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For a moment, I’m quiet. I know there’s nothing going on between her and Felipe, who’s always been gay. Still, I feel surprisingly jealous.
“You’ve got time to hang out with my bartender but I get a fucking ‘maybe?’” I ask.
“All right, all right. You’re not jealous, are you?”
I feel ready to blow a fuse. But I’m not the jealous type. For example, I’ve seen dozens of guys try to pick up on Kimberly and it never really bothered me.
Kimberly couldn’t understand why, and she once told me, “It’s macho to be jealous.”
I had rolled my eyes. “It’s more like the opposite. Jealousy is for guys who lack confidence.”
Or trust in their girlfriends. And I trust Bridget a helluva lot more than I’d trust Kimberley. So why am I irked that she’s spending time with a gay man?
“Who’s jealous?” I hear Felipe ask.
“I was just teasing someone,” Bridget responds.
Someone who can fire your ass, I silently answer. Felipe’s lucky that tonight’s his night off and Amanda’s working the bar instead.
“Tonight. Eight o’clock,” I tell Bridge before hanging up.
I was prepared to go gentle with her first time, but the way I’m feeling now, I’m not sure I want to be Mr. Nice.
* * *
I lookover Bridget’s outfit after she gets in my car later that evening. She wears the black jeans she wore the first time she came to The Lotus, as well as the chunky beige sweater that led to soda dripping down my face. She clearly doesn’t have an extensive wardrobe.
“What happened to the clothes Cheryl bought you?” I ask.
“Right in here,” she replies, indicating a backpack she sets down near her feet. “You didn’t say I had to wear anything in particular.”
It’s true that it doesn’t matter what she wears. It’s all coming off. Still, she doesn’t have to look like she throws on the first thing she sees.
“Why are the clothes in the bag?” I inquire as I pull my Panamera from the curb in front of her apartment.
“I’m giving them back to Cheryl.”
“You know you can keep them.”
“Yeah, but I don’t go a lot of places where I’ll need such nice clothes.”
“Cheryl’s not your size.”
“But she said she could find someone who could put them to better use.”
I shouldn’t give a shit about the clothes, but a part of me is irked that Bridget would so willingly hand over what I bought for her. The clothes are far superior to anything she currently owns or will probably ever own. I expected more appreciation. Plus, my manager did a great job purchasing clothes that made Bridget look hot.
“It was fun wearing them in Phuket, though,” Bridget says. “Thanks for getting them for me.”
More mollified, I reply, “You should keep them. They looked good on you.”
“But they’d just hang in my closet collecting dust.”
I think of where else I can take her so she can wear the clothes. Hawaii. Cancun. Rio de Janeiro.
A phone call interrupts my thoughts.
“Clear to talk?” the caller asks over the car’s speaker.
