“Hey, handsome. What can I get you to wet your lips?”
I moan in aggravation. She cocks an eyebrow upward in an attempt to be sexy, but it has the opposite effect on me. To be honest, she looks like the Joker fromBatmanwith her painted eyebrows, heavy eyeshadow, and red lipstick.
“I’ll take a Stella. Jameson, you ready for another?”
Without taking his eyes off the table, he lifts his nearly empty beer bottle and nods. “Yeah, I’ll take another one. Why not?”
Simone saunters off, and I let a few seconds pass, hoping he’ll spit out whatever is bothering him. I know he has something to talk about; otherwise, he wouldn’t have invited me to meet him for drinks, explicitly saying as much. Minutes pass, and he says nothing.
“You okay, dude?”
Before he can answer, Simone is back with our drinks. She pours mine into a frosted glass, hands Jameson his draft beer in a mug, and then leaves us. I wonder if he was waiting for her to deliver them so we would be uninterrupted. Just as I am about to ask again, he starts talking.
“I think Emma is fucking around with that guy, Eduardo,” he blurts out in a breath. Well, that wasn’t what I was expecting.
“Your frat brother?” I ask in confirmation.
He nods.
“What makes you think so?”
“His story is similar to how you met Liv. He was in the ED, probably from some shady shit, and saw her. She’s on his radar now, and I don’t think I can compete with him. I don’t know IF I want to compete with him.”
I try to play devil's advocate and ask, “You don’t know for sure, right? I mean, this could just be a wrong assumption.”
He shakes his head and says, “No, he is fucking her.”
I take a swig of my beer, trying to process this. Eduardo is a slimy fucker, and I don’t want him near Liv if that’s the case. I have heard stories from Jameson about Eduardo. I don’t know the guy personally, but I trust Jameson’s judgment. That dude is bad news and involved in some shady as fuck shit. I’m sure that he uses his club to hide illegal activity. Then again, I could just be watching too many mafia movies.
I reiterate my question to Jameson. “How do you know, or are you just suspicious with no proof?”
He hasn’t drunk his new beer yet. He is just holding it like a lifeline, staring at the amber liquid as if it contains the secrets to the universe or, more importantly, about Emma.
“I took her home that night we left the club. The car Eduardo set us up with dropped us off, and I walked her in. I assumed I would stay the night with her. She had a lot to drink, and I wasn’t expecting to sleep with her. I wanted to take care of her. Instead, she decided that she wanted me to go. I mean, what am I supposed to say? I used her bathroom really quickly and then bailed. I’m just glad that the car hadn’t left yet. It’s almost like it waited for me knowing that I’d be back—”
I interrupted to see if there was anything I was missing in his story. “So, you walked her in, ensured she was okay, and then made the trek back to your side of town?”
He nods. “Yeah, I kissed her goodnight and told her to call if she needed anything, you know?”
I look at him, waiting for him to continue his story. He grabs his beer while taking a large drink. Waiting for the rest of the story, he explains what I need to know.
“I left in the car, but then I thought, I think I left my wallet back at her place. Maybe it fell out when I went to her bathroom? I told the driver to go back to Emma’s apartment. When we drove up, I spotted a familiar car parked in front, Eduardo’s black Porsche 911 Turbo. But I didn’t get to investigate any further because when I opened the door, my wallet fell out of the door. I must have dropped it in between the car door and the seat. That solved the case of the missing wallet. Now I just need to understand what the actual fuck Eduardo was doing there at Emma’s apartment. She didn’t want me to stay there. Was she planning on Eduardo to stop there later all along? Was that the plan…to shack up with Eduardo?”
I stayed silent and let him get it all off his chest. He starts to stay something else, but I cut him off. “Is Liv in any danger? I can’t have her around this with Emma and Eduardo. I won’t let her get into something she doesn’t know about.”
Jameson seems to think about this and tilts his head as if the answer to the question will pop into his mind if he seeks it out harder.
“I don’t know, honestly. When we were in school, I thought maybe his family was involved in the Mafia, but I knew that that was a bit crazy. Some illegal dealings, for sure.”
“Is Emma involved in that too? Like Eduardo?”
He finishes off the rest of his beer and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Nah, I doubt it. Look at her. She’s harmless.”
“I just wanted to let you know. You’ve made your intentions clear about Liv. I know that you wouldn’t want her around this shit. I thought maybe Emma was interested in me, but now there is some competition.”
As if on cue, Simone comes back and motions with her fingers to our drinks. “Refill, guys?”
We both shake our heads. “Can you bring a couple of shots of tequila instead? Don Julio 1942, if you have it?”
