Whatever.
Seriously time to move on. I shouldn’t have said yes to his “minute.” I shouldn’t give a shit about what he thought about me. I didn’t anyone else. Why him?
Instead of pondering that question now, I decided to do it later and asked, “I see you stopped by to spread cheer, but I’m in the middle of something. So maybe we can wrap this up so I can get back to it?”
His eyes looked to my untouched martini, my dress, my legs, my ass in the stool and around the restaurant before coming back to me. “What are you in the middle of?”
“Something,” I replied. “Now is there something you needed?”
He studied me, again did his scanning thing of me and our surroundings, then he looked back at my face and stated straight out, “I f**ked this up.”
That was a surprise statement so my head cocked to the side. “What?”
His gimlet arrived, taking his attention again. He told the bartender to put it on his table’s tab and turned again to me.
“I didn’t come over here to be a dick. I came over here to apologize for being a dick.”
Now that…
That threw me.
The men of my acquaintance didn’t apologize. They admitted no wrong verbally and instead did things (maybe) to make amends physically.
Of course, most of that was the Hot Bunch dealing with their Rock Chicks so I had not experienced it personally. Still, I’d heard about it. All about it. And sometimes I’d witnessed it. But I’d never experienced it.
I said nothing.
Ren kept talking.
“I had a good time with you. You’re funny. That whole thing you got goin’ on.” He flipped a hand out to me, my guess his flip indicating all that was me. “It’s good. It works for you. It works in a big way for me. You’re f**kin’ gorgeous. You’re a fantastic f**king lay. It was a good night. I got pissed you took off when I wanted more. Came to your house, acted like a dick and you didn’t deserve that shit. No excuse for it. But you gotta know, I felt like an ass**le because I was an ass**le. I’m glad I had the chance to tell you I know I was an ass**le.”
On that, as I stared at him, lips parted, he grabbed his drink and slid off the stool.
Looking down at me, his gaze moving over my face and hair, he finally caught my eyes and said quietly, “And you look good tonight, honey. Beautiful.”
Still staring at him, lips parted, he turned and walked away.
It took me a while to stop focusing on all that he said, and the vision of him burned into my eyeballs walking away (he seriously could rock a suit), in order to pull myself together.
But I was Ally Nightingale, so pull myself together I did.
I turned back to Zach, but grabbed my martini on the go. I wasn’t a martini girl. More like tequila. Though I was like Ren, I enjoyed booze and could drink anything. But the martini was what I had and I needed to wash what just happened away, at least for now, so it would have to do.
Fifteen minutes later, Zach got up to go to the bathroom.
Thirty seconds after that, I followed him.
I didn’t have to do the tipsy act when I hit the men’s room because no one was visible when I walked in. But there were shoes under a stall, standing sideways so not using the facilities, just using the stall for privacy to hide a nasty habit.
Loser.
I opened the stall next to Zach’s, stepped up on the toilet, balanced and looked over the divider.
He had a vial in his hand and a spoon to his nose.
“Hey, Zach,” I greeted.
He jumped and his vial of coc**ne fell into the toilet.