BABY WITH THE BEAST Page 4

I look around the restaurant for the first minute, determined not to engage Rocco in conversation. When I date, I date handsome, well-dressed, clean men. And they never smell of cigarettes. I don’t consider myself a snob, but if it makes me a snob to not want to sit in a restaurant tongue-fucking a biker’s ear, then I’ll take the label. The restaurant has checkered red and white décor, with a few abstract paintings on the walls and sleek tables and chairs. Every surface is clean, polished.

  “Getting a good look?” Rocco says. “What are you, an interior designer?”

  I laugh, and then kill the laugh. I didn’t just laugh. He can’t prove I did. Part of me knows I’m acting like a kid. But I won’t laugh at this man’s jokes.

  “Look at her,” I whisper in disbelief. Cecilia’s arm is moving in a way that leaves no guesses as to what her hand is doing.

  “I’d prefer to look at you,” Rocco counters.

  I feel that tingling feeling again. I don’t look at him. I won’t look at him. But looking at Cecilia and Shotgun is hardly better. And I’ve already looked around the restaurant. I’ll look like a madwoman, sitting here with eyes twitching all over the place, looking at the restaurant over and over again. Finally, the whispering stops and the waiter takes our orders. Nobody orders starters. I can just hope that nobody orders desserts either.

  When I order a salad, Rocco makes a playful snorting sound. “I’ll take a steak, medium rare.”

  “It’s two in the afternoon,” I say. “A salad is perfectly acceptable.” I realize I’m defending myself and stop. I shouldn’t have to defend my choice.

  “I’m hungry,” Rocco says. “Work makes a man hungry.”

  “Yeah. What kind of work?” I turn to him without thinking.

  He stares at me, a wicked glint in his eye. “Laboring,” he says. “I’ve been moving bricks since half past six in the morning. I’m exhausted.”

  Shotgun laughs. Cecilia joins him after a moment. I feel like the nerdy kid at school who’s fluked her way onto the cool kids’ table, and now they’re all laughing because I don’t know the ins and outs of their wild life. I take a long sip of my water, shutting them all out.

  “Don’t be upset, Simone,” Rocco says. “I was just messing around.”

  “Upset?” I narrow my eyes, as if confused. “I have no clue what you’re talking about, Mr. Green. Why would I be upset?”

  My salad arrives and I tuck into it, eating it slowly, drawing out every mouthful so that I don’t have to look at Rocco, or think about why not looking at him is so difficult. I’ll build a mind-prison around that, I decide. I won’t let myself consider it, because then I might think about that photo Cecilia showed me. I wish she hadn’t shown me that. It’s distracting. Every time I catch a glimpse of Rocco, I can instantly see him topless just by checking my memory.

  “Are you excited for the wedding?” Rocco asks the couple, mostly because of the stretching silence, I guess.

  “Excited?” Cecilia lifts her hands to the ceiling, to the heavens. “That doesn’t even come close to how we’re feeling, does it, baby?”

  “No way, not even close.” Shotgun grins through a mouthful of burger. “It’s going to be the happiest day of my life, the day I marry the woman I love.”

  For a second, everything else falls away, Mom and Dad and the fact that he’s a biker and all the rest of it, and I feel genuinely, uncomplicatedly happy for them. They really are in love.

  “Marriage,” Rocco says. “Big step.”

  “I heard you’re more of a screw-them-and-leave-them type.” I imagine myself saying the words, imagine how the table would react. Of course, I never would. It just isn’t me. Cecilia would, if our positions were reversed. She’d say it defiantly and then screw him and let herself be chucked, just for the thrill of it.

  “It’s only a big step if you’re not sure,” Shotgun says. “If you’re sure, it’s the most natural step there is.”

  “Hmm.” Rocco chews on a forkful of steak.

  “Did I tell you?” Cecilia says after a pause. “My girls are throwing me an early bachelorette party!”

  “Are they?” My voice is like a whip. If it’s true and her friends really are throwing the party, I just know I’ll get dragged into it.

  “Yes, three days from now.” She giggles. “It’s going to be crazy. So don’t get jealous, okay, babe?” She nudges Shotgun.

  “Jealous?” Shotgun says, looking to Rocco. “I think we’ll have to have a little party of our own.”

  Rocco nods. “Sounds good to me.”

  “No touching.” Cecilia pouts up at Shotgun. She knows exactly how she looks, like a terrified little girl. “Touching’s a rule breaker.”

  Shotgun wraps his arm around her, kissing her on the forehead. “I’d die before I did that.”

  “You’re going to make me puke up my steak, man,” Rocco says, chuckling.

  Shotgun looks at him sideways, and then turns to me. “You’ve had a good effect on him, Simone. He never laughs like that these days.”

  “For God’s sake,” I mutter.

  “Mom alert! Mom alert!” Cecilia jumps up from her seat and runs around the table, waving her hands in front of my face. “Mom alert!”

  “You are the single most annoying person I’ve ever met. Get away from me.”

  Nobody orders dessert. Soon we’re standing outside the restaurant, saying our goodbyes. Cecilia and Shotgun—of course—have a long, slow, embarrassing goodbye kiss which involves a lot of smooching and lip-smacking. Passersby make groaning noises or look away. Rocco and I have no choice but to stand away from them, waiting for them to finish.

  We stand side by side, not saying anything. Part of me wants him to make some joke about kissing. I have this whole scenario worked out, where he’ll make a joke about kissing and then I’ll make a joke about how we should kiss, and then it won’t be a joke anymore, and we’ll actually be kissing, and I’ll know what his tongue feels like in my mouth, and . . . I kill the thought, but not before Rocco catches me looking at him.

  He grins and shoots me a wink just as Shotgun joins him. “I guess I’ll see you around,” he says.

  My palms are too sweaty to shake his hand. I nod shortly, turning away. His dark eyes are fuzzing my brain. “Yeah, I guess so. Bye.”

  “Bye,” Cecilia repeats, leaning into me and gripping my hand. “Bye, bye, bye. You’re so smitten, Mona.”

  “I am not smitten. Don’t be such a child!”

  I pull my hand free, making for the parking lot.

  Cecilia chases me all the way, singing, “Smitten kitten, smitten kitten!”

  Chapter Six

  Simone

  Even in college, I was never much of a party girl. I would sometimes see party girls coming home if I got up early to go to the gym or catch a shift at the café where I worked as a waitress because I didn’t want to live entirely off Mom and Dad. They always look hollow-eyed, drugged-out, completely disconnected from what was going on around them. Tonight, sitting in the bar with Cecilia and her friends for the bachelorette party, is no different. I’m still not a party girl, and I have no desire to be one.

  We sit in a corner booth, Cecilia with a Soon to Be Taken banner across her dress, hot pink just like her dress, so that in the flashing strobe lights it’s difficult to make out the text. All around her, her friends sit, women I’ve only just met tonight. Most of them are club girls, I learn, which means they’re girls who hang around the Seven Sinners’ clubhouses when they’re partying, and fuck them. The idea repulses me, just going to a party and waiting for some random biker to come onto you. The woman I’m sitting next to is called Jess, one of the more sensible ones.

  I ask her what this club girl stuff is all about.

  “It’s just a bit of fun,” she tells me, and then takes a shot of vodka. She makes a disgusted face and wipes her mouth. “It’s just . . . I don’t know. They’re big, burly men. They know how to give a lady a good time. Why do women have to defend themselves when it comes to this? Th
at’s what I want to know. The men can just do it and nobody says anything, but women have to write a whole book about why they’re allowed to get fucked and never speak to the man again. It’s so annoying!”

  “I guess so,” I mutter, sipping my water.

  I sink into the chair and let the party whirl around me for a time. I look at the women, each of them melting into each other. Most of them look similar to Cecilia, with dyed hair and short skirts. I look at them, and I wonder. I can’t help but wondering. I don’t want to wonder, but it just happens.

  I wonder if any of them have had sex with Rocco. It’s been two days since the lunch and for some reason he keeps coming back to me, invading my mind. One morning I wake up with my hands between my legs and the aftermath of a dream pressed all around me, his phantom hands on my breasts, his phantom lips on my clit, his hands on my ass, too, all of me touched by him in the way only dreams can make happen. I look at a woman with large breasts pushed up in her bra to make them larger, and think about Rocco burying his face in them. It shouldn’t, but the thought makes me angry. I hate to think about it.

  Cecilia drops next to me, breaking my reverie. “Drink, Mona!” she squeals. “None of that water stuff!”

  She slides two shots to me. Usually I would push them away. But my mind is annoying me, hounding me. There has never been anything in my life which has followed me like this. I guess our lives have been too easy. There has never been a constant nagging, a constant source of distraction. I’ll stare at my computer screen trying to work up a business plan for my current client—I’m doing some freelance business work in between jobs—and I see Rocco. So instead of pushing the drinks away, I neck both of them. They burn down my throat, searing my insides.

  “Ah!” I shout, coughing. “Ah! Ah!”

  “Oh my . . .” Cecilia claps me on the back, and then screams for the entire table to hear, “My girl has become a woman!”

  The table erupts into screams and cackles and clapping. Cecilia puts two more glasses in front of me. Without giving myself time to ponder what I’m doing, I take another drink, and another, and soon I’ve taken five or six and I’m on the dance floor, pumping my hips and nodding my head up and down to the music. I have no idea if I look ridiculous. I must look pretty silly, since I’ve never really danced before. But it feels good. The music gets under my skin, into my bones, pulses into my skull and into my brain. I don’t think about anything . . .

  And yet now Sensible Jess and I are in the toilet, Jess dabbing makeup onto her face, me talking a mile a minute with no clue what I’m saying. It’s like tuning into a radio. When I find the right frequency, I hear my own words.

  “. . . It’s not that I want him or anything like that. I don’t even know him. I just want to know if every woman in this place has, like—” I catch myself, my sober half taking hold for a second. I’ll regret this if I keep on.

  “Who’re we talking about?” Jess drops her makeup into her handbag. “Sorry, honey. I’m buzzed.”

  “Nobody!” I blurt. “I need some air.”

  “Do you want some company?”

  “Sure, sure. If you want. Fine.”

  “I want a cigarette, anyway.”

  “Okay, cool. Cool.”

  We stand outside the club, Jess smoking and me leaning against the wall, letting the cool spring air caress my face, hoping to sober up and yet not wanting to sober up. I’m in that in-between drunken state, where it could go either way. Shots or water, that’s the question.

  “Do you want one?” Jess asks, presenting her packet of cigarettes.

  “Really?” I lick my lips, nervous. I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life. Cecilia has. I caught her on our fifteenth birthday at school, waiting at our usual spot to walk home with one nonchalantly hanging out of the corner of her mouth. “What kind are they?” I’m just stalling for time. I know nothing about cigarettes or if there are different types. She could say anything and I wouldn’t know if she’s messing me around.

  Even though Jess is the sensible one, she has a dyed red streak through her bright blonde hair. When she shakes her head, the red streak multiplies and wobbles. I grip the wall, giggling pointlessly. I’m not drunk, I tell myself. “Cigarettes don’t have types, or do they?” I ask.

  “Here you go.” A cigarette appears in front of my face. “Smoke away.”

  She hands me the lighter and I try to light, but I can’t get the flame to catch. After a minute of trying I’ve just managed to light the tip when somebody screams in my ear, “Simone?”

  I leap back, hands raised, swiveling to the shouter. A blur stands there, at the front of a few blurs. I focus my eyes, try to get a shape to appear from out of the blur. Slowly, a woman emerges, middle-aged with graying hair and a friendly, confused face. The blurred shapes behind her are her friends. It’s Ms. Hennessy, I realize, from my internship at the MGM Resorts marketing division.

  “Is that you . . . Simone?” She says my name like it’s a foreign word she hasn’t learned how to pronounce.

  “Hello, Ms. Hennessy.” I offer my hand, trip, recover and offer my hand again.

  She watches all of this with a blank face, and then a socialite’s smile plasters over it. “Okay, nice to see you,” she says. “What a coincidence!” She looks over my shoulder, at Jess, and then whispers to one of her entourage, “What odd little friends she has.” She turns away and begins walking down the street, tittering with her gang.

  I should let it go. There’s no reason for me to be angry. I hardly know Jess. And yet Jess gave me a cigarette. Jess danced with me. Jess got some air with me. Jess has been my friend tonight. Before I can give any serious consideration to what I’m doing, I’m at her shoulder, tapping a quivering forefinger against it.

  “Uh, yes?” She turns.

  I stand close to her, eye to eye. “You’re a stuck-up bitch. Who do you think you are, sneering at her?” I point at Jess, who watches dumbfounded. I think she missed the whole exchange. “She’s a good person. Just because she doesn’t laugh like ha-ha-ha, it doesn’t mean she’s not a good . . . get away from me!”

  I head into the bar, Jess trailing after me. “What was that about?”

  “Drinks!” I shout. I throw my arm around her. “Nobody sneers at my girl!”

  I can hardly walk. I can hardly see. Soon, maybe, the drunkenness will turn sour and I’ll want nothing more than to sober up and stop feeling like a fool. But right now, I find I like feeling like a fool.

  Chapter Seven

  Rocco

  When I agreed to be best man, the only thing I was looking forward to was the bachelor party. Women, whisky, cigarettes . . . those three words sang in my head over and over every time I had to deal with Shotgun’s starry eyes, his faraway looks when we were meant to be working but he was daydreaming about Cecilia instead. But now that the night’s come, I find it all strangely numb. I just can’t get into it.

  We’re at a club in town, the boys having a whale of a time drinking and stumbling over each other as they try to get to the front row where the strippers dance. There are four of them in all, and three of them are almost completely naked. They look good, I guess. Maybe once upon a time I’d have been up there too, flapping bills at them, hungry for one of them to take the bills with their mouth. But now I just sip whisky, and even that tastes sour.

  I can’t stop thinking about the girl at the restaurant, Simone. Simone, for some damn reason, is haunting my dreams, waking and sleeping. Whatever I do and wherever I am, Simone is there, her bright blue eyes watching me, her long blonde hair trailing down her back. I try not to think about her but it’s difficult. The more I promise myself I won’t think about her anymore, the more I think about her.

  “What’s got into you, pal?” Beast says, strolling over with a stripper on his arm. The stripper giggles and whispers something in his ear.

  “Nothing,” I say. “Go enjoy yourself.”

  “Yes, sir.” Beast nods.

  I take a step forward, talking
so only he can hear. The girl on his arm looks respectfully away. “And stop it with that sir and boss shit,” I growl.

  Beast laughs awkwardly. “That was a joke, Rocco,” he says. “And back in the warehouse . . . I just thought you were in charge of the job, that’s all. I didn’t mean anything by it. Scout’s honor and all that.”

  I hold his gaze, trying to see a lie there. Part of me wants there to be a lie there. I want a fight, a fuck, something. And yet if I fucked one of these strippers, I’d feel empty. I’d look into her face and see Simone instead, and that isn’t fair. Even strippers and club girls and hookers deserve to have a man fuck them and not the woman in his head. Maybe that’s a fucked-up kind of morality, but it’s mine. Beast isn’t lying.

  “All right.”