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“Ouch,” I said, putting a hand over my chest and laughing. “You wound me.”
“It’s true though, right?”
“Not exactly,” I said. “My father’s wealthy now, but we weren’t when I was young.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“He took all our money and invested it back into his businesses,” I said. “Didn’t leave much for me or my mother, god rest her soul.”
Mona chewed on her lip. “When did your mother die?”
“Years ago,” I said. “Long time ago. I don’t think my father even noticed when it happened.”
“But I guess you did. How’d she die?”
“Cancer.” I tilted my head. “Saw the best doctors in the city, and you know what? Didn’t do shit for her.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Ah, you know.” I waved my hand like I was trying to swat the memory away. “It’s in the past now, been twenty years.”
“That would’ve made you…” She trailed off, and I would’ve bet my life that she was trying to do the math based on my birth date on Wikipedia.
Which wasn’t accurate.
“I was ten,” I said.
“Ah.” She arched an eyebrow. “You’re thirty?”
“I’m thirty.” I spread my hands out. “I don’t look it?”
“No,” she said. “I mean, yes, and no. I don’t know.” She gave me a nervous laugh.
I leaned toward her. “And how old are you, Mona the journalist?”
“Twenty-three,” she said.
I barked a laugh and leaned back. “You’re barely out of school,” I said.
“Two years,” she said. “And what’s that matter?”
“I guess it doesn’t.” I grinned and shrugged. “When I was your age, I had a lot of responsibility. Where’d you go to college?”
“Temple,” she said.
“Very nice. You liked it?”
“It was fun,” she said. “Met some important people there.”
“Yeah? Husband?”
“Mentors.”
“Ah,” I said and nodded.
The waitress returned with my beer. I ordered the mussels and Mona asked for the same thing. The waitress hurried off again, as if she had other people to wait on, but based on the smell of alcohol on her lips, I suspected she was hurrying off to finish whatever drink she’d started before anyone caught her.
“I take it you didn’t go to school,” she said.
“You take it right,” I said. “School wasn’t really a priority in my family.”
“What was?”
I ran a hand through my hair. “Ah, you know. Things I wouldn’t tell a journalist.”
She laughed and seemed genuinely delighted. I grinned at her, sipped my beer, and leaned back in my chair.
I spent the next twenty minutes asking her questions. I didn’t give her a chance to press the attack again. I learned about her life growing up in South Philly, about attending the crappy public schools here, about her father running off when she was young, about her mother getting addicted to pills when she was a teen, about being raised by her grandmother and rebelling against the world.
“I was the kind of girl that dyed her hair purple and thought it made me unique,” she said.
I laughed and cocked my head. “You’d look good with purple hair.”
“Oh, yeah? I bet you wouldn’t look twice at me if I had purple hair.”
“You’re probably right, though then again, if you were wearing that catering outfit…” I trailed off with a smirk.
She rolled her eyes and laughed.
The waitress came with our food not long later, and we both dug in. The Belgian Cafe was known for its mussels, and she made all the appropriate noises as we tore the delicious flesh from the tiny black oblong shells. I dipped mine in the white wine sauce and tried not to be a pig about it, but couldn’t help myself.
It was a good meal, and by the time we were both done and I was on my second beer, I realized that we’d spent the whole time talking. I couldn’t remember the last time I went out with a girl and just talked. Normally, I would’ve tried to get her in the bathroom at some point, down on her knees, my cock in her pretty little mouth.
Instead, she made me laugh. Maybe it was being back in Philly, or maybe it was the girl, but I felt a little different, a little bit lighter, like I didn’t have the weight of an entire crime family on my back for once.
“This was good,” she said and sighed. “Way too much, but good.”
“I told you. Not just a hipster place.”
“Still very much a hipster place.” She tilted her head. “But I’m not judging.”
I grinned and leaned back. I put my hands behind my head then let them drop as a young couple in matching t-shirts and jeans came past, walking a pit bull on a long leash. The dog gave me a look like it wanted to rip my face off and I smiled and made a kissy face at it.
Mona laughed as I turned back at her. “What?” I asked.
“I didn’t know you were a dog guy.”
