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"We've been lucky."
"Nonsense, you have worked very hard on your little club."
The smile freezes on my face and I bite down so hard on my tongue, a metallic tang fills my mouth. Once my blood temperature lowers to a notch below boiling, I swallow and nod. "Ihaveworked.Veryhard."
"Yes, I know, Clarissa. And it looks like it's paid off. Now, shall we go in? I'd like to catch the last part of the show." He steps forward, but I grab his sleeve to hold him back.
"Erm, actually, we're so full, even my table is full."
He blinks, as if he hasn't processed what I've said.
"I can't turn away paying customers," I continue, spelling it out.
"But youdidknow I was coming."
I let go of his sleeve, rubbing my hand on the back of my skirt. "Yes."
"As your boyfriend and your biggest supporter, surely I get to have some special privileges."
My annoyance intensifies. The word "boyfriend" sounds so ridiculous coming out of his 45-year-old mouth, especially considering what we really are to each other. I grit my teeth as I say lightly, "Um, well, why don't you have a seat at the bar, and as soon as my table is free, I'll come get you."
He's about to reply, no doubt, to disagree, when Leanne joins us on her way back from the restroom.
"Patrick! You handsome devil!". She beelines for Patrick and presses her cheek to his, making the smacking noise of an exaggerated air kiss. To his side, she gives me a wink. She abhors Patrick, having only met him a few times when she'd come to help outfit the club."A sniveling Wall Street finance bro who doesn't realize that he's too old to be any kind of bro,"she'd called him the second he'd left.
I'd had to agree, albeit secretly.
But beggars can't be choosers.
And like it or not, I am one rent payment away from holding a Styrofoam cup outside of Grey's Papaya.
Patrick has deep pockets and likes to throw his money around to show just how deep they are. It helps that he doesn't know that I'd come from pockets that make his pockets look like a pothole compared to my family's moon crater.
"Leanne," Patrick says, about as impressed with her as she is with him.Crass and a terrible gossip,had been his impression of her. "How lovely to see you."
She grins at his obvious effort to be polite. "It is, isn't it? Are you coming over to Clarissa's table?"
"Er, actually..." he looks at me, uncertainly. As much as a dick as he was, he's taking care now not to upset me. That's what happens when you tell a man that you're not going to sleep with him until you're married.
"Come, Pat. You like cognac, don't you?" She winks at me. "Matthias is waiting there, and he just ordered a bottle of Remy Martin XO Louis XIII."
"Matthias?" Patrick's eyes sharpen.
"Matthias Baxter, you know him, don't you?"
Patrick practically drools on the spot. Having inherited a healthy $15 million from his father, Patrick feels like a king amongst the peasants. But he is always aiming for more.
Matthias Baxter-level more.Unachievablemore.
"I-I've actually tried to get a meeting with him," he stammers. "But he's always busy... probably getting some stripper pregnant. Hehe." His nervous laughter at his dumb joke makes me glad his focus is on Leanne and not me.
I don't know how Leanne keeps her face from scrunching up, but she does. Instead, she grabs him by the arm and tugs him toward the table. "Well, now seems like as good a time as any. And he's all liquored up, great time to ask him for his business."
"Oh. My. Oh... okay," he stutters, and follows dutifully behind her.
Poor Patrick. He's nice enough, I guess. But he's lived his whole life in the shadow of those far more successful than him. Unfortunately, for him, he's about to talk to a man whose light has only ever been shadowed by his own brothers. Liquored up or not, Matthias is going to eat Patrick alive and spit out the leftovers for the sewer rats to feast on.
I follow, a little concerned that my meal ticket is about to become mincemeat.
