Jesse glanced over at the couple, catching the wife staring at him. When their eyes met, she turned to say something to her man, then got up and marched across the room toward Jesse. She looked like a mother hell-bent on telling him off. It had happened before. But for once Jesse had to be innocent. Until the irresistible allure of Estrella, he’d slipped out of every grasping entanglement like a trophy-winning running back.
Until Estrella?
Jesse froze his slumped position, but his mind was flipping through his options for escape. Goddamn, he’d known going after a woman like Estrella would lead to no good. “Don’t look now, Tea. The redhead’s coming for you.”
Tea got flustered. He tugged on his collar. “Me? What’d I do? She think I was flirtin’ with her? I don’t want be fightin’ with her old man.”
The blowsy redhead stopped in front of their booth and put her hands on her hips. She was full-bodied and bejeweled, dressed in black with fringe and spangles, her face as highly colored as her hair. The mouth was loose and generous, but a flinty expression said she was nobody’s fool.
“You’re Jesse Drummond,” she announced in a smoky voice.
“That’s him,” Tea said with relief.
Jesse leaned over the table to say, “Go get the other one,” and Tea was so rattled that he did.
The redhead slid into his spot. “I’m Brenda Ventano. You don’t know me, but I’m Estrella’s friend.”
Jesse nodded.
She looked him square in the eye. “What kind of guy are you?”
“ ’Scuse me?” Normally that question was said in a threatening manner, but the woman had been almost conversational, except for the frown lines cutting a deep groove between her hand-drawn brows.
“I want to know if you’ll be sweet to her.”
Jesse was bemused. “Do I look sweet?”
“Like that matter
s. My Lou, over there—” Brenda hooked a thumb at the fireplug with a flat-top and tattoos who was currently scowling at Jesse. “He’s sweet to me.”
“I get the point. But you’d better talk to Estrella about this. I don’t know what she told you, but I did nothing to—”
“Yeah, yeah, you were a perfect gentleman. She said. The girl gives credit where it’s due. But I’m not asking about the other night. This is for next time. What kind of guy are you? The kind who cares too much, or not at all?” Her eyes flicked up and down him. “I’m guessing not at all. You’re not looking for a sweetheart like Estrella.”
Jesse shifted, trying to figure out this woman’s relationship to Estrella. She was, like him, downmarket. But there was Estrella in that fancy building with the car he couldn’t buy without spending a full year’s pay. Nothing about her added up, except the way she made him feel.
Which was, beyond the lust, hopeful. Hopeful? Hell. He was past maudlin and into seriously demented sentiment.
He cleared his throat. “You’re right. I wasn’t looking for Estrella. She found me. And then she let me go.”
“But you’re still interested.”
“Doesn’t matter. She’s not.”
Brenda blew a raspberry out the side of her mouth. “Are you that stupid? When a woman says, I want you, I want you, but I can’t have you, it’s up to you to go after her and show her that yes, she can.”
Jesse had considered that. “I’m not in a position to be aggressive.”
“All you have to do is knock on the door. Give her a chance.”
Jesse looked for Tea, and found him leading the hotcake onto the dance floor, wearing a boyish grin. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew what kind of guy I am.” Bad joke, considering.
Brenda rested her hands on the table with a clunk of rings and bracelets. “Then tell me.”
Jesse didn’t know what happened then. Maybe it was the mood, the alcohol, or Brenda’s been-there-cleaned-up-after-it air of experience, and of course her mysterious connection to Estrella didn’t hurt. Or maybe it was just that he was ready to talk.
For whatever reason, he told her, Estrella’s friend, in quick words and a soft voice, about the loneliness that had filled him with futility and anger as a boy, his fall into crime, the harshness and beauty of going to sea, even the stupid drunken night in a bar that had put him in prison. Brenda looked alarmed at the latter, but then she asked him about Estrella and he closed his eyes to answer—not being eloquent, although he sure as hell wished he could—and when he opened them she was nodding. Yes. He was approved, and that meant more to him than he’d expected.