She glanced at the watch on his wrist. Three minutes had elapsed since she had walked in. That was a near personal best for someone to hit on her. “No, it’s free.”
“Great. I’ve been on my feet all day. I’ll get up as soon as your people get here.”
“I’m hooking up with a couple of girlfriends later.” She smiled, which was something that came easy with strangers.
She liked how his smile widened when she made no mention of a boyfriend. Guys were so easy to hook. She pretended she hadn’t noticed the smile and continued with her tale.
“But knowing those two, they’ll be late. I don’t understand why I bother making plans.”
Lies came to her just as easily as the smiles. When she talked to strangers, she was a blank sheet. She could be anything she wanted to be, and men would believe it.
“Hey, we’ve all got friends like that. Have you paid for that drink?”
“Not yet.”
“As an apology for having lousy friends, that drink is on me.”
He signaled to the bartender. He told him that he was buying and that he’d have some Japanese beer she had never heard of. She liked how he insisted that he’d drink from the bottle in an obvious attempt to enhance his masculinity. They clinked the glass and bottle together in a toast.
“I’m Zo?.”
“I’m Rick,” he said and they shook hands. “Rick Sobona.”
“You said you were on your feet all day. What do you do?”
“Advertising. I’ve had Apple in the office all day for a pitch meeting. I say ‘I,’ but I really mean my team and I.”
She guessed it was real panty-lowering stuff for most airheads, but she saw through his star quality. If his firm had Apple in town, they’d be wining and dining them, and if that was happening and he was anybody, he’d be wining and dining along there with them. She didn’t bother pointing out the holes in his story. It wasn’t as if she was averse to exaggeration.
“And what do you do?”
“Accounting.”
He looked her up and down. “You don’t look like much of a bean counter.”
She pressed a hand to her chest in mock surprise. “Should I be offended? Are you saying I don’t look smart enough to be an accountant?”
“Oh, no, you look plenty smart,” he said with a sheepish smile, which quickly turned lascivious, “but you look plenty hot too.”
With a comment like that, he took it to the end zone a little too quick, but she guessed coming in alone, dressed the way that she had, she’d invited the first-to-the-finish-line type.
She smiled his compliment away. “You’re very sweet.”
The bartender came by and asked them if they wanted to see a menu. The offer elevated their relationship from people talking to people on the verge of something. They ordered food and a second round of drinks, and a third round when the food arrived. The meal helped soak up the alcohol. It was rarely her friend, and she was already feeling the effects of the three cocktails.
Sobona proved to be just as much of a lightweight as she was when it came to booze. The Japanese beers had dulled the sharp edge to his speech and forced his eyelids half-closed.
He leaned in close. “I was thinking, I don’t live far from here. Why don’t we grab a cab—hey, that rhymes—and go back to my place? What do you say?”
This was where things came to the tricky part of the festivities—the letdown. Rick Sobona was good for a free drink and making a dull weekday night interesting, but that was it. For all his bravado and desire, he wasn’t her type, and she wasn’t going home with him. She never went home with anyone. Not anymore.
One of the many flat screens above the bar caught her attention. The news was playing, the volume barely above a whisper and drowned out by the bar’s noise. Breaking news . . . chased across the bottom of the screen. The main shot was of a police cordon in front of one of the piers along the Embarcadero. In typical crime-scene fashion, uniformed officers held a perimeter, while onlookers crowded around in the hope of a glimpse. In the far distance, men in suits, probably inspectors, roved in and around the building. An inset showed a news anchor talking with their reporter on the scene. She wouldn’t have given the report a second glance if it hadn’t been for the headline—Murder victim found suspended.
Alarm bells rang in Zo?’s head. Her chest tightened up on her, and she found it hard to breathe. The lack of oxygen intensified the effect of alcohol in her bloodstream. It seemed to converge on her brain. Every time she tried to grasp what the TV was showing, the booze knocked her understanding loose, sending it skittering into vague recesses she couldn’t find. She took long, deep breaths. It stemmed the rising panic, but just for now.
Zo? snagged the bartender’s arm as he went by. “Can you turn the TV up?”
He looked at her as if she were crazy.
“I need to hear this.”
“Hey, I’m talking here,” Sobona whined.