My name was Conner McGee, but for some reason, I said, “Brad. You can call me Brad.”
She eyed me for a moment as if she knew I was as full of shit as she was. She licked the wine from her lips and smiled. “So… Brad. What do you do for a living?”
Conner McGee was a wealthy investment banker who worked as the youngest partner at one of the top firms on Wall Street. He lived in a ten-million-dollar penthouse on the Upper East Side and banked a hundred-million dollar a year in salary and bonuses. Brad, however, was just a normal guy.
“I work in banking,” I said. “Small firm downtown. Nothing major.” I took a sip of the bourbon and studied her eyes. They were like green pools with little brown specks. “And what do you do for a living, Molly?”
She set her glass on the bar and turned toward the crowd. Her head bobbed to the music. She was being coy, I could tell. That was fine. I enjoyed the view of her profile. “I’m a paralegal,” she said. “Small firm downtown.” She grinned at me. “Nothing major.”
I smiled and finished the bourbon, then ordered another for myself and another glass of wine for her. I held out her wine glass, so she would turn to face me. I was enamored of this girl for some reason. Probably because girls never played coy with me. Girls came easy when you were Conner McGee. Everything did.
I said, “Molly the paralegal.”
She grinned. “And Brad the banker. Aren’t we the odd pair?”
Smiling, I said, “Yes, we are. Are you originally from New York?”
“No, Boston,” she said, head bopping to the music. “You?”
“Born and raised upstate.”
“That’s nice,” she said, starting to sound a little bored. I looked around. There were a dozen guys eyeing her, like hyenas on the prowl, just waiting for me to strike out.
“Where did you go to school?” I asked, wincing at my own words as they left my lips.
For the love of god, I sounded like a total social retard. I felt like an idiot making small talk, but it had been so long since a girl had made me work for it, I didn’t really know what to do.
Thankfully, Molly was not the kind of girl I’d have to woo. She knew what she wanted. And obviously had no problem saying so.
“Tell you what, Brad the banker, line us up a few rounds of shots and we’ll play Truth or Bullshit.”
“Truth or Bullshit?” I gave her a playful frown. “I’m not familiar with that game. How does it work?”
“Oh, it’s super easy to learn,” she said, leaning over the bar to wave down the bartender. “We line up five shots of tequila each, I tell you something about myself, and if you call bullshit and it is, I have to take a shot. If you call bullshit but it’s not, you have to take a shot. Then, it’s your turn to tell me something. We take turns until the shots are gone or we puke on our shoes. Got it?”
“Yeah, I got it,” I said. “Why don’t we just line up a bunch of shots and knock them back?”
She gave me a scolding look. “Now where would be the fun in that?”
“Good point,” I said as the bartender came over. I tapped a finger on the bar. “Ten tequila shots. And another red wine for her and another scotch for me.”
He gave me a funny look for a second. The look turned into a smile when I slid two one-hundred-dollar bills across the bar. A minute later, we each had five shots lined up in front of us and our other drinks. I told her to go first.
She tapped a finger to her chin and pooched
out her lips thoughtfully.
She said, “Okay, let’s see… I have six toes on my left foot.”
I chuckled and glanced down. She was wearing knee-high boots. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” she said, looking hurt. “Don’t make fun of girls with six toes.”
I blinked at her. “What? No, I was just… hang on…” I smiled. “I’m calling bullshit.”
She giggled and picked up her first shot. “You got me, Brad the banker.” She shot back the bitter tequila and sighed. “Okay, your turn.”
I looked deeply into her eyes as if I was thinking up some dark secret. What she didn’t know was that I made my living sorting the bullshit from the truth. I was very good at it. I could also dispense bullshit with the best of them when I wanted to.