is a fusion dish, galbi-jjim with Perigord truffles in a reduction—”
“I don’t know what any of that means!” I don’t know why I’m feeling like this, but there’s a certain terror here, something almost subconscious, so primal and deep down I can’t put it into words.
I’m practically panting for breath. Maybe this collar is too tight. I take a longer drink of my wine.
He offers me a sympathetic grin—and down below, under the tablecloth, I can feel his toe touching my leg, as though to stabilize me. “It really is okay. It’s Korean ribs…with blindingly expensive French mushrooms, basically. You’ll like it, I promise.”
That’s when it hits me. I’m looking over his shoulder, and there’s a man from the club, sitting down with a woman, and they’re laughing, she’s definitely happy to be there with him, and when he glances over, he sees me, and his face changes, just briefly, as though he recognizes me.
That’s why my mind has been going crazy. I saw him, I just couldn’t register who he was until now.
I am frozen solid.
“Finn…? What’s up?”
“Behind you. One of the customers from Jimi’s club. I think he knows who I am.”
Colby reaches over and pats my hand. It’s a chaste, sweet little gesture that does nothing to allay my anxiety. When he glances over his shoulder, he nods at the man…then holds eye contact for a second or two too long. The man grimaces and looks away, back at his date.
“Wallace Watson,” he says, when he turns back to me. “You can ignore him. Everyone else does.”
“But he knows me. I’ve served him drinks.”
“You see that lady he’s with? That’s not his wife. And you better believe he doesn’t bring his wife to the club with him, either. So you don’t worry about him. He’s far more afraid of you. You’re a threat. What do you think his date would say, if you came up and told him you recognized him from a gay club?”
Somehow, that doesn’t make me feel much better, but I make a deal with myself that I will calm the hell down, just for now. More wine might help. Colby’s already signaling for refills. If I just look at his eyes, if I just focus right there on his dark irises, surely I’ll be okay.
He fixed everything, didn’t he? He went to Jimi, he sorted things out, maybe he pushed him around a little.
Did he do that?
Something’s tickling the back of my mind about it.
I hate this subconscious stuff. I hate that I’m so nervous I can’t think.
Better to just ask him outright.
“Tell me what you said to Jimi.”
“What?”
“I need to know. Please? I feel like I’m going to have a panic attack, and I think that’s part of it.”
He nods. “You are really amped up. I’d give you a pill if I had one.”
“I don’t need a pill, I just need to know what happened.”
The restaurant is set up so you can’t hear people at the next table. All that washes over you is the indefinable sound of their voices, a murmur, like a creek, a stream. Yet I feel like everyone is listening. I know they’re not. I know they’re all busy talking, or eating, or drinking.
Sure feels like it, though. Feels like they can hear every word we say.
Except that Colby isn’t saying anything.
He’s looking down at his wine, and that means I’ve lost contact with his eyes, I’ve become unmoored.
“It was…not my proudest moment,” he says finally.
“But you stopped him.”
“Oh yeah, I stopped him.”
I’m trying not to hear the note of uncertainty in his voice.
“I won’t ever hear from him again?”
He shakes his head. “It was a little rough. I don’t want to talk about it—at all. But I guess you deserve the truth. I blew up at him. I destroyed his computer.”
It’s so unexpected that I laugh, nearly spitting out my wine. “You what?”
“I know, I know, it’s crazy, but I was so furious at him. I threatened to…I don’t know, have him chopped up or something.”
God, I hope nobody is watching me giggle. “It’s the one thing a guy like that understands,” I tell him. “Jimi knows force.”
“Well…I wish I could say the threat worked.” He shrugs. “It’s okay though. We worked it out.”
The fear is back, and it is a subtle thing, just a little tickle at the base of my skull at first, the tiny hairs standing on end, but it grows as I think about the implications of what he just said.
“Colby… Go over