“I’ve been told to stay,” he said. I guess he didn’t like me arguing with him, because his voice was quite a bit chillier now.
I walked back over to him, because by this time I could see Nicky hovering near the open club doors, and I didn’t want him to overhear me arguing with James’s manservant or whatever he was.
“Go,” I said. “I’ll call James and let him know I said it was okay.”
He leaned in and answered, “Even if you tell him to tell me to go, he will tell me to stay. Mr. Farrell maybe feels you two are at a . . . tentative time in your courtship, yeah?”
“Okay, this is starting to piss me off. I don’t have time to call James, I have rehearsal to get to.”
“I don’t mind waiting. I have a book.” He pulled out a thin paperback and waved it at me.
“The point is that I can’t have you waiting outside the club. People would start asking questions.”
I looked back over my shoulder. Nicky was now full-on waiting for me outside the door with his arms folded. I had to end this conversation.
“Okay, tell James that if you’re waiting for me when I come out of this club, there isn’t going to be a tonight. Or any other night from here on out. Tell him he can be in my life. But he can’t run it. That’s for me to do.” My voice was all Mississippi, and my face was just as serious.
I could tell my words hit home by the way Paul’s lips tightened into a thin line. “I’ll relay the message, ma’am.”
“Thank you,” I said, not even bothering to mask my exasperation. Then I turned around to face Nicky.
. . .
Nicky was on me with questions as soon as I walked through the door.
“Who was that?” Then before I could answer: “And what the hell was that this morning?” Then before I could answer again: “James Farrell?”
“I’m sorry about this morning. That was weird, I know.”
“So he recognized you from high school—” Nicky stopped, maybe taking a cue from the guilty look on my face. “You didn’t tell him—”
“I’ve got to get to rehearsal. Can we talk about this later?”
“Are you kidding me? I own this place. We can talk about it now. I want to know what’s going on.” A beat. “He didn’t recognize you from high school?”
I pulled him into the coat-check closet for some privacy. “Nicky, I just found out today that he literally did not know I existed in high school. It’s crazy.”
“You’re damn right, it’s crazy. When are you going to tell him?”
“Umm . . .”
“You’re going to tell him, right?”
I shrugged. “I’m thinking about it. I’m not necessarily an honest person, you know. I’ve done some things, Nicky.”
He let that one slide without comment, because he wasn’t the kind of guy who held dishonesty against a human being. Him being a successful businessman and all. But still he must have found something distasteful about this whole situation because his next words were, “So, what? You’re in some kind of relationship with him now? How’d that happen?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I have been trying to dump this guy since he showed up at my door last night. But he’s on some crazy eighties movie trip. . . .”
Nicky shook his head. “I don’t understand what that means.”
“He doesn’t know how to take no for an answer, because nobody ever says no to him. It’s weird. I don’t know what to do.”
“You want me to get rid of him for you?”
“No,” I answered, not because I was above having somebody else do my dirty work for me—believe me I so wasn’t. But because I honestly didn’t think it would work.
Nicky held up his hands. “Wait a minute, what did you tell me the last time I suggested we get back together?”
“What? You’ve run out of cocktail waitresses?” I guessed.