Page 31 of Alonzo

“Well, go grab one of those many girlfriends you’re stringing along and take them.”

“No, they require effort.”

“And I don’t?”

“Not really.” He laughs and pulls up in front of Anna Ameci’s.

“I’ll walk home. You have a nice dinner.”

But he grabs my arm before I can get out. “Come on. You’re already here. I’ll pay. And I’ll drive you home when we’re done.”

“Why do you want to have dinner with me?”

He lifts his sunglasses up to his forehead, sucks in a deep breath, and holds it for a second. But his blue eyes are dancing behind his infamous Vaughn grin. “I heard a rumor about you last week.”

“What?” I frown and furrow my brow. “What kind of rumor?”

He pauses, his grin never faltering. “One that involves the FBI.”

I have to play that last sentence over and over in my head a few times. And by the time the reality of his words finally sink in, he’s already out of the truck. I watch him walk around to my side and open my door. He offers me his hand again. “Come eat with me, Tara. I think we have a lot to talk about.”

Once we get inside the restaurant, I lose my ability to hear. Or… no. I can hear. It’s just the sound of blood rushing through my head pretty much drowns out everything else.

Does Vann know who I am? Why I’m here? What the fuck is happening right now?

Vann greets the hostess at the front of the restaurant by name. “Hey, Soshee. What’s up, sweetheart?”

“Fuck you, Vann.” The very beautiful girl with luxurious, long red hair and blazing eyes to match directs her attention to me. “You two together then?”

My mind is still pretty much back in the truck, stuck on the letters FBI, so it takes me a second to figure out this girl is some jilted ex of Vann’s and she’s pissed off because she thinks he and I are… what? Dating?

But because I’m slow on the uptake, Vann answers for me. “Yup. Table for two.”

Soshee scowls, grabs two menus from the hostess station, and thrusts them at Vann’s chest. “Table seventeen. Seat yourself, dickface.”

Well, she’s delightful.

Vann accepts the menus, smiles at this girl like she’s not immune to his charm, and pans his hand towards the left-side dining room. “After you, Tara.”

I have no clue where table seventeen is but I walk forward anyway. The blood rushing through my head makes the room filled with restaurant noise sound like it’s underwater. But Vann is a hands-y kind of guy, and he directs me to a table with two fingers strategically placed in the small of my back.

I snap back to the present and swat him away.

He stops at a table near the window and waits for me to sit. I’m on autopilot, so I do sit. And then he’s across from me, there’s a waitress there—also someone he knows by name—and he’s ordering wine.

Tara drinks wine. It’s part of the act. But Phoebe doesn’t. She’s a whiskey girl. And somehow I don’t feel much like Tara at the moment, so I hold up my hand to stop the waitress before she leaves. “I’d like a Johnny Walker Blue. And make it a double.”

Vann chuckles. “Big spender.”

“You’re paying, remember?”

“Fine.” He nods to the waitress. But as soon as she walks off his smiles drops and his attention lands on me. “So.”

“So?”

“I think I’ve figured you out.”

“Is that right?”