once a week and talk to him? There’s no way you can’t just walk up to the bar right now and chat up any woman you want. You’d probably actually get laid, too.”
Good question.
“Too much effort,” I say.
