With that, he was gone.
"I know I've asked you this already," Niro said, drawing my attention. "But are you fucking serious?"
"He's..." I started, ready to defend myself, wanting somehow to clear the air and make it apparent that he was not the kind of man I would ever date.
"The kind of man who will pull your strings and then convince you that you are dancing," he cut me off, making my mouth clamp shut.
Because he was right.
Ethan was exactly that kind of man.
"I was going to call him a condescending prick," Benny butted in with a smile, trying to lighten what was an oddly heavy moment.
"He is that," I agreed with a nod.
"Yet you're fucking involved with him?" Niro asked, looking almost a little disgusted by me.
"Professionally, yes," I said, lifting my chin a little, refusing to be brought any lower by a man that day.
And judging by the way Niro's lips twitched at that, he liked the spunk. "He your shampoo supplier?"
"He owns the building," I corrected.
"And Kenny is trying to get him to rent her the other half of it to expand."
"Hate to break it to you, pet, but he's not renting you the other half of this building."
"That's..."
His head ducked slightly, giving me a hard look. "He's showing up here in fucking Armani with a goddamn Bulgari Diagono on his wrist, inviting you out somewhere that you'd have to black dress it up. He doesn't want to talk about spreadsheets. He wants you fucking spread out on his sheets while you take, what I can only assume, is a disappointing five inches."
Benny laughed at that, the sound rich and rolling, something I usually found catching until we were both swiping tears away. But right then, despite definitely thinking it was amusing to assume Ethan was only packing five inches, all I felt was a crushing sort of disappointment.
It wasn't that I didn't know Ethan's intentions weren't purely professional. Of course I knew that. I wasn't stupid. But it was one thing to think it. It was a complete other to hear someone else say it. It reinforced what I only knew as a suspicion. It made it real.
There was no more dream.
There was no chance for advancement.
"Kenny," Benny piped in, voice a little pleading, likely picking up on exactly what I was feeling right then.
I shook my head at him, blinking rapidly a few times, pushing the emotional stuff away to be dealt with later. Likely with more store brand ice cream and five-dollar wine.
I was going to be as big as a house if the disappointments kept rolling in.
"I get that you don't want to hear that, Kennedy," Niro said, bringing my attention back to him, "but I figure you'd want to hear it now before he's got you at some restaurant next week and sliding his slimy hands all over you, trying to convince you that you could talk over the specifics after he fucks you. Don't really know you, but I can see this vagina shop of yours means a lot to you. But it's sure as fuck not worth getting into bed with that shithead."
It was never going to go that far.
I might have been desperate, but not anywhere near desperate enough to whore myself out for what I wanted. I'd leave that to the pros down on Third Street and the gold diggers on the other side of town.
"He's not her type," Benny decided to add, making Niro's lips tip up.
"Oh yeah? What's her type then?"
"Well, our Kenny here came from the wrong side of the train tracks so to speak. She grew up crushing on the bad boys."
Oh lovely.
Good old Benny.
"Bad boys, huh?" Niro asked, obviously loving my discomfort.
"Though, she hasn't had any..."
"Oh good God, shut the hell up," I gasped, eyes feeling like they were going to pop out of my skull they were so big. Was he really going to betray that trust? To a complete stranger? Christ.
There was a low, deep, rolling chuckle from Niro as he leaned against the counter. "Since you're full of information," he said, talking to Benny, "why does she call me Niro when she trips the switch?"
My eyes closed. My cheeks felt like they were on fire. And I was suddenly hoping that if God had any plans for a rapture, that it could happen right about that moment, so I didn't have to live through another second of that kind of embarrassment.
"Our Kenny here is a big action movie fan. And when she saw you, she thought you looked like a better looking younger Robert De Niro from Taxi Driver. And since she didn't ever catch your name, she calls you Niro."
"She talk about me a lot?"
"I'm standing right here," I protested.
"Really working those short shorts too," Niro agreed, not even sparing me a glance. "But give us a minute, pet, the boys are talking."