NERTHUS
“Hey.” I say, as I step up to him to greet him with a kiss on his cheek. He mirrors my smile but doesn’t say anything. He just interferes as the waiter wants to assist me into my chair and insists on pulling it out for me.
As I’m sitting, the waiter hands me the menu and lays the one for my date down as he is taking his seat as well.
“I’ll be back to take your orders in a bit. Please, take your time.” He snaps his finger to a lady who scurries to fill our glasses with an amazing deeply colored wine. “With compliments of the house.”
I chuckle as I open the menu and my Adonis lifts his brow at me.
“You really hate people, do you?”
“Nah, I just prefer a specific type.” He says with a smirk without looking at me and I laugh.
I look around at the few men standing around us and nod. “Broad and dark, we seem to have the same taste.”
He chuckles and I smile, taking a sip of the wine.
“So, how does this work? Are you going to order for us, or do you just point at what you want, and I’ll put it in for us?”
He looks up with an even broader smirk and shakes his head.
No answer but a smirk. I’ll take what I get.
He is incredibly sexy even when he tells the waiter what he wants. Just telling him the essentials and not a bit more. The waiter seems to know him well as he doesn’t even dare to ask anything back.
He probably must know that he wouldn’t get an answer anyway.
***
Taking my wine glass, I hide a smirk behind it as I ask him something that has been bothering me the entire time. “Can I be honest with you?”
“That is the only thing you should be.” He cuts his steak, taking a bite as I swing my wine.
“OK. My friend got a little shock as we met a few nights ago.” Pointing to Dario standing a few feet next to us, I add, “also thanks to Jimmy Blue Eyes over there.”
My hulk continues chewing but looks intrigued.
“She is my best friend, you know. And I don’t want her to be scared.”
Lowering his eyes, he states, “So, what?”
“I’m not the type, usually, that asks too many questions. You know, that’s a lot above my pay grade…”
He takes a sip of his glass, smirking at me again. “And I appreciate that.”
“Hm.” I breathe out a short laugh as I turn to Dario, who can’t hide his shock anymore.
“But, sorry. I normally attract street folks… You know, small fishes. Dealers, thieves, loan sharks… And I thought…”
“You thought I was a small loan shark?”
Clicking my tongue, I hold his gaze a bit before saying, “Dealer.”
He laughs out loud and even without looking at Dario or the others, I could swear that they are sweating sweat and tears.
Maybe they are worried about the fact that they would have to work extra hours as they would have to dispose of my body.
“Why a dealer?” He asks, watching me intently as I take a sip of my glass.
“Well, because of the club. The ones that manage a club are mostly into dealing or trafficking… As I was hoping you weren’t a human trafficker and weren’t acquiring me through some sort of Lover-Boy-tactic… I figured that you must be a dealer.”
“Acquire you, for other men?”
I shrug, playing with my glass. “Yeah.”
“I would have other methods for that.”
I gasp as I look at him agape. “So, you are not a dealer?”
“Are you asking me what I’m doing for a living, Rachel?”
I lift my hand and sense Dario taking a step closer. “No. No! God, forbid.” I clear my throat, putting my hand on my chest as he is already taking another bite. “But you emptied a restaurant that is usually very well visited…”
“Mhmm.” He gulps down, shrugging. “I wanted to be alone with you.”
I smile at him, tilting my head. “How sweet. Thank you.”
He smiles back at me, and I put my wine glass down. “But that’s exactly it. I suppose the men in the dining hall below us are with you as well.”
Continuing to look at me, he doesn’t say anything to it, so I babble myself further towards my death sentence.
“I don’t want to know what you do. But this…” I circle my finger in the air with a chuckle, “… isn’t something someone very low or small does. You know… hierarchically speaking”
“You are right, I’m neither low nor small. But you never know, I could have asked my boss to do me a favor as I wanted to impress you.”
“Did you?” He shakes his head and I push out a deep breath.
“I just want to know which pay grade I’m dealing with. Maybe I can calm down my friend a bit.”
He squints his eyes at me, before he looks at one of his men, standing at his side. “So, it’s not you that care. But your friend?”
“No. I don’t care because it’s above my pay grade. And my friend doesn’t care because she is scared to death. I just want to know to have her relax a bit… She just wants to know that I’m in good hands.”
Clicking his tongue, he takes his glass, leaning back in his chair. “How would you define the pay grades?”
“Erm… low, middle, high?”
“That’s not very clever.”
“Well, thanks a lot.”
“Between high and middle there should be one more. Like there are more levels between the middle and the high. While there is a low and then a big space before the middle comes.”
God, is he so insecure about not being high, that he has me invent a class in between to not call himself part of the middle?
I chuckle, shaking my head. “OK. Sorry, I’m new to this. So, let’s call them low, middle, premium elite and high.” Spreading my hand, I shrug, making him smirk again and my heart feels relieved.
“Premium Elite?”
“Yeah. What do you think?”
“I like that.” He says chuckling, and even the men around us laugh with him.
“Great. So…? You are Premium Elite? That’s quite impressive, but I think it won’t calm down Jenna, so I’ll keep it to myself.” I say, picking up my fork to continue eating.
“Yeah. I wouldn’t tell her. But, beautiful…” My eyes snap up to his, seeing him smirk at me. “I’m not in the premium elite. My pay grade surely has to be defined as high. Royal, even.”