Page 18 of Wingmen

Elliot barked a laugh. Too loud. “O-ho.Okay, player. You didn’t even want me in your gym, now you wanna go onanotherdate after this?”

Dustin gave him a bemused frown, and Elliot turned away quickly and picked up his beer. He swigged from it and lifted his voice to the girl at the bar, turning on the Puerto Rican. “Hey, Mami. I see you lookin. Why don’t you bring your friend over?”

“What is thataccent?” said Dustin.

Elliot clicked his tongue and ignored him.

The girl turned to her friend, and the friend gave Elliot an up and down, and they did the thing where they giggled andpretended they weren’t gonna come. The friend was a little skinnier, hair in braids.

“Yeah, you know you’re coming over,” Elliot called. “What are you drinking? My friend has next round.”

Dustin shot him a look.

One of the girls covered her mouth to whisper something to the other, and Elliot muttered to Bennet, “Mine’s the little fat one, and if you step on my game like last time, I’ll lay you on the fucking ground.”

Bennet laughed. “Okay, little man.”

“The fuck you do that for, anyway?” Elliot looked at him. “YouknewI was working on Katie.”

Dustin stroked his beard. “You know, I couldn’t tell you. I think I just wanted to piss you off.”

The girls came over.

The one with the tits was Dreya, her friend with the braids was Simone. They had thick eyelashes and lips sticky with gloss, and they were already tipsy, which Elliot assured them would be no problem, because he was having beer for dinner, and they may have to carry him home. That got a laugh.

He flashed his most charming smile as he picked up the chalk and ground it onto the tip of his cue. He had no idea what the chalk was for, but people seemed to use it.

“You play pool?” he asked them.

Dreya laughed and Simone shook her head, wrapping her lips around her cocktail straw.

“That’s okay, neither does he,” called Bennet, from where he’d posted up on the wall with his arms folded and cue propped beside him.

Elliot winked at Dreya. “He doesn’t know, he’s never even played me.” Dustin scoffed, and Elliot added, “In Puerto Rico, we say, ‘No tiene babilla.’”

Dreya put her ass on the pool table and used her tongue to get her straw in her mouth. “And what is that?”

“Means he don’t have the stones.”

“Aw.” She pouted at Dustin. “Is that true?”

Dustin kicked off the wall, looking pissed, and snatched up his cue. He chalked it as he went to the table. “Eight ball. Loser gets next round.”

Elliot did a swift count of the balls Bennet had racked. There were, like…way more than eight of them. He winked at Dreya again to cover the fact that he had no idea what Dustin was talking about. “Sounds good. You wanna go doubles?”

Dreya shook her head, sipping her cocktail. “Why don’t you win me a round first, Papi?”

“Ohh!” Elliot sketched a little bow to get out of the way as she got off the table and flounced past him. “She knows the language.”

Grinning, she linked her arm through Simone’s and they went to the high top and hopped onto the stools. “No, I only know the bad wor–”

There was acrack, and Simone yelped as Elliot spun around to look behind him. Bennet had his cue between his fingers on the felt, and the balls were scattering and rattling into the pockets. Elliot saw probably three of them go down.

Dustin straightened and put the end of his cue on the floor between his feet. “Your turn. I’ll take dots.”

That cowboy-lookin motherfucker…

Elliot twirled his cue. “Sounds good.”