Make Me Sin

26

Grace pushes her long red hair off her neck in an elegant sweep of her wrist that is supremely her. “It’s not that good. But seriously, Chloe, as far as I can tell—and please forgive me, because I say this in total love—you have never been properly fucked.”

“Gee, don’t hold back, Grace. Tell us how you really feel.” I toss a chip into my mouth, crunching on it violently, wishing it were Grace’s head.

“All I’m saying is once you get a taste of a real man, nothing else in the world ever tastes the same. If you’re going to have a fling, A.J. Edwards is the. Perfect. Man for it.”

Kat pulls a face. “He’s also the perfect man if you’re interested in contracting a life-threatening venereal disease. I went on tour with those guys. You should see some of the hos he hangs out with.”

“Literally,” I mutter.

Grace isn’t buying it. “He’s too smart to get VD, Kat. He probably owns stock in a company that produces titanium condoms or something. There’s no way a player like that doesn’t take every precaution. Plus, high-end prostitutes are certified clean. I mean, really, they have papers to prove it. The clients expect it. You can’t charge five thousand dollars a pop and have the clap. Or worse.”

A chip falls out of my mouth. It lands on the table. Five thousand dollars? When A.J. told me he paid “thousands” for his high-rent hos, I thought it was an exaggeration.

“Dear God,” says Kat. “What kind of skills do you need to have to charge that kind of money for s*x?”

I can tell Grace is about to provide a laundry list by the look on her face. I hold up a hand to stop her. “No! I don’t want to know!”

She gazes steadily at me. Her steely-grey eyes look even more steely than usual, which means I’m about to get a lecture. “Chloe, if you’re going to sleep with a man whose preferences run toward women who know how to expertly massage the prostate with anal balls while giving a blow job, you might want to brush up on your bedroom skills.”

“Gross!”

Vindicated, she sits back, shaking her head. “It’s like shooting puppies in a barrel.”

I turn to Kat. “Help me out here.”

“Hey, you’re the one who has the hots for him.”

“I never said I had the hots for him! I just don’t hate him so much anymore . . . is all.”

Grace drawls, “Riiiight. You just don’t hate him so much. Which is why you’re calling out his name during sex.”

I need to get new friends. These two are the worst.

Something terrible occurs to me. I bolt upright in my seat and grab Kat’s hand just as she’s lifting a loaded chip to her mouth. Salsa flies all over the place.

“Hey! I was going to eat that!”

“You cannot say a word to Nico about this. Promise me you won’t.”

“Chloe, even if I did, he would laugh me right out of the room. He’s seen you two together. He’d never believe it in a million years. When I told him you needed A.J.’s address, the first thing out of Nico’s mouth was, ‘Why, is she going to plant a bomb under his porch?’”

That makes me feel a little better. I release her wrist, and sit back in my chair.

“Needed his address?” Grace repeats, a little cattily I think.

“It’s not like that. He placed a flower order for some chick in Russia, and the address was wrong. Trina probably wrote it down incorrectly. It ended up being some cemetery. Anyway, the dude doesn’t own a phone, or a computer, which means he has no email, so I have no other way to contact him.” I add a teeny, tiny lie. “I’m going to send Jeff over to get it.”

Kat and Grace stare at me.

“What?”

Kat says, “Russia?”

Grace says, “Cemetery?”

I shrug, plowing into the salsa with two chips. I’m trying to make a chip-and-salsa sandwich. “Yeah. I know. What’s even weirder is that he told me when he looks at me, he sees ghosts.”

Grace starts laughing again. “He sees dead people? Like the kid in that Bruce Willis movie? This s**t is solid gold!”

Kat isn’t laughing. She’s just staring at me with this really weird look, like she can’t decide if she wants to say something or not. So of course I have to know.

“Tell me right now or I’ll throw my chip sandwich in your face, girlfriend.”

She dusts off her hands, takes a swig of her drink, and wipes her mouth with her napkin. It looks like she’s stalling. Finally, she asks, “Have you guys ever noticed A.J.’s accent?”

Grace and I repeat in unison, “Accent?”

“Yeah. His accent. His oh-so-subtle-but-definitely-there European accent.”

Grace says, “You’re on crack.”

Kat shrugs. “That was almost exactly Nico’s response when I asked him about it, too.”

But I don’t dismiss it so lightly. Kat is really intuitive about certain things. Like, scary intuitive. She’s the one who told me I should check my ex-boyfriend Jeremy’s closet for my missing underwear.

“He grew up in Las Vegas. How could he have a European accent?”

Instantly, Grace has me pegged. “You Googled him, didn’t you?”

Crap. I motion to the waiter to get me another margarita.

“His tattoos are a little Russian prisony looking, though,” she adds thoughtfully.

“Prison? What?” I’m totally confused, but Kat picks up Grace’s train of thought right away.

“That’s what I thought! Those tattoos on the backs of his hands are totally Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises!”