“Yeah, but she failed!” I laughed.
Richard smiled and shook his head and looked out towards Danielle on the dance floor.
“I miss those days sometimes,” he admitted.
“How often?” I asked.
“Not a lot,” he said, “but more than I thought I would. When I was single, I just wanted to find the right girl. Now I know I have her, but it can be a little…I don’t know…suffocating? Only sometimes, though. Most of the time she’s awesome, and I can’t believe how lucky I am.”
I thought about the whole suffocating thing, which I’d heard other married guys say. It was countered with every unattached guy I knew who usually said he was lonely. I never really had it either way.
Did I?
I had a lot going on, a lot of friends, and was never too far from a woman in my bed. Granted, I didn’t really date, but that was always fine with me. I wasn’t about to date a local girl, who just might figure out who I was related to or what the guys I hung out with did when they weren’t drinking.
Dating meant sharing, and I didn’t really like the idea of telling a woman about me or my family. I mean, really, what do you say when you’re out with a chick who doesn’t know who you are, and they ask you what your parents do for a living?
“You got any weed?” Richard asked.
I eyed him.
“Since when do you partake?”
“Well, she ain’t looking, so…”
We headed out the back door of the bar and split a bowl while perched up on the stairs to the roof. From that angle, no one below could really see what we were doing – not that anyone would have cared.
Richard leaned against the metal rail and blew smoke into the air.
“Feels good,” he said right before he started coughing.
I hid my snicker behind the pipe as I held the lighter to the pot and inhaled. It burned in my throat and lungs in that familiar and comfortable way as I held in the smoke. Richard tried to imitate the action but ended up coughing again.
“Are you sure this is fun?” he asked.
“You just need to get used to it,” I told him. “It’s not like smoking a cigarette.”
“I don’t smoke cigarettes.”
“Oh yeah.” The more I thought about it, the more I thought him being out here toking up with me was a little odd, and there had to be a reason for it. I was about to ask him when he answered the question first.
“Dani wants to have a baby,” Richard blurted out. “I don’t know if I’m ready for that shit, but she’s afraid her biological clock is ticking or some such shit.”
“You always wanted kids,” I reminded him.
“Yeah,” he said, “but now? I don’t know. It’s a lot of responsibility, and I still feel like a kid myself most of the time.”
“Me too,” I agreed.
It was true, too. It’s not like I was ever going to have to go to school or get a job. I could if I wanted to, but doing what? Major in criminal justice and become a defense attorney for my Dad’s associates? Take philosophy classes and teach?
Say “You want fries with that?”
I didn’t know what not being a kid meant.
“How old are you?” Richard asked.
“Twenty-five,” I replied.
“I’ll be twenty-seven in July,” he said. “It seems like that’s old enough to be a father, but I don’t feel it.”
“When I was sixteen, twenty-five seemed ancient,” I said.
Richard thought this was hilarious for some reason. His laughter made me laugh, and we decided we had probably had enough and headed down the stairs carefully.
“Where have you been?” Danielle asked.
“Nowhere,” Richard said like an idiot. He totally refused to make eye contact with her but glared at me instead. It was pretty obvious that I was about to get chewed out, so I turned quickly to order a new round of drinks.
The bartended took my order, and I watched him measure out the liquor and everything into three glasses. My fingers thrummed on the counter in time to the music, which was still nice and techo-heavy. I started head bobbing to the beat a little.
Then I turned my head.
It’s such a small thing, really – just turning your head to one side and looking down the row of beer taps. The simplest of movements that only take some negligible number of muscles that I don’t know shit about, but that minute motion, that little twitch, that slight shift – it changed everything.
It was her eyes.
Lots of guys are leg men, or ass men, and most of them are tit men. I like tits as much as any straight guy, and I love a nice pair of legs, but all guys – every last one of them – we’re all eye men. When you find a woman with really unique, beautiful eyes, you are totally lost.
Hers were like rainbows.
They were green, but they weren’t. It was like someone had painted green in the back, but around the edge of the irises they were blue. Around the whole area were little specks of brownish-orange. They were the most fascinating pair of eyes I had ever seen in my life.
“Can I help you?”
At first, I thought it was a trick of the light or maybe some funky contacts, but as I looked closer, they were definitely real. Green, blue, orange and brown – and if I leaned back a bit and looked at an angle, they almost appeared to be red.
“Excuse me?”
“What?” I blinked and realized that not only had I been staring at her with my mouth partially open, but that she had been talking to me, too. The problem was, once I realized I was doing it, I couldn’t seem to stop.
“Is there a problem?” she asked, her tone officially annoyed now.
“No,” I finally managed to sputter. “No…noth-nothing!”
The beautiful eyes narrowed at me, and their owner picked up a cocktail of some sort off the counter and pushed away from the bar. I stared, dumbfounded, as she maneuvered through the tall tables, bar stools, and patrons.
I felt the smack of knuckles against my shoulder and managed to stop watching her briefly to look over at Richard.
“Is he actually speechless?” Danielle asked. “If he is, I think that is officially a first.”
I ignored them and looked back in the direction the girl had gone. I couldn’t see her and honestly didn’t even know what she was wearing or what color her hair was. I didn’t really think about it or anything – I just took off through the crowd with Richard and Danielle calling my name behind me.
A slender girl with long dark hair was leaning against a tall, round table. I was pretty sure it was her until I tapped her on the shoulder and was met with plain, dull brown eyes.
Damnit.
Maybe she was a redhead.
I looked around, feeling just a little bit frantic. I couldn’t explain it or understand it – I just knew I needed to find her and look into those eyes again. The next three chicks I saw weren’t her either, and I started to wonder if she had left.
I ran up the stairs and out to the street. Looking left and right, I saw a blonde with straight, thick hair standing off to the side, smoking and talking to an African American chick with tight jeans and a ton of braids. I went up to her immediately, and my heart stopped in my chest.
The moonlight – or maybe it was the streetlight – glistened off her eyes and made them sparkle in a multi-colored array of pure exquisiteness.
“What the fuck is your problem?” the blonde snapped.
Shit.
“Hey there,” I said with a smile.
“Fuck off.”
“Is this the dude?” the other woman asked as she tossed her braids over her shoulder.
“He was just staring at me,” the blonde muttered.
She said something else, but as she spoke, she turned towards the streetlamp again, and the light caught her eyes. It was like being stoned, only instead of having everything around me dulled, it was in super-sharp focus and definitely in hi-definition color.
“See, Bethany?” said the rainb
ow-eyed girl. “He did the same thing inside!”
I knew I needed to focus on getting some kind of coherent sentence out, but I just couldn’t seem to come up with a single word. Her blathering friend wasn’t helping either, and she pelted me with questions.
“What do you want, loser?” Bethany asked.
I just wanted to look at her eyes some more, really, but I didn’t think I could say that.
“The bouncer is right over there, and don’t think I won’t call him over here!”
Maybe, but the bouncer knew me, so that probably wasn’t going to be a problem. What would she tell him, anyway? Was I doing something wrong? I couldn’t stop looking at her eyes to know if I was or not.
I still couldn’t form words.
I could only stare.
The beautiful-eyed girl threw her cigarette on the ground and put her hands on her hips. It was pretty obvious that she was about to start yelling at me – I could see it in the way her eyes blazed with brilliant color.
Her friend stepped between us, blocked my view, and broke the spell.
“Come on, Milena,” Bethany said.
Milena.
It might have been the most beautiful name I had ever heard, which I pondered a little before I realized I was standing there, dumbfounded again. Her eyes continued to flash in anger at me, and they were magnificent. I couldn’t stop looking at them and didn’t even hear what she and her friend were saying before they turned away from me and walked quickly down the street to a taxi stand.
No doubt – I had been completely cockblocked.
By me.
Chapter 4
Sometimes I wished I wasn’t at all famous.
Or infamous.
Whatever.
Dad had been pretty insistent about me hanging around his group instead of just my usual friends. He didn’t seem interested in telling me what the hell was going on, but I didn’t usually ask a lot of questions, either. I heard a lot just from being in the vicinity of the people who worked closest to him, but I wasn’t all that involved, so he left me out of the details most of the time.
It was rare that he dictated my actions, but I also knew Evan had been quite the busy little hit man of late and that all of the hits had been on a group of Russians who had recently moved into the area. Whatever was going on, he must have felt somewhat threatened, which meant my companions when I went out drinking included a group of his goons.
I didn’t mind – they were mostly good guys to hang with, anyway. Besides, my mind was elsewhere, and I didn’t focus on the family business dealings much.
More than anything, I couldn’t seem to get my mind off Milena – the blonde with the exotic, incredible eyes. I had made a completely uncharacteristic fool of myself, and I didn’t know what to do about it. I was used to being all smooth and always getting exactly who I wanted, and I had a pretty good idea I had blown my one and only chance with her.
I didn’t even know if she lived in the city or one of the suburbs.
That evening, I went to Sweetwater with a big group of people, goons in tow. Jonathan got us a “custom” place to sit without waiting by pressing a few buttons on his phone, and those who couldn’t fit at the table all gathered around instead. It was loud, and people were packed in, but it was still a good scene. You had to like football, though.
“Hey!” Some drunk kid stumbled over to our group and leaned heavily against the table where Evan was sitting, nursing a beer he obviously didn’t like. The kid aimed his finger towards the cone-shaped hat on his head and addressed Evan. “It’s my birthday! You should buy me a drink!”
Evan tensed and glared.
“What are ya?” Jonathan asked loudly. “Nineteen?”
The kid laughed and went to harass the next table. As I watched him stumble around the bar, I saw him bump smack into a woman with long, soft blonde hair.
“Holy shit,” I muttered.
“What’s that?” Jonathan asked.
“Nothing,” I said as I pushed back and walked over in her direction.
Milena was sitting at one of the smaller, round tables with a mostly full cocktail in her hand and a glum look on her face. It was weird, but when I saw her expression, I actually felt it, too. She was obviously really upset about something, and all I could think of was that I had to do something to fix it.
“Hey, Milena,” I said softly but still loud enough to hear over the bar noise. “What’s wrong?”
She glanced up and furrowed her brow.
“Do I know you?” she asked.
Okay, she opened the door for about a hundred different tried-and-true scenarios I could have used. I could have lied my ass off and most definitely ended up sympathy fucking her. The thing was, I just didn’t want to use a single one of those bullshit stories.
“I’m the idiot who couldn’t put two words together to talk to you the other night,” I admitted. “Nick Wolfe.”
I held out my hand, but she didn’t take it.
“Oh, you.” She looked back at her drink and didn’t say anything else.
Shit.
“It’s just...you caught me off guard,” I said. “I don’t usually have that much trouble using my tongue.”
Shit again.
I hadn’t meant it to sound the way it did, but her rainbow eyes narrowed at the innuendo.
“Off guard?” she repeated, her voice fully snarky now.
“Just…when I saw you,” I tried to explain, but all the words that came to mind were completely lame and likely to get me slapped. I took a deep breath. “You have beautiful eyes. I’ve never seen eyes quite that color before.”
Her face hardened. She tossed her hair over her shoulder, narrowed her eyes at me, and her voice changed.
“Look, Nick,” she said, “I don't know what your game is, but I have a pretty good idea what you want. Not interested, so just go away, all right?”
I had to admit I was a little taken aback at her tone. I didn't really know how to respond at first. A thousand tips and tricks I could use to change her attitude came to mind. One of them would likely work, too. They always had before.
But I didn't want to use them.
Fact was, surprisingly enough, I just didn't want her to look so sad. I could still see in her fascinating eyes how upset she was. I didn't give a shit if I got laid or not.
“I’m not playing a game,” I finally said definitively. “You just looked sad, and I wanted to know what I could do to help.”
She didn’t respond, so I tried again.
“Why are you sitting alone?”
“It's really none of your business,” she snapped back.
Her tone was harsh, no doubt about it, but I was still focused on her eyes. They had a whole other look about them.
“You seem upset,” I commented.
“What part of ‘none of your business’ don't you get?” she growled. “Can’t you just go away?”
I might have done it, too, if it weren’t for the look in the eyes I couldn’t stop watching. She looked like she was on the verge of tears, and the thought that she was so upset she’d cry in front of a virtual stranger in a sports bar was about the saddest thing I could imagine.
“I don't want you to be sad,” I said with a slight shrug. “I thought maybe I could help.”
“How are you going to help?”
“I could tell you a joke.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
The lashes framing the rainbow eyes fluttered a few times, and then the lids closed for a long moment. Milena took a long breath before opening her eyes and looking back to me again.
“Not necessary,” she said.
“I know,” I replied quietly. “I want to.”
“You want to tell me a joke.”
“I do.”
More glares. Beautiful, enticing glares.
I was such a mess.
“Fine,” she said.
“Really?”
“Go on,” she muttered, “be
fore I change my mind.”
“Okay,” I said. I took a deep breath and realized I had absolutely no joke in mind to tell her, and under the pressure of needing to come up with a good one, my mind was completely frozen. I knew some good jokes, and I was good at telling them, but right at that moment, I couldn’t think of anything but the stupidest jokes from childhood.
“Well?” Milena stared at me. I was pretty sure her foot was tapping.
“Why did the captain flush the toilet?” I blurted out.
Her eyebrows rose, but she said nothing. It was far too late to think of something better, so I just delivered the punch line with a punchy smile.
“It was his duty!”
She kept staring at me, but there was the slightest twitch in the corner of her eye at the same time. If I wasn’t so fascinated with them, I probably wouldn’t have noticed. I did know exactly what that meant, though – it meant she was about to give in.
My heart beat faster.
She cracked a half-smile as she turned to look away and sigh.
“That was awful,” she informed me.
“I know,” I said. “I couldn’t take the pressure.”
I laughed and she laughed with me. Her eyes sparkled and shone with humor, and again my pulse raced. I couldn’t stop looking at her and found myself saddened as her expression dropped back to melancholy.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her.
Milena sighed heavily and gestured towards the seat across from her. I was all too happy to join her and pulled the barstool up close to the table as I sat down. I leaned forward on my elbows – just wanting to be a little closer to her – and waited for her to say something.
“My brother is an ass,” she finally said. “I know he means well and all that, but he’s seriously interfering with my life.”
“What did he do?”
“The same shit he always does,” she said. “He’s trying to run my life. He’s trying to replace Mom and Dad.”
Her voice faltered a little when she mentioned her parents, and I knew they were dead.
“What happened to them?” I asked quietly. “I mean, if you want to tell me. I’m not trying to pry.”
I was; I was trying to pry.
“Okay,” I corrected, still unwilling to lie to her, “I do want to pry. I want to know, if you’re willing to tell me.”