“I’m not really feeling it, Monica.” I waved my bag of takeout in the air. “Plus, I’m in ratty jeans and a flannel. I’m sure you don’t want to be caught dead with me. I hardly scream New York’s finest.”
“Are you mocking me?” She looked at me, her head tilted to the side, her breasts rising and falling with each breath, her eyes wide.
Shit. I didn’t mean to make her feel bad.
“No,” I lied.
“Come on, let’s go. We’re going to Astoria to see the bunny. No one cares what you’re wearing. Eat your food later tonight. Just leave it in your apartment.”
“Okay.” I turned my key in the door, shoved my food in the fridge like she said, and locked back up. I couldn’t insult the woman and then not go, especially when she was giving me a second chance.
“A bunny?” I asked when we got on the elevator.
“Yeah, Frankie. He’s so, so, soooo fun! He used to hang in the Village, but he’s found a new home in Astoria.”
“A real bunny?”
“No, silly.” She pinched my cheek and leaned forward to playfully brush my nose with hers, filling my nostrils with her overly vanilla scent. “A cross-dressing bunny. You’ll love him.”
There was no appropriate response to this.
We picked up two other people in the Uber, a girl and a guy from the Upper West Side. “Mandi withjustan I,” and “Sidney, not Sid.”
Fucking New Yorkers. They always scream their uniqueness.
“Price,justlike what something costs,” I said by way of introduction, unable to resist running my smart mouth.
We sped out of the city, over the bridge, and through the streets of Queens until the Uber pulled in front of a restored building, the letters TVRN painted onto a faux-worn trim. Right away, I could tell this was one of those froufrou places pretending to be a shithole.
After Sidney, not Sid, paid for the Uber on his app, we all volunteered to pick up the ride home, and off we went. A large bald guy stood at the door, handlebar mustache, rock band T-shirt stretched across his chest—could he be any more cliché?
“Cover is twenty-five for the guys, nothing for the ladies.”
Of course.
Pulling my worn leather wallet from my back pocket, I shoved a fifty into the guy’s hand. “I got him too,” I said, jerking my head toward Sidney.
When we walked inside, I saw I was right. Bourgeois disguised as a shithole.
“Come on.” Monica tugged on my shirt. “I see a table.” She hustled as if her life depended on it to a misplaced farm table.
“Why are we in Queens again?” I asked. “When we live near a thousand bars?”
Monica rolled her eyes. “It’s fun to go slumming, like the Village back in the day.”
“What do you know about back in the day? You’re about as fresh-faced as they come.”
She slapped my arm. “Stop! Come on, let’s have fun!”
My head shook on its own. Of all the ideas, this was close to the dumbest.
I ran my hand along the table’s finish, too glossy to be from a farm, too smooth to have ever been in a real working-man’s kitchen.
“First round’s on me,” Sidney declared as I sat my ass down in an uncomfortable chair. “What’ll you have?”
“Ooh, I want a margarita on the rocks, definitely Patrón, and yes to salt,” Monica said without even looking up at Sidney. She was fixated on her own cleavage, adjusting her tits just so.
“I want a Moscow mule,” Mandi said. “Don’t you love those mugs they come in?”
