“Geez, that other woman has been gone for what? Three minutes max?” I shouldn’t be surprised. He’s stupidly attractive and must know it, and believes he’s above things like honesty, fidelity, and monogamy.
As reprehensible as it is, I’d still probably do him just so I could see what his face looks like when he climaxes out of sheer morbid curiosity. And having the memory until I go senile.
I’m obligated to check on the table, and this new woman who’s joined Ho. I saunter over and ask if I can get either of them something to drink. This woman also has an accent, but I think it might be Scottish.
“Coffee and a dessert?” Ho asks the stain on my shirt.
“I’ll just have a coffee, black, please,” the woman responds, not bothering to look up from her phone. Possibly scheduling her next escort service call.
“One coffee, black.” Like her soul.
“Shall I bring you a dessert menu?” I arch a brow at Ho, annoyed that I still find him hopelessly sexy despite the fact that he’s clearly a womanizer, a player, and very possibly a pimp.
“I don’t think that’s necessary. Tell me, what’s your favorite dessert?” He leans forward, looking into my eyes now.
“My favorite?” I parrot and glance at the dark-haired Barbie sitting across from him, not even bothering to ogle him even a little. He’s definitely her pimp, I decide.
“Yes, Reggie, what’s your favorite indulgence?”
His date glances up briefly and smirks before returning to her phone.
What the hell is going on here?
“The chocolate pot de crème, I guess.”
“Then that’s what I’ll have, and an espresso.” He winks, which I take as a sign of dismissal.
Once their coffees and Ho’s dessert are on the table, I leave them alone to talk about what pimps and escorts discuss over coffee. Venereal diseases, maybe? Special sales?
Buy one hour with Scottish Barbie, gets the French hottie for half-price!
Twenty minutes later, Dark-haired Scottish Barbie glides through the restaurant and out the door. I poke my head around the corner to check on Ho and see if he needs me to bring him the bill for his back-to-back escort service meetings. He’s standing, pager in hand, frown firmly in place. Withdrawing his wallet from his pocket, he tosses a handful of bills onto the table, shoulders his satchel, and hops the freaking wrought iron fence with impressive grace, landing on the cobblestone sidewalk.
And then he’s off and running like the devil is at his feet.
I rush out to the terrace, searching the busy afternoon street for his retreating form, but he’s already been swallowed up by the crowd.
I nab the money from the table before someone else can, but when I ring up the bill, it turns out he didn’t leave enough to cover it. I’m three freaking euros short. Sonofa-hot-bitch.
Ho stiffed me, and not just on the tip.
Never trust a pimp.
2
Horace
Let’s get one thing out of the way—I’m not that guy.
First of all, I would dismember my own limbs before leaving a place without tipping—not literally, of course. I did, in fact, leave a restaurant without tipping, but I knew I was coming back to make up for it as soon as my work crisis was under control.
Second of all, I’m not the type of bloke to date two women at the same time, on the same day.
Truth be told, I’m not the type of bloke to date at all. An eternal bachelor—or a devilish rake, as my mother feels inclined to call me—I prefer my women like my dentist: infrequent, clean, and with extensive knowledge about how to work a mouth.
These two dates, however, were my humoring my little sister, Eugena—yes, I am not the only person in the family to be saddled with a libido-killing name.
My twenty-four-year-old sibling is currently backpacking through Asia and bumped into a fortune teller in Thailand who told her that I, her only brother, was going to meet the love of my life today. December twenty-third.