Page 77 of Greed
He opened his mouth to disagree, but knew it was impossible to lie about that. No use denying it now.
“I already asked her out,” he said as Tony, Mary, Flint, and Evan arrived at the table, and sat on the other side.
“She said no?” Liza’s brows lifted. “Dude, that’s harsh.”
“I don’t know where to go from here.”
“Well, what the fuck have you been doing? Because when I see her looking at you, her lust makes me all hot inside.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Look. It’s like this: girls need to be asked a few times. We can have entire conversations with ourselves in our heads about why or why not we should date a guy. Your job is to keep showing up. Keep wooing her. But be respectful, you know?”
“I thought I was already. I’ve been making her coffee every morning at work. I brought in breakfast for her yesterday. I apologized for bossing her around.”
Liza sighed. “You need to up your game. And for the record, apologizing for being a dickwad is not considered wooing.”
“So, what is?”
“Oh my Gawd, you’re so clueless. But I love you.” She ruffled his hair to his eternal annoyance, then added: “Give her a compliment. Buy her flowers. Ask her to dance, or buy her a drink. Look after her. Treat her like there’s no one more important to you than her. She comes first, and by that, I don’t mean you go all caveman and protect her like she’s your fucking precious. I mean, ask her what she wants, and listen to her.”
Griffin rubbed his chin. “I don’t know how to dance.”
“Sometimes you need to do something you’re not comfortable with because she likes it. It’s called being in a relationship.”
“Can we focus, here?” Parker tapped his finger on the table.
Right. They were up there to discuss what happened to Doppenger.
“As you know,” Parker began, “We questioned the imposter, he gave up little except that he was given a serum in exchange to put sinners of greed out of their misery. This serum allowed him to actually sense sin like we all do, plus it temporarily mimicked our enhanced strength and healing. We decided the best course of action would be to release him, but not before we planted a tracker. He hasn’t left his apartment all day, but from what we know, we expect him to go chasing the Syndicate for more of his special juice. He exhibited classic symptoms of a junkie going through withdrawals.”
Liza shot Griffin a wry look. “Probably hasn’t moved because he’s still recovering from the beating you gave him.”
“Was it that bad?” he asked.
“I think you broke his nose, but we reset it before we sent him back.”
“Dude deserved itnotto be reset,” Tony said. “Thinking he could impersonate us.”
“That’s not why we do this,” Mary reminded him. “We’re not in the torture or revenge business.”
Parker ignored the two of them. “Sloan is keeping an eye on the tracker as we speak.”
“So she’s not coming?” Liza asked.
“I figure at least she’s helping out with something, so let her out of this one.” Parker stood up and gave them all his Hollywood smile. He rolled his shoulders as though psyching himself up for something. “You got your plugs, Griff?”
Griffin patted them in his pocket. “Yes, why?”
“Because shit’s about to get real in here.” Parker signaled for the DJ in the cage to wind up the music. A fresh electronic beat started thumping. Base vibrated the walls, the floors and the table, making Griffin’s teeth tingle.
“Now,” Parker shouted over the music, looking impish. “Tonight is going to be hard on some of you with all the sin in the air, so have the night off and enjoy yourself. That’s an order.”
With that, he stepped from the booth with grace that belied his size, entered the dance pit and slotted himself between two women he knew.
An hour later, Griffin still hadn’t moved. He’d held off with his plugs so he could hear the conversation at his table. But then Flint and Mary excused themselves, and Liza and Tony joined Parker on the dance floor. They came back once or twice to hydrate. Evan sat with him for a while, but seeing his girl down in the pit with the other beautiful women, and a growing circle of ogling men had him eager to get there.
“You sure you don’t want to come?” Evan asked.
