Page 102 of Play With Me
This is what you wanted.
My phone buzzes again, startling me.
JUDE: I said: ???
NORA: Don’t worry, I’ll let you know how it goes. That’s what friends do, right? Talk about their dates?
There’s a beat of silence. Three dots pop up. Then they go away again.
I should tell him I was joking. But some petty—or maybe pathetic—part of me wants to see what he says.
But he doesn’t respond.
Annoyed, not just with Jude but myself, I decide I’ll make this a proper date. Never mind that it’s with myself. Jude’s going to be gone next week, and if I come away with only a battered heart, I refuse to slip back into the same sad sack student persona I was. I had world-class sex, with a world-class athlete. Never mind that for me it goes way deeper than that.
It’s Sasha’s voice that echoes in my mind when I thinkyou need to capitalize on that.
I think of Sasha’s easy laugh, her flirtatious giggle. I pull another of her dresses out of the closet. This one’s a form-fitting hunter-green tweed with a boat neck, no sleeves, and knee-length skirt with a slit at the back. She calls it her “slutty professor” dress because it shows all the curves without revealing all that much skin.
She’s not wrong. Once I manage to get it zipped up—a feat considering how little give there is in the dress, I admire my look. My meager curves have all been amplified so I actually look like I have an hourglass figure, which I’m pretty sure I don’t. Plus, I feel like it’s the first dress I’ve ever worn where my glasses look like a sexy accessory.
I do up my eye makeup and pile my hair in a bun on my head, and at the last minute, swipe on the ruby-red lipstick Sasha insisted I bring along too.
The whole effect—with the sheer black tights and heels—I’d call more slutty librarian on me, but I think it works.
I make my way down to the lounge—an adult-oriented place with a long wood bar in the center of the space with several tables on either side. Like everything on the main floor, the spot features a sky-high ceiling, along with a sheer glass window which gives a panoramic view of the ski hill outside.
Of course this gives me a flashback of Jude railing me against the glass looking out over this same hill, which makes my cheeks heat as I sit down at the bar.
“Madame,” the bartender says, gravitating to me immediately, setting a coaster and drink menu down before me. He’s very handsome—tall and slim with deep brown skin and soft curls that dust the collar of his shirt. He asks me in French if I’m expecting anyone, and when I say no, he responds in English.
“That is a surprise to me, miss.”
He gives me a wink.
On any other night, in any other universe, that would send a tingle of nerves down my spine.
But that would be a universe without Jude because that man has cornered the wink market. No other winks stand a chance after Jude bestows his dimpled smile and briefly blinks one of his sapphire blue eyes right at you.
But I’m here to not think about Jude. To enjoy a nice meal, read the murder mystery I haven’t cracked open in a full week, and maybe, possibly, use my newly awakened sexual prowess to see if I’ve magically been given the confidence to actually flirt with a stranger.
I order myself a gin martini—might as well live large—and the ragù. Then I scan the room, just to see who’s here.
And maybe to see if there’s anyone worth practicing my newfound game on.
The bartender is off making a group of woman giggle down at the far end of the bar, so it won’t be him. It’s early still, and I know this place doesn’t really get going until later at night. But there are still a scattering of guests throughout the space—a handful at the bar like me, and several groups at the tables.
While I’m looking, I hear the creak of a barstool behind me.
I force myself not to turn right away. The sound wasn’t right next to me.
But the bartender comes swaggering back, giving me a little grin as he passes, and I hear him greet the newly arrived patron.
I pull my book out and pretend to read, not daring to look over. But I sense a large shape a couple of stools down.
The voice that responds is deep and gravelly, the French accented. He’s ordered a beer and a steak.
Something ticks in me—a level of familiarity.
