Page 12 of Break for Me

JERSEY

I still made another trip to her bar, but I made sure to avoid Trista seeing me on this outing. I just wanted to be sure she was still in town. I wasn’t about to assume that she just wouldn’t figure out my game ahead of time and bail before I was ever close enough to snag her. Judging from her actions, she could feel someone in the building watching her. In my defense though, I wasn’t at all the only man in the room eyeballing her every move. I watched a good looking guy much closer to Trista’s own age slide his arm all the way around her waist when she stopped next to him to hand him his beer. I left Memphis out of my ear for this evening. She’d been very much against my coming here tonight. It was a little easier to think clearly without a woman’s voice bouncing around in my brain constantly. I pulled my phone out to text Trista.

Me: Don’t go assaulting other handsome strangers while you’re at work tonight. I didn’t realize it until just now that it’s probably a pretty foolproof way to pick up men. Worked on me. I don’t want to lose my chance before I ever really get it.

I stayed still where I was, waiting to see if she had her phone on her at all to check it. It wasn’t my intent to interrupt whatever was happening with this other guy, but it would’ve been fun to watch if it worked out that way. Instead, my phone vibrated in my hand before Trista moved at all.

Memphis: Your testosterone is showing.

Memphis: She’s the JOB, Jersey Boy. Please control yourself.

For sure ignoring that. Outright.

I shook my head and looked back up in time to see Trista remove herself from the stranger’s arm. She turned around and pulled her phone out of the little apron that hung from her waist. She smiled at the screen for just a second before her shoulders tightened and she scanned the entire inside of the building. She relaxed a little when she didn’t spot me.

Fancy Face: I don’t recall meeting any handsome strangers in this bar yet.

Something about having to field messages from not one, but two younger women with attitudes the size of fucking King Kong felt wildly unfair.

Fancy Face: Kidding, Jake. Are you too old to be able to grasp sarcasm through a text? It was probably rude to assume that you didn’t need a generational translator for these conversations.

I needed a new job.

Me: We’ll see about adjusting that attitude tomorrow night if this date goes well.

Memphis: UNSEND IT NOW, JERSEY. My God.

Could text messages really be unsent? What a time to be alive.

But I felt better to be able to see Trista’s whole face turn red even from across the room and in the dim lighting.

Fancy Face: Just had to see if there was any fight left in an old dog before this went any further :)

Me: You’ll see plenty of this old dog’s fight soon enough, Fancy Face.

Memphis: Jersey. I am BEGGING you. Stop it.

I put my phone away before my fingers got me in anymore trouble for the night and I made my way back to the door. She hadn’t left town. That was why I’d come here and now that I knew that, I needed to prepare for tomorrow.

* * *

I spent the next afternoon making annoying small talk via texting with Trista so that I could work up to asking where she lived. I needed to be able to pick her up at that motel, but she didn’t know that I already knew where it was. I didn’t actually have a dinner reservation for us and I wouldn’t be able to stuff her in my trunk right in front of a busy restaurant even if I did have the reservation. That shitty motel with its lack of cameras and barren parking lot in the back that didn’t face any road couldn’t have been a more ideal location. It worked out well enough that Memphis had picked out some restaurant that was clear on the other side of the city and we both knew that Trista didn’t have a car of her own, it would’ve been an unpleasant hour and a half of walking that distance, or she would’ve had to resort to public transportation. She’d agreed quicker than I thought she would’ve to me just picking her up.

I pulled the car right up to the curb just outside the door of the room that Trista was staying in. The sun was already low enough that this side of the building was overrun by the darkness. There weren’t even streetlights in this parking lot. I unbuttoned my suit jacket and rolled my neck from side to side to loosen up before I knocked on her door.

“Good luck, Jersey Boy,” Memphis said in my ear. The most impressive thing about her was that she genuinely knew when to stay entirely quiet, and the initial pickup was always one of those times. She was just there in case things ever went poorly.

A tiny hint of guilt swept through my chest when Trista opened the door. She was in a short purple dress that was so tight, it might as well have been a second layer of skin and wearing heels that had to make her a good six inches taller than she actually was. She looked more like a model in real life than in any of the pictures Memphis had shown me. She would’ve been stunning if I hadn’t been there to toss her ass into the trunk of my car.

“Hi, Trista. I’m Jersey.”

ten

TRISTA

This motherfucker.

I had about a third of a second to make a move and I had to figure out how to do it in fucking heels that nearly raised me all the way up to Jesus and a dress that was way too tight for any real mobility. Modesty be damned. I’d rip the fucking thing off here and now if it meant the chance to get away.

---