Page 13 of Dirty Pool

Yeah, he thought so.

He’d been focused on getting her on the dance floor, and then seeing if he could convince her to let him take her home. And then some drunk fool in the crowd had to go and fucking ruin it. Michel didn’t think now was the right time to continue that conquest with Gabbie, but he wasn’t going to pretend like she wasn’t checking him out right then, either.

“Have you gotten your fill of looking at me yet?” he asked.

Her gaze snapped away from his throat where he’d left the top two buttons of his silk shirt undone. “You’re awfully full of yourself, lad.”

Michel smirked. “And yet you like what you see, bella principessa.”

“Was that … Italian?”

“It was, now let me look at your arm.”

Gabbie immediately turned her head away when he lifted her arm. The cut wasn’t so bad—at least, not as bad as he thought out on the dance floor. It wasn’t going to need stitches, and he’d grabbed what looked like a clean rag from a passing server to press it against the wound and staunch the blood flow. Now, it was barely bleeding at all.

“Not too bad,” he said, “maybe a Steri-Strip or two.”

“A what?”

“A kind of band aid.”

“Oh,” Gabbie whispered. “So, no hospitals?”

Michel gave her a wink, replying, “No hospital.”

“Good. I don’t feel like listening to my da bitch tonight.”

He thought to ask her about her father—and why the man would bitch at her for an accident—but a man darkened the doorway of the bathroom. Passing a glance over his shoulder, he didn’t recognize the guy at all.

“What?” Michel asked sharply.

“You the doc? I was told to find you—my friend said I could cop from you tonight if you were still around. Somebody saw you come back this way with the girl.”

Fuck.

All over again, Michel was reminded of why he came to this damn club in the first place. Work. A week of dealing for the Vannozzo Capo, and already, Michel was learning this was not like his previous trips down this path. Apparently, Sal just gave his name to anyone who asked for it, and his phone number, too. Along with that goddamn nickname of doc, like it was a joke for them, but it annoyed him more than anything else.

Michel was more than capable of finding his own customers. Or, that’s how he always used to do it when he worked for his cousins and family back home. Here, they didn’t give a shit who he was dealing to as long as he was getting rid of product.

A phone call from someone who wanted to score some coke sent him to this club, and after he’d made the exchange with the customer who hinted he probably had more people to buy, he headed to the bar. Gabbie distracted him from going back to the customer to finish any more transactions.

“Well, doc?” the guy asked.

Michel grunted under his breath, not bothering to hide the fire in his gaze as it turned on the man again. At the same time, the Irishman from before—Gabbie’s cousin—came back to the doorway with another guy he didn’t recognize. “Not tonight.”

“Damn.”

“Bye,” Michel barked.

The guy headed out of the doorway, but the other two men standing there hadn’t missed the majority of the conversation. He felt the way their eyes turned on him like they had something to say, but with Gabbie on the floor, they kept their mouths shut.

He didn’t know what it mattered.

Gabbie, on the other hand, asked, “Doc, huh?”

“Something like that,” he muttered.

“Here’s the kit, doc.”