I eyed this stranger warily. “Excuse me?” I asked him with nothing but ice in my voice.
The corners of his lips curled up arrogantly. He nodded past my shoulder at the back door to the kitchen of The White Room.
“For your performance,” he said after a long drag of his cigarette that made me bristle with impatience. “It was overall very good. Really. But I have a critique or two that could help. For instance, the bit with the bill in his breast pocket was a nice touch, but you shouldn’t talk about specifics with money. It’s rather gauche, love.”
I snorted, trying not to shift uncomfortably under his intense gaze. “You think I’m an actress?”
He bit his lip and grinned. “I think you’re a very talented actress.”
I stared at him for a moment as he again raised his cigarette to his lips. He was odd, whoever he was.
Finally I shrugged disinterestedly. “Sorry to disappoint,” I said. “But that wasn’t a performance.”
I turned to leave but knew deep down that I was waiting for him to stop me, to say anything to make me turn back around. He waited till I was nearly at the end of the alley to speak.
“I can help you.”
My head whipped around and I glared at him over my shoulder. “Help me? Help me with what? Who the hell are you?” I asked him.
He smiled at me, a wide, charming, open smile. “I’m anybody you want me to be, baby.”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, I’m not fucking interested,” I said, flipping him my middle finger. “Nice to meet you.”
I scanned the sidewalk outside The White Room in both directions. I still didn’t know where I was going. Home, to another angry notice from my landlord? To The Jar, to spend money I didn’t have? It was with a twinge of panic that I wasn’t sure where else I could go. I’d come to Dublin for a fresh start and I’d found another dead fucking end.
“Can I tell you who I think you want me to be?” the man asked.
I glanced back at him. He hadn’t moved from his place farther down the alley. He wasn’t chasing me and, goddammit, that made me wish he would. Exhaling noisily through my nose, I turned around and crossed my arms over my chest.
“Pray tell,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm.
The man made me wait as he lit another cigarette, the dancing flame of his lighter illuminating the bags beneath his eyes, the hollows of his cheeks. His eyes flickered to mine just before he extinguished the flame; I could still see the blue of them in the dark, like sunspots that blind your vision.
“I think you want me to be your ticket,” he said. “Your lucky break. Your fairy godmother, if you will.”
I laughed. “Is this the part where you tell me that your wand is your magical dick, Fairy Godmother?”
The corners of his eyes crinkled in amusement. “I’m talking about another type of coming,” he said. “One far more pleasurable.”
I raised a curious eyebrow and found myself stepping closer to him without realising it. “And what’s that?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Coming into money, coming into society, coming into whatever room in whatever building in whatever part of the world and getting exactly what you want.”
The smoke from his cigarette had obscured his face, but it cleared and I shivered when it revealed his eyes fixed on me. I jutted my chin defiantly at him, struggling to keep my bravado with the way he was looking at me.
“What, are you offering me a loan or something? Because all that only comes with one thing, and one thing only: money.”
The man tsked me and shook his head. “I’m going to have my work cut out for me with you, now aren’t I?”
“Ex-fucking-scue me?” I asked indignantly.
“Didn’t I already teach you that lesson?” he asked, tilting his head to the side. “That money talk was gauche?”
I moved even closer to him. Beneath the cigarette smoke, I could smell the lingering scent of a woman’s perfume, the salt of sweat, the kiss of hard liquor. My eyes bounced between his, searching for something past his easy smile. But it was like trying to look through a goddamn brick wall.
“What the fuck do you want?” I asked, eyes narrowing in suspicion.
“I want to give you a gift,” he said, not flinching even a little as I glared up at him. “The gift of my expansive, brilliant, one-of-a-kind expertise. My expertise on how to finally get what you want in life.”
“You want to be my life guru?”
“I want to be your teacher,” he said, flashing a smile. “Your hot, sexy, naughty teacher.”
I scoffed, looking him up and down. “You’re a teacher?”
“The very best teacher.”
I nodded. “Emhmm, and you want to teach me how to get money?”
The man threw his hands up in frustration. “What is this obsession with money?” he asked. “I told you, it doesn’t matter.”
I laughed darkly and crossed my arms over my chest, saying, “Yeah, that’s easy to say when you’re filthy rich.”
“How do you know I’m filthy rich?” he asked.
“Because you assholes are the only ones who ever say that money doesn’t matter.”
He smiled slowly as his cigarette burned between his long fingers. His eyes flicked over my shoulder. He took one last long draw before stomping the butt beneath his heel on the asphalt.
“A demonstration then,” he said.
I frowned in confusion as he pulled his wallet, a thin black leather billfold, from his back pocket. He held it up between us.
“You think I only get what I want because of money,” he explained. “Here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to give this to you and then go find myself a ride home from one of these women leaving The White Room. Most of these women wouldn’t toss a spare dime to a beggar on the street, let alone pay for a town car for a stranger since that’s a man’s burden. That must prove something, wouldn’t you agree?”
I eyed his wallet held between us before moving my gaze to his appearance. I bit my lip, hesitating.
“Give me your jacket, too,” I said. “It looks too expensive.”
I was surprised when he shrugged out of his suit jacket and leaned forward to drape it over my shoulders. His cheek brushed against mine as he whispered, “Keep it warm for me, eh?”
I went to snatch his wallet, but he caught my wrist first. My chest flared with anger and my eyes burned as I struggled against him; he only held me tighter, that shit-eating grin still plastered on his face, almost hiding the weary lines at his eyes. He dropped his wallet, but before he released me, he pulled me closer. I stumbled against his chest and glared up at him. His eyes were bright above the hollows of his cheeks as he smiled.
“Watch carefully, Ms Not Interested.”
He patted my cheek and I squirmed away from him, wrenching my hand free.
“You’re a fucker, you know that?” I called after him as he sauntered down the alley toward the street, hands stuffed casually into his pockets.
He just laughed.
Ronan
Of course, I had no guarantee that she’d stay.
She could slip away into the shadows and I’d never know. She had my wallet. She had my wallet and my jacket. Slick move, I had to give her that. She could disappear and I’d never see her again. She could run and I wouldn’t stop her; running was beneath me and I wouldn’t touch a sneaker with a ten-foot pole.