“Oh god, Lisa!” Ashley squeals in my ear. She snuck a peek over my shoulder. “Are you going to? Are you?”
“What?” Becca asks, crowding in on the other side of me. She lifts her gaze and all three of us stare at each other in the mirror over the bathroom counter. There’s nothing but the sound of my heartbeat.
“Are you?” Becca asks breathlessly.
“Do it, do it, do it!” Ashley chants, and Becca joins in. I start laughing. I cannot believe them!
I cannot believe I’m considering this!
With a big inhalation for courage, I slip into my bedroom, lay down on the bed, pull my panties to the side, and click!
Like a selfie, except, you know, not my face.
After a couple more tries to get it just right
, I send it off, hardly breathing when I do. This isn’t me. I don’t do shit like this! But there’s something about Diesel that makes me want to...
Nice. The text message is almost instantaneous. Now I’ll have something to stare at tonight when I go to sleep.
You better take me somewhere amazing, and dangerous, for our date.
You’ll just have to wait and see.
He’s killing me, absolutely killing me.
86
Lisa
The driver of the Rolls Royce pulls up to a smooth stop. “We’re here, ma’am,” he says in a thick French accent and I have to wonder if Diesel actually hired this guy from France just to drive his car or if he’s just pretending to be French. It isn’t like I’d be able to tell the difference.
I slide out of the backseat with the help of the driver and look up at the...
“Is he fucking kidding me?” I say out loud.
“Excuse me?” the driver says, closing the door behind me.
“Nothing,” I mutter.
With a nod, he walks around to the driver’s side and drives away, leaving me in front of…the Clover Club.
Before you say, “But Lisa, the Clover Club is this amazing place with live jazz music and these cocktails to die for,” yeah, I know. I’ve been here before. The boring suits like to take their dates to places like this.
This does not qualify as a dangerous place. I stalk up to the front door, letting the doorman open the door for me before I sweep inside. This really is ridic. The dark woods and exposed brick lend a sophisticated air to the place, as does the tie on the maître d’.
If this is living dangerously...
Just as the maître d’ opens his mouth to ask me if I have reservations, Diesel slides his arm around me. “George, she’s mine,” he tells the man, and leads me back to a private table in the back. Sure enough, a man playing the alto sax is serenading the restaurant, and I stare at Diesel.
“You think this is some place dangerous?” I ask him. “This is the Clover Club!”
“I noticed,” he said with a chuckle. “Let’s order, shall we?”
The waiter, in a black suit and tie, came up to the table, and I let Diesel order for me, since he seemed to know the menu here from memory. After the waiter disappears to retrieve a bottle of red wine, I just stare at Diesel, eyebrow cocked, total imitation of Ashley. Hey, it works on me; it can work on him!
“Brooklyn is dangerous,” Diesel says. “Did you know that there is this really long history of killings that have happened in Park Slope?”
The waiter smoothly slides our wine glasses between us and then disappears again.