Hooker (L.A. Liaisons Book 2) (3 page)

“Yeah,” I said, holding up my drained glass and rattling the ice around. “I think I’ll have another.”

“Wrong.” Quinn gave the other two girls a look, and they must’ve picked up what she was throwing down because they all turned on their barstools to face me.
 

I froze at their expectant expressions. “Um. Why do I feel like I’m about to be interrogated? This isn’t about my resident card again, is it?”

“You better spill it, Shayne,” Ryleigh said, with a shake of her head. “We already know.”

I searched each of their faces, trying to gain a hint as to what the hell they were talking about. “Spill what? You guys are freaking me out.”

“I thought we were your best friends. I can’t believe you’d hold out on us like that,” Paige said.

“Oh please. I tell you all everything. Even the things you don’t want to know.”

Wait a minute. Wait just a freaking minute. Surely they couldn’t know about—

“Your date,” Quinn confirmed. “Cash Adams? Partridge Inn? A table by the water. Candlelight. Any of that ring a bell?”

“You were even wearing the royal-blue dress with the slit up your thigh that I helped you pick out,” Paige said.
 

Quinn nodded. “And we heard the two of you were in quite a hurry to leave after the main course. Didn’t even get one of their famous desserts—”

“Oh, I bet that dessert was to go.” Ryleigh winked at me. “You’re a dirty, rotten whore for not saying anything sooner, but we’ll forgive you if you tell us every little detail.”

“And every big one too,” Paige said.
 

My jaw was on the floor of the bar as I blinked at my friends. My so-called date with Cash Adams was not something I ever wanted to relive, at least not without copious amounts of alcohol. “How…did you even find out about that?” I managed to squeak out.
 

“Zoe’s latest sugar mama owns that place and she happened to be there that night,” Ryleigh said, referring to the manager of her ice creamery and booziery, Licked.
 

Busted. So busted. “I was going to tell you guys, but I was waiting for, you know. Vodka.”
 

Paige tapped her foot and motioned for me to start talking. “Well, now you’ve had plenty of that, so out with it.”
 

“Okay, okay,” I said, pushing my glass away from me. “It was just… It was a complete disaster.” Such a disaster, in fact, that I didn’t even know where to begin. Cash Adams was a B-list, mostly indie actor who’d gained industry attention by playing the autistic son of Meryl Streep last year in a movie up for an Academy Award. Though the date hadn’t been my idea, he was intriguing enough that I didn’t put up too much of a fuss.
 

Big. Mistake.
 

Pulling at my shirt as if it would somehow stretch down to my knees, I said, “So…well, do you remember that story that came out a couple of years ago? The one that claimed he did voices on dates? The baby-talk story, remember?”

Paige’s brow furrowed. “Oh, I forgot about that. I thought it ended up being fake?”

“More like he sued and won that defamation case because the girl was deranged and hoping for her fifteen minutes,” Quinn said, before focusing back on me. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Are you sure you want to know?” I asked. “It might crush a few fantasies for you.” When the girls crossed their arms in a “we don’t give a rat’s ass” way and waited, I sighed. “Fine. He does it. The voices.”

Paige let out a disbelieving snort. “He did baby talk to you?”

“No,” I said. “Not baby talk. French.”

“He spoke to you in French and you’re trying to tell us it wasn’t hot?” Paige shook her head. “Bitch, I will let a guy talk dirty to me in any language he wants—”

I held up my hand and prepared to blow her mind. “No, he didn’t
speak
in French. He did this horrible accent thing where he zpoke like zis ze whole time.”

Ryleigh’s eyes were so wide I thought they’d pop out of her head. “He did not…”

“Yes,” I said. “Ze whole time.”

“Holy shit,” Quinn said, a roaring laugh coming out of her petite frame. “Did he say it was for a movie role or something? One of those method actors?”

“I doubt it. The guy is a headcase.”

Ryleigh leaned across the bar, pointing at me. “See, if I didn’t know you to be one of the most honest people on the planet, I’d call your bluff, because that has to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“No, stupid is when he tells the waiter, ‘Ze lady will ’ave ze pan-zeared zalmon wiz ze lemon zauce.’”

Paige collapsed onto the bar top, trying to catch her breath from laughing so hard. “Jesus Christ, I knew that guy was weird.”

“You did not,” I said. “You were just obsessing over him last week when you saw the trailer for
A Man Called Gaylord
.
”

“Hey, I’m the first to admit the guy is pretty hot in an off-the-wall sort of way, and I heard he’s hung like a—”

“Paige!”

Paige straightened and shrugged. “Well, he is.
Allegedly
. But he dated Mina Radetsky, who has to be one of the strangest people in Hollywood. Anyone associated with that girl has to have a few screws loose in the head, let’s be real.”

“I bet Mina started that voice shit,” Quinn said. “Thank God you didn’t sleep with him. Hung or not, if he started wailing, ‘Geev eet to me, Zayne, ah yez, right zhere!’ your clit would probably shrivel up and die.”

“Please yell that next time, I don’t think the people at the other end of the bar heard you,” I said, ignoring the looks I could feel aimed our way. Not that it ever bothered me. We had foul mouths. We owned it.
 

“You should consider yourself lucky for dodging a bullet,” Ryleigh said. “How did that date even happen, anyway?”

I sighed. “Val. Always Val.”

Val Barberie. My boss and owner of HLS—Hook, Line & Sinker Matchmaking Company. She was hell on wheels and a nightmare to work for, but we’d been working together for more than five years, and I was expecting a big promotion and pay raise any time now. Val had a habit, though, of setting me up on client dinners that turned out to be dates. In her mind, a single matchmaker went against everything we stood for, and if I were somehow attached to a higher-profile man—say, in the entertainment world—it would give the company better visibility, and therefore more clients. Which meant more money in her pocket for the myriad vices she didn’t bother hiding.
 

Ryleigh tsked her disapproval. “That woman has set you up on more bad dates than I could possibly count on my hands
and
yours. How the hell can she even be the head of a matchmaking company? She couldn’t find a love match if both people slapped her in her too-big-for-her-body bobblehead.”

“If she’s gonna set you up on dates with celebrities, why not that guy?” Quinn nodded at the TV over the bar where the trailer for an upcoming action blockbuster was playing. “I bet
he
doesn’t do shit accents,
and
he looks like he could throw you up against the wall for some super-hot wall-banging.”

“That guy as in Ace Locke? Uh…yeah, okay,” I said. “Maybe if I was a blonde who partied on yachts and I’d been on the cover of
Sports Illustrated
half a dozen times. He
is
cute, though. A bit muscly.”

“Yeah, I’m not usually into the big ’n’ bulky type, but I’d fuck him.” Paige threw back the rest of her drink and slammed it on the bar.
 

“Please,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Like you have a type.”

Ryleigh’s eyes were still glued to the screen, her forehead wrinkled as if she were in deep thought. “Does he wax his eyebrows?” she asked.

Okaaay, so not quite so deep.
 

“I doubt Val has connections to any A-list celebrities, hence my amazing dates so far. You’re aiming too high.”

“Ugh. It’s unfortunate that Val is the face of the whole operation while our Shayne here is the brains,” Paige said.
 

“No,” I said. “She’s got a great mind for business sometimes, not to mention the finances to back it up. I am but a lowly woman on the totem pole.”

“Oh hell no, don’t you dare sell yourself short.” Ryleigh looked ready to stamp her foot in disapproval. “You have a gift, Shayne. It doesn’t seem to extend to your own personal relationships, but it’s still a gift. Hence why you’re the finest hooker-upper in the city.”

I shrugged. “It’s just about reading people. And did you really just say ‘hence’?”

Ryleigh waved me off and said, “Tell me, how many wedding invitations do you have collaged on your wall?”

I knew better than to answer that question, and let her continue while she was on a roll.
 

“I believe at last count it was one hundred and fifty.
One hundred and fifty
, Shayne. That’s three hundred people in this city alone that you’ve helped find their soul mates. That doesn’t include those that are still dating. If that’s not a gift, I don’t know what is.”

“Hell yes it is,” Quinn said, as she passed us a fresh round of Nutty Irishman shots. “And if I ever decide I want to settle down, you’re my first call.”

“Thanks, but you’re not my type,” I said, giving her a wink.
 

“Maybe not, but
that
guy checking you out certainly is.” She inclined her head in the direction of someone behind me, and I twisted on my stool to follow her gaze. And then I almost dropped my shot glass.

Mr. Gorgeous from the train was across the room in the middle of a group of guys, a beer in hand. A slow curve tipped his lips when our eyes met
,
as if he’d just found something he liked. I almost turned to see if there was someone else behind me, but I knew instinctively who that look was for.
 

Without the crowd of cramped subway passengers between us, I could clearly see the white collared shirt he wore, the sleeves rolled casually up his forearms, and his dark pa— Wait.
 

He wasn’t wearing pants. Nope. He was wearing black boxer briefs.
Just
boxer briefs.
Oh hell on fire.

“Hello, handsome,” Paige said. “You better get on that stat.”

Ryleigh narrowed her eyes. “They both look a little young.”
 

“Both?” I asked.
 

“Yeah, the twins. Is that not who we’re talking about?”

“Twins?” Looking around, I tried to find whom she could be talking about. “I don’t see any twins, Ry.”

Paige let out a loud laugh. “Well, looky who’s drunk and seeing double.”

“Shit. Maybe I should call Hunter to come get me,” Ryleigh said, fumbling in her bag for her cell phone.
 

“Oh hell no you don’t.” Quinn grabbed the bag away and tossed it to Paige. “No way are you getting out of Sunday Funday with us today. You can save that sexy-time crap for later.”

“Yeah, you practically live together,” I said. “Really, it’s almost sickening.”

“Almost,” Quinn agreed.
 

Ryleigh shrugged and grabbed her half-empty drink off the bar. “Pretty much. Although…”

“What?”

A faint blush appeared on her cheeks. “We’ve talked about it. The whole moving-in thing—”

High-pitched shrieking cut off her words as we all jumped off our barstools and surrounded her, asking questions a mile a minute. Ryleigh laughed and put her hands up.
 

“Guys, I haven’t said yes yet.”

“But you haven’t said no,” Quinn said
.

Paige hopped back on her barstool. “Just so you know, I refuse to wear salmon-colored anything, so keep that in mind when you’re picking out your wedding colors.”

Ryleigh’s mouth fell open. “Wedding? Let’s not get crazy over there. And when the hell would I ever gravitate to anything salmon-colored? Really, Paige, it’s like you don’t know me at all.”

Laughing, I planted my ass back on the stool and looked up to see Mr. Gorgeous’s eyes moving back to mine as if he could feel the moment I looked his way.
 

I’ll be damned
. Hot train guy was all about…
me
.
 

“Okay, can we please get back to the guy giving Shayne here mad fuck-me eyes?” Quinn kicked my shoe with her boot and bit down on her straw before saying, “He’s seriously cute. Go talk to him.”

I whipped around to face her. “What? I’m not going over there. He can come over here.”

“You’re a
matchmaker
, and you believe the guy still has to make the first approach?” Paige put her hand over her heart in mock disgust. “Such a disgrace.”

“No, I don’t believe that, I just…well, I…” I tried to come up with some sort of good excuse because the truth was that I did believe that. Call me old-fashioned, but I still wanted the whole “guy courting the female” thing to happen. “I’ve just had a lot to drink, and I’d probably end up ass over face. Not to mention I’m in my underpants and—” Looking down, I saw that my leg had started bleeding again, bright red rivulets running down my shin.
 

“Oh hell,” Ryleigh said before grabbing a stack of serviettes from the bar and thrusting them in my direction. “Maybe you should go rinse it with cold water in the bathroom?”
 

“Um…probably a good idea,” I said, sliding off my chair and bending over to pat down my leg with the serviettes.
 

Quinn’s hand shot out to steady my back as I stumbled. “I’ll go with you.”

“Are you implying I’m clumsy? I’ll be fine. I’m just gonna clean off so I’m not such a bloody mess.”

“But—”

“You could order another round of those nutty shot thingies while I’m gone.”

Quinn’s head tilted to the side as she thought it over for about two seconds and then nodded. “Yeah, okay. Coming right up.”

“You’re just gonna break the seal while you’re in there. Loserrrrrrr,” Paige called out.
 

Resisting the urge to flip her off, I carefully made my way to the back hall where the bathrooms were, though the crowd of people didn’t make that feat easy without stumbling more than a few times. I was never the most graceful person, even sober, so add alcohol in the mix and it was surprising I didn’t have more cuts and bruises all over my body. My mother called me Gracie for a reason.