Page 9

“When I agreed to regular shifts, I was promised I wouldn’t have to babysit more than once a week.”
“Cap’n’s at that thing,” I say with a shrug. That thing is the benefit art opening Cari’s boss is hosting at her gallery. “He asked me to cover—and I don’t need a babysitter.”
“It’s not you I’m babysitting,” Dec says, swiping a bottle of whiskey from the well. “It’s your dick.”
“Well, then you’re doing a piss-poor job, brother,” I say with a laugh, while one of the flight attendants giving me the eye breaks formation and heads in my direction. “What can I get you, beautiful?” I say, turning my attention toward the brave little soldier who was elected to approach me.
“Jesus Christ,” Declan mutters, moving down the bar with the whiskey so he can build a round of sours in relative peace.
The flight attendant gives me a smile—half nervous, half star-struck. “We have your magazine on the plane,” she gushes, her cheeks immediately flushing. “I mean—would you mind signing a copy and maybe taking a few pictures with us?”
It’s not my magazine they want me to sign, it’s my cousin’s. Patrick was voted Boston’s Best Catch by Bostonian magazine a few months ago. Ever since then, Gilroy’s has been crawling with women looking to bang him, but he’s made it clear he isn’t interested in reaping the benefits of that little windfall.
Knock yourself out. That’s what he said to me while swinging his sledgehammer into every standing surface of his apartment. Just don’t fuck my waitresses.
“I might look like you, but I’m not half as stupid,” I told him, ducking when he fast-pitched a chunk of drywall at my head as I head out the door.
That was a few months ago, and I’ve been up to my eyebrows in pussy ever since. Not that I was exactly hurting before the magazine came out but when it comes to women, there is no such thing as too much or too many in my book.
I give the woman in front of me a quick assessment. Mid-thirties. Dark hair. Too much make-up for my tastes. Her uniform crisp, despite the fact that she and her backup singers obviously just got into town. No way a woman like this is going to let me fuck her in a bathroom stall.
But I know she wants to.
Like I know just about everything else.
Her friends are here to pose for pictures and flirt with the hot guy from the magazine. Take a few strategically posed selfies. Maybe chat him up a little. Buy him a drink. Make a memory.
Not her. She came here to fuck him. Too bad he’s too hung up on his ex-roommate to take advantage of the situation. That’s where I come in. It’s a matter of family pride, really.
“What’s your name, beautiful?” I say snagging a shot glass from the rack under the bar.
“Donna,” she says, licking her lips, watching me measure out a shot of Jameson. “So, what do you say?”
“Well, I don’t know, Donna…” I draw, pretending to consider it—and her—while lifting my glass. “What are you gonna do for me?” Truth is, I made up my mind when she walked in the door.
Her breath catches in her throat, and her mouth opens slightly like she’s having a hard time catching her breath. “I’m sure I can think of something,” she says, that tongue of hers skimming along the rim of her bottom lip like she’s already got a few ideas.
“Well, then—” I toss back the Jameson, liking the hot spread of it when it hits my gut. Needing the numbness it leaves behind. “Where do I sign?”
I’m not what she expects. I’m not my cousin, with his earnest smile and save-the-world antics. I don’t spend two nights a week at the library, teaching old-timers how to read. I don’t drag my ass out of bed at the crack of dawn every Sunday to coach kids’ baseball. I’m not pining away for some chick who left and is never coming back.
No, I’m not Patrick.
But I look just like him, and I fuck like it’s my natural-born profession.
Which means tonight, I’m close enough.