Page 33 of Hold the Pickle
“Nadia. My aunt Caprice’s daughter. She just got her MBA, so don’t think your dimly lit bulb is going to have a damn thing to say to her.”
“Ahh, a brain in the family. I didn’t think you Pickles were familiar with that variety.” The man nods at me. “I’m Luca. I work out with Max, mainly spotting him when he’s too pathetic to make a lift.”
Max slides onto a stool next to Camryn. “And Luca’s ego grows three sizes every workout, despite the fact that his opponent mopped the floor with him in his last match.”
“My first match.” Luca settles on a stool next to Max and drags another one forward with his foot for me. “I wasn’t as ready as I’d been led to believe.”
“You got that right,” says Parker, who has turned toward us. “The Lukinator got dropped in forty-six seconds.”
I swivel my head between the two men. “Lukinator?”
Max takes a cup from Camryn. “His fighter name. We told him it was going to be bad luck.”
“I’m changing it,” Luca says. “We should get an outsider’s opinion.” He grins at me.
“An opinion for what?” I ask.
“The new name.”
“I don’t think I know anything about fighter names.” I nod at Camryn, who is pointing at a frozen margarita machine. I need something if I’m going to manage these completely foreign conversations with outrageously hot men.
“It has to sound fierce,” Luca says.
“And not like you lukinated all over the floor,” Parker says with a laugh.
“It wasn’t a very good choice,” says the woman next to him. “And hi, I’m Maddie.”
“Nadia.”
“You haven’t introduced her around,” Camryn tells Max, “And I’m having to order her a drink.”
Luca stands. “I’ll get her a drink.”
“Sit down,” Max says. “All you punks keep your paws off my cousin.”
“Unless she likes their paws,” Camryn adds, motioning to the bartender behind her. “Max, we asked her here to meet people, not scare them off.”
Max grumbles as Camryn orders a margarita for me and a Sprite for herself.
“Get another margarita for me,” Maddie says. “It’s the only way I can deal with all these blowhards.”
They’re all casual in jeans and graphic T-shirts. But everything else about them is beautiful. Carved features. Muscles for days.
I accept my plastic cup of margarita from Camryn and take a sip. Euwww. Dive bar margaritas. Barely drinkable.
Luca shifts on his stool. “Back to my fighter name? I’m thinking of changing it to…” He pauses for emphasis and holds up his hands like he’s revealing a marquee. “The Totaler.”
“My grandma was a teetotaler,” Parker says. “Never drank a drop of booze.” Laughter breaks out over the group.
“Or a totaler like an accountant?” Max asks. “Because I can total up the number of times you’re going to lose with that name.”
Luca frowns. “It’s that bad?” He turns to me. “In your unbiased opinion?”
I take another sip to buy me some time. I don’t want to insult these people I barely know. “I get what you were going for. You’ll total someone. But I think they might be right that there are too many other connotations.”
Luca frowns, and I feel bad. “I’m sure we can workshop something.” I turn to Parker. “What’s your fighter name?”
“Power Play,” he says.
