“You don’t deserve a craft beer.”
“Then I’ll drink a vodka Red Bull, or whatever other disgusting concoction you decide to inflict on me. Just go on a date with me, Monroe.”
His tone is playful, but there’s a yearning underneath it he can’t quite hide, and I end up blurting the question that’s been bouncing around my mind ever since we got out of the car in the Old Port together.
“Why do you want to go out with me so much?”
There’s something about an equation including him and me that doesn’t add up. I’m not ashamed of my life or who I’ve grown up to be, and I don’t feel inferior to people like him, but there’s a clear expectation in the world for who the gorgeous son’s of French heiresses date as they build up their restaurant empires, and the underpaid managers of dive bars—or sex shops—who drape their love handles in Wal-Mart’s finest don’t exactly fit the bill.
“Do I need a reason?”
Not exactly the most doubt-assuaging answer ever. He seems to gather that I was hoping for more.
“I’ll give you three. One: you are exceptionally smart, extremely funny, andextraordinairement belle, and despite what people seem to think, that is a rare combination to find. Two: you still haven’t told me what it’s like to sell vibrators and adult DVDs all day, and even if it makes me a pervert, Iamvery curious. Three: I...I haven’t felt this...well,thisin a long time. I don’t—I don’t give myself very many opportunities for it.”
He clears his throat, his bravado cracking to display a trace of self-consciousness.
“Believe me when I say I realize just how many reasons there are to hesitate, but I’m a businessman,” he continues. “I know a good lead when I see one, and this—whatever this thing is, and I know you know what I’m talking about—this is a bloody good lead.”
His moments of vulnerability are the hardest thing about him to fight. The brief flashes I get into the things that make him human, the things that give him hopes and dreams and fears and sorrows, are what tug on my heartstrings like a fish hook reeling me closer. A bleeding heart—that’s what my dad always calls me, and it’s true. I see a need, and I fill a need, which is why it’s so unfortunate that what he seems to need right now is for me to say yes.
“You going to make me an offer I can’t refuse, businessman?” I quip, trying to cut the tension that’s crept into our brief silence.
“I think I already have. I rest my case.Alors,where are we going for dinner?”
“Dinner?” I repeat. “I thought we were getting a drink.”
“If you’re the kind of manager I think you are, you work late every night. You’d probably have to skip dinner to make it to our date on time, and I would too, so let’s save ourselves from sitting in miserable hunger and get some food before we drink.”
Why he does he have to be so damn perfect sometimes?
“I’m only agreeing because you’re being immature and manipulative enough to withhold information from me that I am very interested in,” I announce.
“I would expect nothing less.”
“I will meet you on Saturday night at seven. Do you know Frango Tango? The one just off Crescent?”
To my surprise, he lets out a full-blown belly laugh and continues to chuckle seemingly uncontrollably as I wait for him to collect himself.
“I know it’s not very fancy,” I admit, “but are you really going to laugh in the face of delicious Portuguese chicken? I haven’t been there in forever, and the bar I want to go to isn’t far, but if you don’t want to dine with the peasants—”
“No, no. It’s not that. I just...Frango Tango would be great,” he manages to gasp out before he starts laughing again.
“This is not a promising start to our date, Bordeaux boy. Don’t make me change my mind.”
I notice how fast my pulse is racing in my veins, and I realize that I reallydon’twant him to make me change my mind.
“Never. I’ll see you on Saturday, Monroe.”
“See you then.”
Mission Cut Ties With Julien Valois: complete failure.
Seven
Julien
DECANT:The transfer of wine from a bottle to another vessel, used to aerate the liquid or separate it from sediment
