Bet Me Read online

“Fuck Todd, and fuck this year!” She picks up her newly-filled glass and holds it out. “You were too good for him anyway. To your new life!” she yells gleefully before tossing it back.

  I try to smile.

  “You’re not having fun!” Della scolds.

  “I am!” I protest. I just can’t seem to forget Todd’s face a few days ago as he squirmed guiltily on the couch while telling me he was leaving me for his assistant, Harmony, who he referred to as a “younger, more ambitious version of you.”

  “Harmony,” I repeat. “Just the tinkly, musical sound of her name is enough to drive me out of my skull. Well, that, and the fact that he couldn’t even look at me when he said it. What a snake. No, not a snake.” I pound the bar. “A rat. A SUPER rat, as Holly Go-Lightly puts it in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

  See, Holly has this theory that you can divide most men in the world into two categories: Rats and super rats, and Todd was clearly in the category of super rat.

  Della nods. “I mean, what kind of guy leaves after you put him through law school selling overpriced stilettos at a Madison Avenue boutique?”

  “I was on my swollen feet for hours, and the customers treated me like more like a servant than a salesgirl. Like I said, a super rat. Case closed.”

  I sip my tequila. “Enough about him. How’s business?” I ask, playing with the gold, heart-shaped locket around my neck.

  “Good,” she answers, pushing her glass to the side. “I finished this awesome pillow this afternoon that says EAT ME.”

  Della started an Etsy shop about a year ago selling needlepoint designs with lewd phrases, along with knitted dicks in day-glow colors like hot pink and neon green. It’s wildly popular and she can barely keep anything in stock before it flies right back out again.

  Kind of like my love life.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the bartender staring at Della, practically drooling on top of the bar. “He’s totally into you,” I say, nodding in his direction while picking up my shot glass and draining it so fast I see stars.

  “He has possibilities,” she shrugs, sucking on a lime wedge. “At least for tonight,” she says as she throws the lime to the side and flashes him a toothy smile like she wants to eat him alive, waiting for him to drift back her way. Which, after about a minute, he does, a shock of dirty blond hair falling over his eyes, biceps flexing as he leans over the bar to whisper in her ear.

  Just watching them makes me depressed all over again.

  She turns back to me, a wicked gleam in her eye. “His name’s Zach, and he says he wants to take me out for breakfast when he gets off work tonight. Should I let him?”

  “Probably,” I say with a sigh. There goes my wing woman. Oh well, at least one of us will be getting laid tonight. It just won’t be me.

  Again.

  “Do you mind if I go over there and talk with him for a few minutes?” She points to the back door of the bar, which is propped open to let in a little cool air. “You know, just to make sure he’s not a serial killer or anything? I’d rather not start next year by waking up in a dumpster in Queens.”

  “Oh, why not?” I say magnanimously, raising my glass to her, even though I’m dying inside.

  “I love you to bits,” Della says with a wink, grinning naughtily as she eases herself off of the barstool. “Back in a flash.”

  Right, I think. I watch her walk away as the bartender throws a towel over one shoulder and follows quickly behind her. If by that you mean I’ll probably see you sometime next Tuesday. She turns around, cupping her hands around her mouth so she can yell over the music.

  “Stay out of trouble!”

  I nod, trying to smile through gritted teeth and give her the thumbs up with my free hand. After she disappears into the crowd, I look at my new shot, still waiting for me to drink it, and take a polite sip this time instead of swallowing it down right away. The way this night is going, I’m going to need to pace myself.

  Suddenly I’m jostled from behind, and I lurch to the side, almost falling off of my chair. “What the fuck?!” I turn around to see a guy elbowing the crowd out of the way and sliding onto the newly vacated barstool beside me without even apologizing or acknowledging my presence—or the fact that he practically knocked me unconscious.

  And people say manspreading on the subway is bad.

  “Excuse me?” I ask again, but he’s too busy looking for a bartender and doesn’t even notice.

  I jam my elbow into his ribcage as hard as I can.

  “Oww!” He turns.

  “Whoops,” I grin. “I didn’t see you there. So busy. New Year’s.” I shrug, and if he knows I did it on purpose, he doesn’t say. His blue eyes go to my drink.

  “You’re drinking tequila?” he asks. “Alone? Now that’s just sad.” He reaches for my half-empty shot glass and downs it in one.

  I splutter. “One, I’m not alone. At least, I wasn’t before my friend decided to go fuck one of the bartenders. Two, you owe me a drink, and three . . .” I pause, trying to think of a third thing. “You’re very rude,” I manage to add.

  He smirks. “You should be thanking me. I just saved you from a shitty hangover.”

  I snort. “Believe me, you’re about three shots too late for that.”

  “Ouch. Well, the least I can do is take the edge off.” He leans against the bar and gestures smoothly for service. Maybe any other night of the year the bartender would have come running, but it’s New Year’s Eve, and this guy is shit out of luck.

  “Don’t hold your breath,” I tell him.

  “Oh, ye of little faith. Are you sure I can’t buy you a drink?”

  I’m about to turn back to wallowing in my own despair, then I take another look.

  He hasn’t shaved in a few days, his dark hair needs a cut, and he’s dressed in the Brooklyn uniform of black skinny jeans and a plaid shirt, but his blue eyes are sparkling, and he’s smiling at me with a wolfish look . . . Hmmm.

  Hot? Check.

  Cocky? Double-check.

  Drinking alone on NYE? Ding, ding, we have a winner. Step right up, ladies and gentlemen. Lizzie Ryan’s rebound fling has arrived!

  “Alright,” I say, “I guess you can buy me a drink.” I cross one leg over the other in what I hope is an alluring fashion—and almost topple off the barstool in the process.

  Whoops. Guess I’m a little drunker than I thought.

  He reaches out one arm to steady me, and his grip is like the rest of him, strong and sure.

  “Falling for me already?” he cracks as he reaches into the inside pocket of his coat and pulls out a silver flask. I’m surprised to see it isn’t some novelty thing, but the real deal: the silver is worn and antique-looking, a relic from a time where men drank bourbon on the rocks from glass tumblers and women wore red lipstick just to do a little grocery shopping.

  Turns out my drink-stealer has taste, after all.

  He twists off the cap and pours some amber liquid into my glass, filling it to the brim. I watch as he raises the flask to his lips and swallows hard, the whiskey going down his throat like water.

  “Macallan 25,” he says, screwing the top back on and shoving the flask back into his coat. “Try it. It’ll change your life.”

  I don’t know much about whiskey, as I’m mostly a tequila or gin girl, but I do know that Macallan 25 is obscenely expensive—Todd’s boss drank it routinely, and Todd had mentioned, back when I was still speaking to him, that is, that this magic elixir retailed for around two thousand dollars a bottle.

  Make that hot, cocky, drunk, and rich.

  “You know, between finishing my drink and barging your way in here, you owe me at least two apologies at this point—and I still don’t even know your name,” I say, picking up the shot of whiskey and peering at it closely.

  But what if it’s poisoned? What if it’s full of roofies and you wake up on the street or, god forbid, in this guy’s apartment naked and tied to his bed without any idea how you got there? my inner worrywart
whines.

  Actually, that might be an improvement over the current state of things, thank you very much . . .

  “Call me . . . Jacob,” he says, shrugging his coat off and letting it drop to the floor. “Drink up.”

  I take a deep breath and pick up the glass. Fuck it. He’s drinking out of the same flask so it’s probably safe, I tell myself. Besides, a life without risk isn’t really worth living, something I seem to have forgotten lately.

  The liquor slides down my throat, smooth as silk. I never got all that bullshit about aftertaste of peat moss and burning wood with just a hint of vanilla, but damn, call me a convert. I take another sip and almost moan out loud. If I could bathe in it I would immediately fill the nearest bathtub with this magical stuff.

  Rich people get all the best toys.

  “Elizabeth,” I tell him, putting the glass down on the bar. Lizzie is the girl who got dumped, ditched, and demeaned this year. Maybe I can be Elizabeth instead, just for the night. The flirty one who picks up hot guys in bars and embarks on a night of mind-blowing sex adventures.

  A girl can dream, right?

  “So, Elizabeth . . . what are you doing sitting here by yourself?” he asks with a devilish smile. “Boyfriend dump you?”

  My cheeks go immediately red, words of protest spilling from my lips. “Yes,” I sputter, “but not tonight. He had the courtesy to dump me two whole weeks ago just to make sure I’d be appropriately miserable on the biggest holiday of the year. He’s super considerate like that.”

  “Yeah,” he laughs, uncapping the flask and raising it to his lips again, “he sounds like a real charmer.”

  He holds the flask out to me and I take it. When our fingers brush, I feel a shock of heat that shoots straight between my thighs.

  Damn, this is good whiskey.

  “What about you?” I ask, running the pads of my fingers over a series of engraved letters on the side of the flask that I can’t quite make out in the darkness of the bar. “Slumming it?” I ask. “Was the eighteen-year-old model-slash-DJ you’re probably fucking busy tonight? Or did she dump you too?”

  “Isabel,” he says, the smile fading from his face as he looks away from me and in profile his face is so classically handsome that it should be minted on a fucking coin. “And she wasn’t eighteen—she was twenty-two. Otherwise, you’re not far off.”

  I would laugh, if he didn’t look so downcast. What the hell: solidarity in rejection. “What’d she do to you?” I ask, handing him back the flask.

  “Well, let’s see,” he says, turning it over in his hands so that the silver flashes in the light. “She left me for some Terry Richardson wannabe photographer she met on a shoot in Paris. Is that cliché enough?”

  “Pretty much,” I smile.

  “Look at these poor assholes,” he says bitterly, pointing out a couple canoodling in a corner, wrapped up in each other so tightly that they’re probably sharing DNA as we speak. I watch as the bottle-blond puts her tongue so far down her boyfriend’s throat that she can probably taste what he had for dinner. “They actually think they’re in love.”

  “Let me guess.” I pat him gently on the shoulder. “You think love is just an illusion invented by Hallmark cards and romance novels. Gee, original.”

  “And let me guess, you think soulmates are real, and true love is fate, like in all those Meg Ryan movies you love.”

  “I hate Meg Ryan,” I lie, not wanting him to be right, and hating that he was all at the same time. “I guess we’ll just agree to disagree.”

  I turn away from his cocky grin and look over at the strings of colored lights hanging behind the bar, feeling sorry for myself again.

  “Why do they just get to walk all over us?” I ask. “Todd dumps me after I help him achieve his dreams, all the while ignoring my own, and where am I now?”

  “Talking to a handsome stranger in a bar?”

  “And your Isabel just walks out like it doesn’t even matter,” I continue. Suddenly I’m pissed, the anger bubbling up in my chest. “They don’t see any consequences. Her, and him, and freaking Harmony. They just get to waltz off and be happy without us! I bet they’re all off at some party somewhere. Dancing and drinking and laughing about how much better they are than us. Someone needs to PAY.”

  Suddenly, through my drunken haze, I know exactly what I have to do. I stumble down off the stool. “Happy New Year,” I tell Jacob, and head determinedly for the door. The room only spins a teeny-tiny bit, and by the time I make it outside, I’m totally stable again.

  Almost. Kind of.

  Now where’s a cab when you need one?

  I start down the block, ready to flag one down, when somebody grabs my arm. Whoever they are, they’re shit out of luck, courtesy of the best self-defense classes the local YWCA had to offer. I spin around in a fighting stance, my hands already up to block. “I know kung fu!” I yell.

  My accoster lurches back. “Whoa there, Bruce Lee.”

  “Oh.” I relax. “It’s you.” Jacob is standing there with an amused smirk on his face. “What do you want? I’m going somewhere.”

  “Good luck getting anywhere without this.” He holds up my purse, dangling the strap from one finger.

  “Shit.” I stop. “I guess I am drunk.”

  “Only a little, but hell, it’s New Year’s Eve, right?”

  “Right.” I nod. “And that’s why I have to end the year right. Balance the scales of justice.” I turn away again and start looking for a cab. I hear Jacob sigh behind me.

  “Do I really want to know?”

  “Nope. If the police ask, you never saw a thing.” I spot a flash of yellow and whistle for it. The sound pierces through the street.

  “Nice pipes.” Jacob looks amused. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

  I shrug. “It’s like Marilyn said, you just put your lips together and blow, baby.”

  He arches an eyebrow, and I realize too late how dirty that sounded. “Nice meeting you, Jacob,” I tell him briskly. “Thanks for the drink.”

  I open the cab door and tumble inside. “Three sixteen Broad Street,” I tell him, naming Todd’s new address. The address he told me to ship all his stuff to, because god forbid he lift a damn finger for himself. But before the cab can drive away, Jacob gets in too.

  “Wait, are you following me?” I look at him, puzzled, as the city lights glide by outside the window.

  “I’m asking myself the same question,” Jacob sighs. “But it sounds to me like you’re about to do something really stupid.”

  “Hey!” I protest.

  “Illegal?” he checks.

  I pause. “Maybe. A teeny-tiny little bit? It depends on your definition of legality.”

  He nods. “OK, you’re definitely going to need bail money.”

  “I’ll have you know, I don’t plan on getting caught,” I inform him, annoyed. “My revenge plan is foolproof.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah,” I insist. “Well, it will be when I think of one. But I have . . . fifteen whole blocks to do it.”

  “By all means.” He sits back. “Be my guest. I’ll be over here, trying to find that lawyer’s number . . .”

  I hit him lightly. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “Look,” he sighs. “I’m all for your rar-rar-female empowerment hear me roar thing, but revenge? Really? This isn’t the fifth grade.”

  I glare at him. “Since when did you become such a pussy?”

  “What?” Jacob gapes at me.

  “OK, OK, gendered insults are oppressive, or whatever Della keeps telling me,” I correct myself. “When did you get to be such a weak-ass wimp?”

  “I’m not,” he growls, clearly pissed.

  “So?” I stare. “Aren’t you mad at whatshername, Isabel, for being a two-timing cheating bitch?”

  “Yup.”

  “And don’t you want to do something about it?”

  Jacob grins. “Haven’t you ever heard the saying ‘living well is
the best revenge’?”

  I snort. “Sorry, but you’re drinking alone on New Year’s, it doesn’t seem like you’re living too great to me.”

  Jacob flinches. “Low blow.”

  “Sorry.” I give him a smile. “I’m in the same boat too, remember? Except I’m not taking it lying down.”

  “No?” He gives me another wolfish look. “Which way do you like to take it?”

  Hello.

  Another flush of heat spirals through me, but I refuse to let him distract me from my noble quest for vengeance. “I just can’t let him do it, OK?” I say, my voice cracking under the pressure of weeks of crying myself to sleep at night. “I can’t let him just throw us away, and waltz on with his life like I never even mattered to him, and WIN. I want him to hurt, like I do. I want him to suffer something for the way he treated me. Can’t you understand that under all your layers of cool ironic detachment?”

  “I do understand,” Jacob says quietly. He looks at me and then sighs again. “Fine, I’ll help, but only if we do this my way. No offense, but you’re way too drunk to be planning on breaking any laws tonight.”

  “I’m not drunk!” I protest.

  “Really? How many fingers am I holding up?” Jacob tests me. I roll my eyes.

  “Why, how many fingers am I holding up?” I flip him the bird. Jacob snorts.

  “Real mature.”

  “Thank you.” I beam. I glance out the window. “Ooh, stop, we’re here!”

  4

  Still New Year’s Eve

  I tumble out of the cab onto the sidewalk, almost hitting the deck until Jacob’s strong arms catch me at the last minute.

  “You want to tell me again how not-drunk you are?” he murmurs. I ignore how good his body feels against me and fix him with a glare.

  “You try walking straight in three-inch heels.”

  He grins. “Maybe on the weekend.”

  I laugh. I can’t help it. For all his annoying quips and judgmental stares, he’s funny. Cocky and hot and drunk and funny. Part of me wonders if I should just skip this whole revenge scenario, take Jacob back to my place, and ring in the new year with a much-needed orgasm. Then I remember how humiliating it felt to have Todd walk out and leave me in the dust. My resolve hardens.