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In my head it sounded like the least painful alternative.
Evan led me inside before I had the chance to say anything.
The shop was narrow and deep like a slice carved off a normal store front. Dark with loud music and almost no lighting, Doomsday was a fitting name. Even by my standards this was a dive.
We waited near the door while Evan surveyed the space. After all the swanky dinners he’d taken me to, I couldn’t picture Evan opening the door here, much less venturing in to eat.
The girl behind the counter wore black high waisted jeans and a tight black corset that gave her an impossible Barbi-like waist—Counter Barbi in my mind.
The guy in front of us leered at her when she leaned over to write down his order.
I looked away.
Evan said something to bring me back to the present in this dreary dive pizza shop.
“Huh?” I asked, confused.
Evan was looking straight at me but his words hadn’t computed. “I said is pepperoni okay and what do you want to drink?”
Tequila would have been my choice, but I was so nervous I’d probably barf it up and make things that much worse. “Anything you want is fine, and just water.”
He pointed. “Grab the booth at the far back while I order.”
“What?” I was somehow behind in understanding what was going on as I’d concocted my speech in my head. I didn’t want to draw this out. “Thanks for the great dinners and—”
“Not here,” he barked before leaning closer. “Go to the booth in the back,” he said slowly, “and sit down before someone else gets it.” He pushed me that way.
As my eyes acclimated to the darkness I could now make out the booth in the far recess of the restaurant. So it was going to be a long enough speech to need to sit down and he wasn’t going to let me go first. At least we’d be sequestered enough that nobody would see my tears.
“Hi. Good to see you again,” Counter Barbi said as Evan moved up. “I’m off at nine if that works for you?”
Make me barf. I’d heard enough and left to get the booth as I’d been ordered. Watching a half dressed woman talk him up wasn’t for me. Ten minutes, maybe a half hour and I’d be on a train back to where I belonged—the other side of the East River.
As I sat and waited, I couldn’t decide if talking over a table was a good thing or not. Long meant he was going to try to sooth my feelings, that was good, but in the end it was still a we-had-a-nice-run-but-it’s-over speech. But, it wasn’t like we’d really had anything between us—we’d been faking it.
I’d known this would come to an end, just not like this. Not with his father manipulating us.
What was I complaining about? I’d gotten great meals and more importantly, a million bucks for the children, all for having to endure the paparazzi and Daddy’s scorn. I’d go back to my place in Brooklyn and still have the same job as yesterday.
Evan would go back to his dates with Counter Barbi or whoever he chose.
Daddy would eventually take me back I figured, once he thought I was done committing the sin of sleeping with the enemy and life would move on. The fund would be a million dollars richer
I laughed to myself that I hadn’t even gotten the pleasure of what probably would have been great sex with Evan, but still had to endure Daddy’s wrath all the same. For the children I reminded myself, for the children
“What’s so funny?” Evan asked as he came up carrying a tray with waters for both of us, napkins, a basket of potato chips, and two bottles I couldn’t make out in the dim lighting and a number tag that read sixty-nine.
The number made me blush. Here I was the girl plastered across the Internet as having landed the sexiest bachelor in the five boroughs and not only had I not gotten tangled in the sheets with him, we’d never even had a proper kiss, one that was for us and not the cameras.
I twisted one of the bottles to look at it—a wine spritzer, then pushed it away. The basket gave me an excuse to try my vocal cords again. “Chips with pizza?”
“The place is gluten free, so no bread.” He grabbed a chip. “Dig in.”
As his lips closed around the chip I wondered what it would have been like to be that potato chip, to have his lips on me, his teeth, just for the experience. Years from now people would ask me what it was like being with this hunk of a man and I’d have to lie my ass off with vague platitudes instead of any real details.
“We should talk,” he said.
I closed my eyes and grabbed my knees bracing for the speech, the goodbye, the brush off.
