The Job (20 page)

Alec’s
gotten quiet which could be a good sign or a bad sign for my cause.

“Oh
fuck!” Irene shouts and, even though the game only states that I drink when
Alec says it, I take a few gulps anyway.

The
suspense is killing me.

“Oh
yeah, baby!” Irene shouts and all the women drink. “Oh shit. Right there, make
me come. Make me—”

Everything
goes quiet.

Someone
I’ve never met puts a hand on my shoulder to steady himself for the coming
revelation.

That’s
when we get confirmation.

“God
damn it, Alec!” Irene scolds and half the hallway erupts into roaring applause,
the other in jeers.

Irene
comes out of the bedroom a few seconds later, naked, except for a bed sheet. When
she sees the crowd, which has only grown since Alec’s bad planning cost me my
winnings, she almost drops the covers.

The
door still cracked behind her, I shout, “Alec, you let down the team, you
fucker!”

Chapter
Thirteen

The
After-Party Party

Jessica

I
still haven’t heard from my friend, but I’m actually having a great time here
with Irene, Eric and Kristin.

Even
though Eric didn’t owe me any money for his loss, it was double or nothing, I
still got a decent payoff from being on the right side of the bet.

It’s
been about an hour since Alec—I’m sorry, I have to—blew it, but he’s still in
the room, refusing to come out.

Irene
couldn’t give a fuck.

The
party’s thinned out a bit as it’s a little difficult to top the sheer
adrenaline of that hallway, but there are still a few people milling around,
mingling.

“Jessica,”
Irene says, remarkably sobered up already, either from the sexual exertion or
the reasonably small amount of time since her last drink, “there was something
I was going to tell you, but I can’t, for the life of me, remember what it
was.”

“That’s
all right. Don’t worry about it,” Eric says, trying to hide his glance in my
direction and not doing even kind of a good job of it.

It’s
kind of hard to tell with him, but I think he might be drunk.

Me,
well, it’s not so hard to tell.

“So,
how often does he sneak one in before you’ve gotten your two?” I ask Irene.

“Not
as often as you’d think,” Irene says. “Actually, I think this is the first time
in over a month. He’s really built up his game since we started our new
program—thank you, Kristin.”

“You
know, it’s so weird that we all know each other,” Kristin says. “Well, really
that you and Eric know each other, Jessica.”

“I
remember what I was going to say!” Irene announces, but Eric immediately asks
her if they can talk for a minute.

They
walk off together and I refill my plastic cup.

“How
many is that, sis?” Kristin asks.

“It’s
at least my second,” I tell her.

“Hmm…”
she muses. “As that’s the fourth time you’ve told me that, I’m going to say
that it’s at least your fifth. I’m starting to think we’re going to have to
crash on the couch here tonight.”

“Why
do you say that?” I ask.

“Well,”
she says, “I’m sober, but I don’t know how to drive stick, so I can’t drive
your car. You’ve had way too much to drive, so that’s out, too.”

“Why
don’t we just call a cab?” I ask.

“I
bet on Irene,” she says, “and I know you got a little shortchanged because you
lost your first bet with Eric. What do you think of him by the way?”

“What
do you mean?” I ask, taking a drink of my beer.

“Well,
he’s pretty sexy,” she says. “Tall, ruggedly handsome—”

God
was he ever.

“Why
do people always say that: rugged?” I ask. “It always makes me think of a
lumberjack or a mountain man, neither of which I would equate with someone like
Eric.”

“Well,
he’s pretty well-built, sis,” Kristin says.

I
would chastise her for calling me sis, but if I did that, she’d start calling
me Jay-Jay again and I hate that one even more.

“Yeah,”
I shrug. “I guess.”

“And
those eyes?” Kristin says. “You know, if I wasn’t having Jed’s baby, I’d make a
move on Eric myself.”

There’s
the quick flash of something in me, but I push it down just as quickly.

“Whoa,”
Kristin says. “I was just talking hypothetically. I’m not actually going to
make a move on your man.”

“What
do you mean ‘my man
?’
We’re just friends,” I explain.

“Well,
after your ninja kung-fu death glare, I’d say you’d like to be something more
than friends with him,” she says.

“I’m
just frustrated that I haven’t heard anything from that guy you set me up
with,” I tell her.

“Why
don’t you just ask Irene or Alec?” she asks. “They know exactly who it is.”

“I’m
just surprised that you don’t,” I start. “You actually gave my phone number to
someone you’ve never met?”

“I
didn’t give the phone number to him,” Kristin says. “I gave it to Irene, Irene
gave it to Alec and Alec gave it to his friend. Just ask one of them. It’s not
like you’re in a Sherlock Holmes book. You know exactly how to find out
whatever you want to know about the guy.”

“It’s
just,” I start. “I don’t know, I guess I’d just rather find out from him.
People’s friends always tell the most flattering version of the truth, and I’d
rather get to know him better on my own.”

“You
could at least ask for his name,” Kristin says.

“I
haven’t even asked
him
for his name,”
I tell her.

“Why
not?” she asks.

“I
don’t know,” I answer.

“I
think I know why,” she says.

“Yeah?”
I ask. “
Why’s
that?”

“I
think you’ve got it bad for Eric,” she teases.

“Speaking
of Eric,” Irene says, coming back to sit down with Kristin and me, “what he
didn’t want me to tell you a minute ago is that he’s got a
huge
—”

“Irene,
for the love of god!” Eric interrupts.

He
may as well have let her finish, because I think the secret’s out, though I
kind of wish she hadn’t said anything myself.

“Dick!”
she says, trying to pass it off as a jab at him for interrupting her, but she’s
still a bit too drunk to come off as clever about it.

“So
you two…” Kristin says.

“No,
no, no,” Eric says. “No, we’ve never—no.”

“You
know,” Irene says, looking over at Eric, “I don’t know that I like your tone
there. That wasn’t very polite.”

“You’re
my friend’s wife,” he says.

“Yeah,
it’d be weird and everything, but you don’t have to be so unequivocal about
it,” she rejoins. With that, she walks off, I’m assuming to go find her
husband, leaving me with Kristin and Eric.

“So,”
Kristin says, “what’s the plan?”

“I
don’t know,” I tell her. “I think pretty much everyone here is too drunk to
drive and I really don’t feel like asking anyone for cab fare to cover both of
us.”

“You’re
leaving?” Eric asks.

“That’s
what we’re trying to figure out,” Kristin answers. “
I
think that we should just stay here tonight. That way we don’t
have to drive back here to pick up your car.”

“How’d
you two get here?” Eric asks.

“She
drove,” Kristin says, pointing to me, “but she’s too drunk to drive and I don’t
know how to drive a stick.”

“I’ve
got a proposition for you,” Eric says. “I haven’t had a drink in a while, and
even before I stopped drinking, I was just barely catching a buzz. If you want,
I can drive you two wherever you need to go and just catch a cab home for
myself.”

“There
you go,” Kristin says, winking at me.

“I
don’t know,” I respond.

“I’d
be happy to do it,” Eric smiles. “Besides, I was thinking of heading home
pretty soon anyway.”

“That
sounds great,” Kristin says.

“Why
don’t we just have Jed come pick us up?” I ask.

“Because
you think he’s an idiot,” Kristin says, “and I’m really not in the mood for bad
vibes right now. I’m in a happy place.”

“Are
you sure you wouldn’t mind?” I ask. “I feel like we’d be taking advantage of
you.”

“Not
at all,” Eric says. “Like I said, I was planning on heading home soon anyway.”

“Hey,
shitface
,” Alec says, walking up to our group.

“Hey,
you finally deigned to show your face,” Eric says. “You know, you cost me a
twenty-dollar payoff.”

The
truth is that I do have enough money for cab fare to get both Kristin and me
back home: otherwise, I wouldn’t have brought that up as a possibility in the
first place. Still, I’m finding myself wanting to spend a little bit more time
with Eric if I can.

Despite
my earlier mockery of the term, he does have a rather rugged quality about him
like one of those guys in GQ in the plain white t-shirts, muscles providing
contours and holy shit, I need to get laid.

“Are
you ready?” Kristin asks.

Apparently,
I’ve been zoning out.

“Are
you sure you’re all right to drive?” I ask Eric.

“Absolutely,”
he says. “I ate before I came and I only ended up drinking one of those beers,
so I’m good to go.”

“All
right,” I tell him. “I’m just going to go say goodbye to Irene and I’m ready.”

I
get up and meander through the apartment. As much sense as it would have made
to simply ask Alec where his wife is, I’m still a bit nervous about having any
real contact with him after what happened at the store.

If
I knew he was Irene’s husband…actually, come to think of it, assuming I’d still
be under the impression that he was the one that broke into my store, I
probably would have still been just as happy to see him walk.

“Irene?”
I call down the hallway toward the closed door that had been the focus of so
much interest so recently.

“Just
a minute!” she calls from inside the bedroom.

It’s
none of my business if she’s in there with someone while Alec’s out talking to
Eric and Kristin. Even though swinging isn’t something I could see myself
doing, that’s the way their relationship works for them.

Still,
I’m not so comfortable with it that I’m willing to go and open that door
without some sort of assurance there’s nothing worth betting on inside the
room.

The
door opens and Irene comes out, saying, “What’s up? Are you guys leaving
already?”

“Yeah,”
I tell her. “Eric’s driving us home.”

“All
right,” she says. “Hey, there’s something I wanted to tell you.”

“What’s
that?” I ask.

“The
guy you’ve been texting,” she says. “There’s a reason why he told you he
couldn’t show up tonight and it’s not what you think.”

“What
is it that I think?” I ask, but revise the statement into, “Why couldn’t he
show up?”

“That’s
the thing,” she says. “He did.”

“He
was here?” I ask.

“Still
is,” she says. “I wanted to tell you, but I kind of got the vibe that he wanted
to tell you himself or that maybe he wasn’t ready to let you know who he was
for fear of something or other—I wasn’t really paying that much attention.”

“Who
is it?” I ask.

“Do
you really want to know?” she asks.

“Of
course,” I tell her. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because
it’s Eric,” she says.

I
scoff as a reflex.

“No
seriously,” I say. “Who is it?”

“Seriously,”
she answers. “It’s Eric. I don’t know why he didn’t want to tell you before
now, maybe it has something to do with the fact that you got Alec to quit from
the last job—I don’t know. What I
do
know,” she says, “is that he likes you, so don’t be too mad at him for not
coming clean. I think he’s just nervous about what you’ll think about him.”

“I’m
not mad,” I tell her. “I’m confused. How long has he known that it was me he
was talking to?”

“I’m
not sure,” Irene answers, “but I know he knew before he got here today. Do
me
a favor, though, and don’t tell him that I told you? I
really do think that he wanted to tell you himself.”

Eric.

The
guy on the other end of the line, the one with all the fascinating things to
say in our first conversation and all of the insight in every one since is the
guy with whom I had serious and frequent disagreements with while he was
working for me.

And
he knew it was me.