Page 43 of The Hot Shot

“That explains the decor. I thought I’d fallen into the nineteenth century.”

Her eyes gleam. “Wait till you meet him. The man talks as though he lived here five decades ago, when I know he grew up in Cleveland.”

Malcolm turns out to be a middle-aged man sporting a thin black mustache. He’s wearing a white suit with a black bow tie, and tells me he’s going for a Clark GableGone with the Windlook, but the image that comes to mind is Colonel Sanders. I keep that to myself as I shake his hand.

“You look familiar, Mr. Mannus,” he says, peering at my face. “Are you a model, perchance?”

The Colonel image gets stronger, and I have the sudden urge to eat fried chicken. “No, sir, I’m a quarterback.”

He gives me a blank look. “I could have sworn you were one of Chess’s boys.”

Chess’s boys?I glance at her, and she makes a face. “I don’t have boys, Mal.”

He waves a hand. “You know what I mean. Your model friends.” He stares at me again. “A quarterback, you say?”

James cuts in. “Christ on a cracker. He’s a pro football player. And the reason he looks familiar to you is because there is a massive billboard of his smiling face on Canal Street.”

I cringe. That freaking ad. I hate driving by it. I see myself in the mirror every time I shave; I don’t need a fifty-foot reminder of what I look like haunting me every time I drive around town.

Recognition dawns over Malcolm, and it’s clear that billboard has haunted him, too. “Football. Ugh.” His mustache twitches. “I loathe football. All that grunting and sweating, and no actual sex involved.”

“Hits a little too close to home, does it?” a man at his side quips.

“You should know, Robert.” Malcolm rolls his eyes then zeroes in on me again. “Please tell me you have other interests, Mr. Mannus.”

Chess gives me a quick, worried look. But I don’t mind. I’m around sycophants enough as it is, and there’s no malice in his tone.

“Oh, sure,” I say lightly. “I like baseball and basketball, too.”

He stares back at me, and I return his look with a bland smile. His lip twitches. “You’re cute.”

“I try.”

Purple Dress joins us. “I thought he was a stripper.”

I’m beginning to think this chick has a one-track mind.

“Strippers wear a costume, Trish,” Robert says with an exasperated drawl. “If he’d shown up in a football uniform, I’d give you that. Otherwise, it’s just wishful thinking on your part.”

Trish glares, but then gives a lazy shrug. “I wasn’t too far off, though. If he’s a football player, then he has been stripping for Chess.”

“Jesus, Trish,” Chess mutters.

Malcolm and Robert both perk up.

“We’re doing a charity calendar,” she explains, not at all flustered but clearly annoyed at Trish.

“I saw the photo of that big guy with all the arm ink on the news,” Trish says. “Too bad he didn’t show up. So freaking hot.”

Dex wouldn’t have made it through the front door of this place before turning tail and running.

Chess shoots me a hesitant look. “Did you see the photos?”

I take a sip of beer. It’s getting warm and flat. “No. But I heard about them.”

Why didn’t I hear about them from you?It shouldn’t bother me that Chess didn’t say anything, but it does. It seems like something a friend would definitely tell a friend.

But you aren’t friends, are you? One lunch and a couple of conversations makes you little more than brief acquaintances.