beat me to the answer.
He pulled out the stool next to him. “We were holding them, just waiting for the two of you to get here.”
I rolled my eyes.
The women giggled.
“I’m Gianna,” the blonde said. She had on a low-cut red shirt, and her tits were spilling out of it.
“I’m Amber.” The brunette offered me her hand.
“Logan Flint.” He lifted Gianna’s hand and brought it to his lips.
No one flirted more than Logan. He didn’t know how to turn it off. It either got him laid or got him smacked—it was fifty-fifty, odds he did pretty damn well with.
“Ford.” I nodded and shook Barbie Number One’s hand.
I might not have been in the mood for company, but there was nothing wrong with my eyesight. They were both pretty. Sexy, actually. Though, I found myself comparing them to Valentina.
Val had a natural beauty, a girl-next-door look that let you see who she was right away. Most women wore masks. I’d never understood why they put so much makeup on, especially when they were young. They painted their entire faces—eyebrows, eyelids, cheekbones, noses, lips—until their skin looked artificial. They thought it hid their flaws, but to me it hid their beauty.
Logan called the bartender over and told him to put whatever the ladies were drinking on his tab. While they were ordering, he leaned over to me. “Dibs on the blonde.”
“You can have both, buddy.”
He squinted at me like I had two heads. As fucked up as it was, it felt wrong to be talking to women in a bar.
I was single and hadn’t spoken to Valentina in two weeks, yet my heart felt like it was cheating. I had to force myself to stick around and finish my beer while making conversation. Despite my mood, the ladies turned out to be pretty nice. I’d judged them because they cared about their appearances and approached men in a bar. But Amber turned out to be an attorney, and Gianna was a teacher. I found myself asking Gianna questions about her job—what she’d thought of her first year teaching and what time she got out in the afternoons.
Basically, I was desperate to know how Valentina was enjoying her first few weeks and used this woman as a substitute.
The bar had gotten busier, and they’d turned up the music, which made it difficult to hold a conversation.
Gianna held one hand to her ear. “Would you guys want to get out of here? I only live a few blocks away, and it’s so loud.”
Logan jumped at the offer. “Absolutely.” He lifted his hand for the bartender to close out the tab. I might’ve been substituting Gianna for Val in a conversation about teaching, but there was no way I was substituting her for anything else.
I leaned in to Gianna so she could hear me. “Thank you for the offer. But I have an early day tomorrow, so I’m gonna head out.”
She pouted. “You sure? Maybe just one drink?”
“Yeah. I’m sure.” I stood and reached into my pocket to pull out my billfold. Dropping a hundred on the bar, I turned to Logan, “I’m gonna head out, buddy.”
His brows drew down. “What? Why?”
“I have a meeting first thing in the morning.”
“So? You’re the boss. Push it back to the afternoon.”
“Can’t,” I said.
Though, that wasn’t exactly true. I could push back my morning marketing meeting if I wanted to. I just didn’t want to. It was probably against bro code to duck out as Logan’s wingman, but I was confident he’d still be going home with them both.
Logan attempted to object. But I’d already said goodnight to the ladies. I slapped my buddy on the back. “Talk to you later.”
He shook his head and mumbled so only I could hear him. “You’re crazy.”
Yeah, crazy about a woman I might get to see next year.
***
I took the long way home.
It wasn’t the fastest route, but it was only about seven blocks out of my way. Logan and I had met at a bar uptown, not too far from Eve’s restaurant. If I walked two blocks north and five blocks east, I could jump on the R train, and that would let me off a block from my building. So what if I’d passed the N train five blocks ago and that dropped me just as close? I was still, technically, on my way home.
I told myself I was just going to pass by, not stop, and definitely not go inside. With that agenda, I wasn’t even sure what