The waitress ignores our roughhousing and switches the beers out. She casts me one last heated look before giving up and returning to the bar.
“I’m right, though,” Seth says to me, even though Clay’s got the flat of one hand in his face. “It’s image. S’all fuckin’ image, bro. Why do you think those dumbasses wear suits everywhere?”
I shrug, but I’m pondering his words. He ain’t wrong. “I’m not cutting my beard.”
“No one’s saying you gotta cut your beard, Boone,” Knox comments, taking a swig of his beer and then swapping it with Seth’s full glass. “Just, you know. Class it up.”
I grunt. “I don’t even know how.” I am who I am, and if the world doesn’t like it, they can suck my dick.
“Get yourself a big house.”
“I got a house.” Well. Sorta. I got a trailer. But I also don’t have a family and I work a lot, so a house isn’t big on the priority list. But maybe Knox is right.
“Get a bigger one. Big car. A classy lady.” Gage wiggles his eyebrows at me. “Spend some of that money you hold onto so tightly.”
“You mean like you?” I drawl. Gage loves to live the good life. He takes his buddies on vacations, buys them cars, and has an endless cycle of new female friends in his life. Maybe he’s right, though. It ain’t me, but . . . maybe I need to change. Maybe I need to start throwing my money around if I want people to respect me instead of look at me like I’m some dumbass hillbilly.
“Nah, my lady friends aren’t quite to the caliber you need,” Gage replies. He picks up the advertisement card at the end of our table and holds it out. “Like this one, here. She looks like a classy broad.”
I take the advertisement from him and study it. We come in here every weekend, usually after a long drive out from Odessa, and I’ve never once noticed the pamphlets they litter the ends of the tables with. This one’s bland and boring, for the most part. It’s a picture of three men and a slender, pale blonde standing at their side. Three Jacks Real Estate. San Antonio’s Premiere Living Experts. The guys in suits don’t interest me, but the woman does. She’s wearing a cream colored suit with a tapered skirt, and it makes her legs look fucking amazing. She’s tiny, but those legs look like they go on for miles. I like a girl with long legs, so they can wrap around me when I fuck her.
I’m a simple man.
The rest of her’s pretty nice, if a little preppy and stiff. Her tits are decent sized, which means small enough to not be fake. Her hair’s a soft, smooth gold pulled back into a ponytail, and her face is real dainty with a pointy little chin and big eyes. She’s wearing a strand of pearls at her neck, and no other jewelry. She’s not flashy, but from top to bottom? She looks classy.
And I wonder what she’d look like with her mouth on my dick, my hand on that ponytail of hers.
Like I said, I’m a simple man.
I study the picture for a while longer, then glance over at Knox. “You know these people?”
He shakes his head and carefully switches his half-empty glass with Gage’s full one when Gage is eyeing a piece of tail by the bar. Knox is a sneaky bastard, but that’s par for the course. “Saw the flyers, that’s all. But she looks like a lady to me.”
I gaze at the picture, scratching at my jaw. That she does. From the lines of her elegant skirted suit to the smooth fall of her hair—even to them small tits—she screams class. And while I usually don’t have time to pursue a woman—business is the only relationship I’m in—I have to admit she appeals to my animal instincts. Maybe it’s that sweet, gentle smile on her face or the perfection of her appearance. Maybe it’s those legs. Either way, I picture her in my bed, rumpled from a good round of fucking . . . and I’m interested.
Someone like her? She’d class things up just by walking into a room. And a girl like her wouldn’t have anything to do with a guy like me. Not before I got rich, that is. “All right. I’ll take her.”
“You mean someone like her?” Clay asks, amused.
“No, I mean her. I like the way she looks.” I study the picture a moment longer and then tuck it into my back pocket. I’m gonna jerk off to it later, picturing that sweet, pink bow of a mouth closing over the head of my cock. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea.
A classy woman. Yeah. One to stand at my side and look like a peach, and make all those other bastards jealous. One I can dirty up and show just what a roughneck likes between the sheets.
I like this idea. I like it a lot.
But Clay just laughs, and even Knox looks amused. “It ain’t a girlfriend catalog,” Clay comments. “It’s an advertisement. You don’t know nothin’ about her.”
“I know she’s classy. That’s all I need to know.”
“If she’s so classy, how you gonna get her to date you?” Knox raises an eyebrow at me. He takes a sip of his drink and I notice it’s full. Again. I wonder how he does that—switching glasses without anyone ever noticing. And then I wonder what else he switches when we’re not paying attention.
“I’m rich, ain’t I? That convinces a lot of women.”
“Not the ones worth having,” Clay adds.
He’s got a point. I stroke my beard thoughtfully. “You said I needed a fancy house. I guess I’ll have her sell me one.”
“What if she’s married?” Knox adds. “You still want her then?”