Beautiful Illusion (4 page)

After the last guy, the skinny redhead, finished opening up a 3-set and getting a girl’s number, I made my way back into the club and to the VIP table.

“Alright guys,” I said as I took a seat on the couch near the table. “What did you think?”

“Fucking rough,” William said. The other guys all nodded in agreement.

“A couple of you did a good job.” I nodded to the redhead and another guy who was just as nerdy but had a ridiculous blond mullet. He had refused to let us cut it earlier in the day, but he pulled it into tight ponytail that gave him at least a little bit of pizzazz. “And a few of you failed miserably.” I nodded towards the other three men, particularly William. “But it’s just our first night out and you have plenty of time to improve.”

“What about you and Cobra? Are you guys going to pick up?” Jason asked.

The students all nodded anxiously and a couple of them started rubbing their hands together.

“Sure, why not?” I asked. “To make things interesting, why don’t you guys pick a girl… any girl. And I’ll show you how it’s done.”

The guys started mumbling amongst each other, and then they all stood up, gazing over the sea of bodies in the club. A few of the guys started pointing towards the hottest girls, asking if the others agreed to the choice, but then William singled out a totally different specimen.

“What about this one?” he asked.

I turned my head to take in the woman in question. She was sitting in a 2-set, just her and her friend, and they were chatting casually. Her friend was drinking and shaking her hips as she talked, and I watched her slap the target girl on the shoulder. But the target girl herself looked like she wasn’t having fun at all. She was dressed in a tight, two-piece burgundy dress/suit that hugged her curves perfectly, but also looked a little bit too professional and out of place at McMillan. It covered most of her shoulders, but there was still a little bit of skin that was exposed in the back.

“Yeah, that’s a good target. Why don’t you try her?” Jason asked.

“Why that girl out of everyone?” I questioned.

To be honest, she was the last girl in the club that I wanted to approach. I could tell by the way that she was standing and her cold energy that she was the one type of girl that every pickup artist loathed dealing with—a cockblock.

Cockblocks were the type of girl who had already made up their mind that they didn’t want to meet anyone or have fun at the club and usually were just dragged there by their friends. Cockblocks required a lot more precision to talk to, and they’d even pull out all the stops to prevent you from picking up any of their friends accompanying them, just because they could. This girl had all the makings of that kind of girl.

Cockblocks weren’t exactly unattainable. But they were roughly the same difficulty as a 10, requiring you to tread lightly and execute your game with a firm precision. But I couldn’t remember the last time that I had been rejected by a girl, even a cockblock, so I wasn’t really fearful of the whole situation. It was just annoying, if anything, to approach a girl like that.

“She’s pretty hot and she looks kind tough. I dunno… The kind of girl that would tear you up in bed,” the redhead said.

I turned to look at Cobra and he gave me eyes that indicated that he also recognized her as a cockblock, but then he just shrugged. He knew it wasn’t something that I couldn’t handle.

“Alright,” I said as I sat my drink down on the table. “Watch and learn, guys.”

I
took
a sip of my wine cooler and crossed my arms.

“C’mon Angel,” Kim urged. “Loosen up a little.”

“I don’t see what you like about this, place,” I said.

“What’s wrong with you? Look around. Music blasting, hot guys everywhere. And me… your best friend here to keep you company.”

“I don’t see any hot guys.”

“How do you not see any hot guys?” She tilted her head to the side and winked, indicating a man with long, dark hair and his shirt purposely opened to show off his hairy chest. “There’s probably 1000 men in here of all shapes and sizes. Are you blind?”

“Just club guys,” I scoffed. “I told you that I’m not into club guys.” I looked out across the large crowd of people who were at McMillan that night, to a group of men fist pumping on the dance floor, then to another corner of the room where a man was leaning in close to a girl seductively—a girl he probably didn’t know. “This just isn’t my scene.”

“You’re being a party pooper, Angel. Back in the day you used to—“

“Back in the day, I was a young, inexperienced girl. My priorities weren’t straight.”

“You know,” Kim piped up and perked her shoulders. “I think your priorities were straighter back then. You used to care about yourself, used to care about having fun. Now it’s only about working and making money.”

“Money can do a lot for a person.”

“Stop,” she huffed. “Don’t tell me how important money is. I know you like to be financially stable and independent, like to take care of yourself, but if you have a lot of money and no one to share it with, then it means nothing.”

“I can share it with my mom,” I countered, “or my brother.”

“You’re not listening to me. Sharing with family is great and all, but it isn’t the same. Sharing your life with a man is what it’s all about. Love. Two people together, bonding and acting as one.”

I thought about what she said for a moment, and of course, I wanted to have that. I wanted to have a boyfriend or a husband, but the idea of sitting at a club, drinking alcohol and showing off my wares to horny, predatory guys didn’t appeal to me at all.

“I get your drift, but why would you want to find a guy here? It almost seems like if a guy was here, he would automatically be disqualified from relationship material.”

Kim slapped me on the shoulder. “You’re being way too prudish, Angel. The guys here are just normal guys when they’re outside the club. They come here because this is the kind of place where they know they can find single girls.”

“What makes you so wise and all-knowing all of a sudden?”

And why did that bother me? Why did it bother me to know that I was in an establishment that was designed to get me as drunk and as loose as possible while guys prowled around in hopes of taking me home?

“I saw that dress somewhere,” a voice spoke up from behind me, and I turned my head to see who it was. “A magazine somewhere or television. I’m not sure. Is it the same one that Keira Knightley wore to the
Gone Girl
red carpet?”

I lifted my eyebrows. Right in front me stood a tall, handsome man with a neatly cut brown hair and an evening shadow set into his strong jawline. His dark wash jeans and deep red shirt were a little less formal than the other guys in the club that night, but in some strange way it still looked classy.

“I bought this dress at Target,” I replied. “I highly doubt Keira Knightley would be wearing it.”

“Target?” the man asked. “That’s pretty impressive quality for a department store dress.” The guy strolled around to my other side and gave me these eyes… eyes that were overly confident, something that was uncommon for a guy approaching girls in a club. “I wonder if Keira Knightley shops at Target. And you don’t really look like the type of girl who shops there either.”

“Oh really?” I asked, unamused.

The man chuckled. “That wine cooler isn’t doing you any good. Why didn’t you order yourself something a little stronger? You might relax and have some fun with your goofy friend over here.”

I noticed out of the corner of my eyes that Kim had a giddy smile on her face, and as soon as she was mentioned, she lit up and shuffled a little closer to him.

“Where’d you come from?” she asked the man.

“I was over at the VIP table.” He tilted his chin up and pointed to a far corner that had a group of guys—a group that didn’t seem like the type of guys that I would expect him to be hanging out with. They were far less… good-looking.

“Sorry, I should probably introduce myself.” He held out his hand to Kim. “I’m Enigma.”

Enigma? What kind of childish name is that?

“Kim,” she said.

He turned his head back towards me.

“Angel,” I said cautiously. Something about the guy seemed like he was up to no good. There was no hesitation in his words, no social fear that any average guy would have in such a setting. What were his intentions?

“So Kim,” the guy mused. “Do you guys live out here or what?”

“Yeah, we’re from—“

“We’re from Orange County,” I intervened. Kim was far too honest, and I didn’t want her to let him know we were both living in Santa Monica, just in case he turned out to be a psychopath.

“What part of the OC?”

“Uh…. Costa Mesa,” I lied.

“Costa Mesa is nice. Good choice but a little rural.”

“I like rural,” I said flatly.

I took another sip of my wine cooler and tried to ignore the guy. Kim was obviously interested in him, and I didn’t want to cause too much interference if they were to hit it off.

“Let me guess,” the man continued. “You two are … Nurses maybe?”

Kim shook her head no.

“Secretaries?”

“Nope!” Kim clucked.

“Well, I can tell you work in some type of office environment—something that has to do with business, something professional.”

“Angel owns her own company,” Kim blurted and took a sip of her mojito. “I’m the Vice President.”

“Ahhhh,” Enigma said. “That would explain why she’s so rigid.”

“Rigid?” I asked, half stunned by his bluntness.

“Your body movements are a bit stiff, like you have a lot of stuff on your mind. I imagine that running a business of your own comes with a lot of stress.”

I snorted a bit and flicked an eyebrow at him. I wasn’t too exciting being called ‘stiff’ by such an attractive man, but I couldn’t really argue with it. I was constantly thinking about work. The whole time we had been in the club, my mind was simultaneously going over the number of tasks I needed to take care of first thing Monday morning.

“Anyway…” The guy slid out his phone, and for a moment, I thought he was going to walk away so that he could occupy himself with texting whatever slut he was clicking his fingers to, but suddenly he called out “Selfie,” and started taking pictures with Kim.

Kim was totally into it too, throwing up her fingers and making silly faces every time that he took a photo, but it was then that I realized that it was all a charade.

Maybe I fell for it at first. He seemed innocent enough when he asked me about my dress, like he really had an interest in women’s fashion. But now he was just lingering and had somehow drawn us away from the initial discussion and into something else without either of us catching on to his smooth moves. I could see right through his little act—the guy was a total player.

“What do you do?” Kim asked, after he took another snapshot.

“Oh, I’m an illusionist. I do magic for a living.”

“Illusionist?!” Kim squealed. “You’re kidding me?”

Another wannabe magic man?
I wondered. Was that a growing trend in LA or something? It was odd enough to have a magic event show up on my desk, but now a magician parading the clubs in search of girls? Ugh… The idea of dating someone who pulled rabbits out of their hat for a living made my stomach turn.

The man held his finger out in front of him, then closed his eyes. “Guess a number,” he ordered. “Any number.”

“Any number?” Kim asked.

“Any number between 1 and 10. I’ll tell you what you’re thinking.”

“Okay,” Kim replied. “Done… Now what’s my number?”

“I’m not getting a reading,” he mumbled. “Are you sure you picked a number between 1 and 10?”

“Yeah…”

“Oh darn. I guess my readings are just off today. What number did you choose?”

“I picked 7,” Kim said delightfully.

“Of course… I didn’t get a proper reading because—” he pointed towards Kim’s drink hand and then wiggled his finger a little bit. “Can you read that?”

“Read what?”

“In your hand.”

Kim looked at her mojito glass. “What are you talking about?” she asked, and then she noticed something was off. She slowly started to move her drink from one hand to the other when she saw that stuck to the bottom of the cup was a folded piece of paper.

“What?” she asked. She pulled the paper off, unfolded it and on it read ‘Cute girls always pick 7’. Her eyes grew wide as she held it out to him. “Get the hell out of here,” she cursed. “how’d you do that?”

“Magic…” He smirked.

“That’s fucking crazy!” she roared then turned to me with her mouth wide. “Did you see that, Angel?”

I crossed my arms and tapped my foot. “I don’t know how you did it, but it was a pretty interesting little stunt,” I said coldly.

“Stunt?” Enigma smiled and his teeth practically lit up the nightclub. If one thing was for certain, the guy had a nice set of teeth, and I had always been a sucker for a guy with good dental hygiene. Come to think about it, pretty much everything about him was pristine in the looks department. Even his unusual choice of attire. “I don’t guess you like magic too much?”

“I don’t believe in magic.”

“Neither do I, I suppose. Not Harry Potter magic. And I’ve always preferred the word ‘illusion’ anyway.” He turned so that his whole body was turned towards mine, then held out his empty palm. He closed it quickly once, then opened it again and a quarter was suddenly inside. “You can do a lot…” He closed his hand again, opened it, and small, stemmed rose was inside. “…with illusions.”

Kim bent her knees and tried to look under Enigma’s hands. “That’s wild!”

I rolled my eyes as he handed me the tiny flower. I couldn’t help but think that his mom would be proud that he spent all his time learning such useless skills. And what a waste on such a handsome specimen too. If only he had put all that time into being a doctor, lawyer or something more productive.

“But enough with the ‘stunts’ as you call them,” he said. He looked at me with kind eyes. “How about I get to know a little bit about you?”

“Me?” I asked. Why not us? I couldn’t tell if he was really interested in getting to know me or if it was some reverse psychology technique he was using to wrap Kim around his fingers, but I wasn’t going to go along with his little game anymore. I took a step back. “I think I’m alright...”

“Angel…” Kim scolded. “Don’t be rude to Enigma.”

Enigma? There was that stupid name again. Who gives themselves a name like that? Just hearing it made me want to scream.

“Yeah, Angel,” Enigma said as he reached his hand out towards my shoulder. “I don’t bite.”

I took a step back to dodge contact with his hand, and immediately turned my face towards the table and took a swig of my wine cooler, trying my best to repel his attention from me.

“I’m so sorry about her. She doesn’t come out a lot,” Kim voiced.

Enigma grinned and nodded his head a little. “It’s alright. I’m sure she has a boyfriend or someone special in her life already.”

I almost choked on my wine cooler at his cocky assumption. I sat my bottle down on the table and wiped what little liquid had tried to escape off the bottom of my lips with the back of my index finger.

“No, actually. I’m single,” I said sternly. “I’m just not interested.”

The color drained from Enigma’s face, and for a moment he looked like he was deflated, then a moment later he just looked pissed.

“Don’t mind her. She—“

“No,” Enigma interrupted. “I’ll leave you ladies alone. I’m clearly not welcome here.”

Enigma turned and began walking strongly back towards his table. His mouth was set in a firm line, and he was clearly not happy.

“Angel,” Kim barked when he was out of hearing distance, “What the hell is wrong with you? He’s the hottest guy in here.”

“He’s clearly a womanizer.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Didn’t you see how confident and cocky he was when he came up here? And those magic tricks…” I huffed and wave my hand in the air. “It’s all just an act to get one of us in bed.”

Kim touched her forehead and looked toward ground while shaking her head slowly. “Oh my god…” she said.

“What’s wrong?”

“My best friend is turning into a
lame
....”

I frowned a bit and considered her words, then picked up my wine cooler for another swig. I wasn’t lame. She was just blinded by Enigma’s pretty face. When I pushed the top of the wine cooler bottle to my lips, instead of a mouthful of fruity alcohol, I got a mouthful of paper. I jerked the bottle back and could see a small, rolled-up parchment was sitting inside the top—the same kind of paper that Enigma had used in his magic trick with Kim.

I pulled the piece of paper out and opened it up.