tits before she caught me. “Well, what about your friends?”
“Birds of a feather.”
“We have other drinks—”
“I’ll just take a lemonade.” She looked surprised, but I wasn’t about to elaborate or explain my drinking choices.
Sensing this, she stood up straight before turning to Houston. “And you?”
“Coke.”
She wrote it down before turning to Rich. “I’ll just take more water,” he answered before she could ask. I caught the dirty look he gave me and laughed.
“All right then. I’ll be right back.”
As soon as she walked away—yes, I watched her walk away—I turned to my friends. “A hundred bucks, she thinks we’re alcoholics.”
“Does it matter?” Houston asked. Irritation creased his brow.
“If I’m going to bone and possibly marry her, it does.”
“You’re not, so I guess it doesn’t.”
I resisted the urge to cause a scene by breaking my best friend’s nose. “Afraid I’ll beat you to the punch?”
Houston waved me off. “I’m only interested in her guitar skills.”
“Which you act like she doesn’t have. Care to explain why you’re keeping her around then?”
“Because you know as well as I do we don’t have a choice. You know what Carl is up to. We all know why he chose her.”
“So you think you can get her ready in three goddamn months? Toot your own horn much?” Houston’s frustration was palpable at his point, so I leaned forward, eager to go in for the kill. “Just admit it.”
“Admit what?” he snapped.
“That either she’s a damn good guitarist, or you want her pussy bad enough to risk everything we’ve built. Same as me. Same as Rich.”
That vein in his forehead looked ready to burst as our staring contest intensified. He couldn’t choose, and I, honest to God, had no clue why. It was like someone held him by his heel when he was a child and dipped his complicated ass in a pool of angst, much like Thetis did Achilles in the River Styx.
I figured if anyone could crack that wall, it was Braxton. Maybe that’s why he was afraid of her.
“Pussy,” I muttered when I caught Braxton making her way over to us while carrying a tray topped with our drinks.
None of us said a word as she set our drinks on the table along with a basket of bread. “Can I start you off with something to sample, or would you like more time to look over the menu?”
Although most of the six menu choices looked foreign even to me, we each rambled off what we wanted. Somehow this world had gotten even more pretentious since I was kicked out of it years ago, and I didn’t think that was possible.
“Okay, I’ll be back—”
“Wait,” Rich interrupted before she could run off again. “Stay.”
Braxton shifted from one foot to the other before chewing on her plump lower lip. “I can’t. I’m working.”
“We obviously know that,” I reminded her. “That’s why we’re here.”
“So you purposely came to distract me from my job? You do realize I almost got fired.”
“In our defense, no one made you be a bitch,” Houston piped in, making me wince. He was definitely the pot in this scenario, but I said nothing since we were on the same side for once.
“Excuse me?” Braxton blinked as she took a step back from the table. It was hard to believe she was that appalled.
“You heard me.”
“You ambushed me. Again. What did you expect?”
“Hi?” Houston suggested with a smirk. He was in rare form today since his weapon of choice was indifference. “Maybe hello?”
Nostrils flaring, Braxton stormed off without another word.
“Could have gone better,” I mused out loud. “This next round, I’m going to try to get her in my lap. Think she’ll go for it?”
Houston and Rich both looked at me and spoke at the same time. “Shut up, Loren.”
Thirty minutes later, Braxton returned with our food, but she didn’t give us time to apologize or make things worse before she stormed off again. A starry-eyed waiter refilled our drinks minutes later, and we took turns signing his notepad at his request before he practically skipped away. Braxton still hadn’t shown her face by the time we were done eating.
“What I wouldn’t give for a cheeseburger right now,” I said after I topped off my fish that was smaller than my fist. The food cost so much they didn’t even bother to list the prices. Apparently, if you had to ask, you had no business dining here.
“Do you think she left?” Rich asked the moment he swallowed the last of his food. At that moment,