He laughs. “But you don’t want my number, Tatum, so we don’t have anything to worry about.”
“Well, I don’t want your number, in fact.”
“Perfect,” he says.
“Great,” I reply. Then: “Well, what if I do want your number?”
“I already told you: I don’t give my number out to strangers who scare me, knowing your name aside.”
“Something else you learned in your childhood?”
“They trained me well.” He raises his eyebrows, flirting.
“What if I’m not a stranger?” I say. “What if I tell you something about my own less than fun childhood that assures that I’m just Tatum, your local friendly bartender!” I wiggle my fingers in my best jazz hands and push my face into a showbiz-style grin. I spy the clock. Less than a minute.Shit.
“I’ll consider it,” he says.
“I started working when I was twelve, have had a job ever since,” I say. “So, no fun for me.”
“Hmmm. Nope.”
“Oh, come on,” I say. “Are you going to make me beg?”
“Yes,” he says. “I am going to make you beg. Very much so. Come on, give me your best begging face.”
I stick my lip out and furrow my brow, folding my hands in front of me as if in prayer. “Please? Pretty, pretty please?”
I hear Daisy cackling before I see her; then she pops up on the stool next to him, shoulders shaking, tears in her eyes.
“What?” I double-take. “Were you, like, crouching underneath the bar? Listening to this the whole time?”
She nods, laughing too hard to speak.
“What? Judging my technique?” I eye the clock—12:01. I lost the bet, which doesn’t mean much other than bragging rights, other than more proof that maybe Sherman is wrong about me, that I’mnotthe best one in the class.
“Just ensuring that I won.” She hiccups. “Also, I wanted to witness Ben giving you shit because I knew it would be adorable. No, hilarious actually.”
“Nice,” I say. “Supernice.” Then, to Ben: “I take it you know her?”
“Ben wrote a short about dating I did a few months ago,” she says. “I told him about our little pickup contest, and he wrote it into the script.”
“ThatWomen Are from Marsshort?”
Ben nods.
“That won an award last semester, didn’t it?”
He shrugs. “I just wrote the script. She starred. And the dude who directed it, another guy I grew up with, actually got the award.”
“All you fancy Manhattan kids,” I say. “The next Scorseses. But you, don’t do that.” I jab his shoulder.
“Do what?”
“Dismiss any notions of greatness, act like you’re not worthy of winning some award.” I point at Daisy. “She tells me that all the time. So now I’m telling you.”
Even in the dim light, I can see his face redden. He’s not so different from me, outside of this bar. Uncertain, unsure.
“I’m serious,” I say. “Like, if that had been my film, I’d be standing on top of this bar, screaming about it with a microphone.”
