Page 13 of Waiting Game

Every woman I had been with since her, had never even come close.

Nothing and no one was even comparable.

After every woman I had seen since Valerie, I had to wonder to myself if she had broken me. If she had left me useless to any other girl.

We pulled up to the valet in front of one of our clubs. We were led straight through, past the line of people waiting and up the stairs into one of the VIP rooms. The music was muffled from the padding on the walls, it was dimly lit but full of booths and pool tables. Topless girls walked around, serving whiskey on silver platters.

Dimitri hung back in the corner, flirting with two of them as I sat by Antoni.

“I’m glad that the oldies decided not to come,” he said, leaning back into the booth.

“The old farts would have a heart attack,” I gestured to the bare chested girls.

They were a surprise on Dimitri’s part, and honestly it was my fault for not assuming he would pull something like this.

Antoni chuckled, tipping the rest of his drink back.

“Come on,” Robbie tilted his head, “I’ll verse you in a game of pool.”

Antoni sighed, and gave me a look.

We thought about not inviting him at all, but knew that it would be met with sulking and a lecture from Zia Vera, Antoni’s mother.

Really, she was our collective mother in a way.

Robbie’s mother rarely had time for him, and we did feel bad that his father was such a dick. My mother left us when my younger sister Larissa was only a few years old and Vera always took pity on us. We all ended up at her house anyway, so she had no issue treating us and scolding us as if we were her own children.

In a way, it was sweet.

In another way, it was annoying.

Robbie was always such a douche, especially into our teens, and got us into more trouble than we needed. But if we ever excluded him, we knew that Vera would be dragging us by the ears to accommodate her nephew.

“We’ll play two on two,” I offered, following them to the pool table.

I ran my fingers over the soft purple velvet of the table, before grabbing a cue off of the rack on the wall. Antoni wiped the old markings off the scoreboard while sipping at his whiskey.

“What are the stakes?” Robbie smirked, rubbing the chalk block on the end of the cue as if he knew what he was doing.

Angel joined us, and hung back in the corner.

“Depends,” I said, twirling my own cue between my fingers, “am I on your team, or Toni’s?”

“Sorry mate,” Antoni chuckled, “I’m teaming up with Angel.”

I sighed, tipping back my drink.

“No stakes then,” I said.

Antoni laughed again and Angel even had a smirk on his face.

“I’ll break,” Robbie said, as Angel removed the triangle.

“Hey,” I shook my head, “is thisyourbachelor party? Toni can break.”

Robbie muttered something under his breath but moved to the side anyway.

“He’d need a woman who could put up with him for that,” Antoni laughed.

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