Read Online Perfect Gentleman by Brett Battles - Free Book Online Page B

our superstar. Less than a minute later, Ellie made her way off the stage and walked across the room to where we were sitting.
    “Hey, Ellie,” I said. “How you doing?”
    “I was getting hot,” she said. She pulled at her bikini top, like she needed to get air between the flimsy fabric and her C-cup breasts. She looked at Perdue and smiled. “Who’s this?”
    “Another Yank,” I said. “Joseph Perdue.”
    She held out her hand and gave him a look even the most disinterested man would be hard pressed to resist. “Nice to meet you. I’m Ellie.”
    “Hi, Ellie,” Perdue said. Instead of shaking her hand, he kissed it, the whole time his eyes never leaving her face.
    I knew the deal was done then, and twenty minutes later I was proved correct.
    “He wants to pay bar fine, Papa. What do you think?” Ellie asked me. She and Perdue had moved to the booth he’d occupied when he’d first arrived. Now she had walked back over to me alone while her potential boyfriend for the night waited.
    “He seems all right,” I said. “What do you think?”
    “I think he has money,” she said.
    “Then, by all means, have a great night.”
    It didn’t surprise me when Perdue came in the next night and bar-fined her again. And I wasn’t particularly shocked that he’d decided to bar-fine her not just for that evening but for the rest of the week. The fish had not just swallowed the hook, but the hook and the line and the rod. Ellie was a hard one to resist.
    Of course, the deal was good for everyone. I was happy to collect the cash. Ellie was happy to be out of the bar for more than just a few hours, and was definitely happy about her cut of the bar fine. And Perdue, presumably, was happy to be spending time with a beautiful girl at least twenty years younger than he was.
    Honestly, after that night, I thought I wouldn’t see the guy again. I figured he’d probably bar-fine her for the remainder of his trip and when she came back to work, it would mean he was on the long flight home to the U.S. But two days later, he showed up in the middle of the afternoon.
    It was Friday, but we wouldn’t get really busy until after dark. At the time, we only had two customers so the day-shift girls—about half as many as I’d have on that night—were huddled together in clicks talking or sitting alone texting their boyfriends, both foreign and Filipino, on their mobiles.
    I had only been there thirty minutes, but as usual, my ass was glued to my favorite stool at the bar. If anyone else ever tried to sit there, Kat or one of the other bartenders made them move. “Papa Wade’s chair,” they’d say.
    When Perdue came in, he took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust from the bright sunshine outside to the dim interior, then spotted me and walked over.
    “Alone?” I asked.
    “Ellie said she had to run home to take care of something. I’m meeting her at Mac’s in an hour.”
    Mac’s was the main restaurant in the district, and where most everyone ended up at one time or another. But Perdue didn’t sound happy about it. In fact, I’d say he was pretty annoyed. But I didn’t push. My job was to make the customer feel as good as possible about his time in Angeles. Getting into the middle of a relationship between one of my girls and her honey ko was never a good idea. Unless, of course, it was because he was treating her badly.
    Whether you believe it or not, we’re a family. And a hell of a lot better one than those most of my girls had grown up in back in the provinces. We watch out for each other. We’re there when times are good or times are bad. We know enough to give each other room when we need it, when to let hope simmer and not discourage it, and when to snap each other back into reality—albeit our reality—when we have to.
    But what we really have to do is be careful not to crush the dream. In this make-believe world of faux love and real sex, it’s the dream that keeps a lot of the girls going. It’s the