Read Online The Follower by Jason Starr - Free Book Online

his tongue hanging out?”
    “She’s not bad-looking, dude,” Scott said. “Got some big tits going on there.”
    “Age guesses?” Andy asked.
    “Twenty-six,” Dan said.
    “How drunk are you?” Scott said. “Twenty-eight, easy.”
    “Too old,” Andy said.
    “She’s not exactly your grandmother,” Scott said.
    Andy looked at her. She was smiling, listening to something one of her friends was saying. She looked pretty good.
    “You’re staring again,” Scott said.
    “What do you want me to do?” Andy said. “I have my back to her.”
    “Why don’t you just go talk to her?” Dan said.
    “Yeah, what’s the matter?” Scott said. “Afraid what your fiancée might say?”
    “Fuck you,” Andy said.
    “Then go over there. She’s looking at you again right now…Don’t turn your head…She really wants you, dude. It’s like she’s in heat or something.”
    “She’s with friends,” Andy said.
    “So?”
    “So why don’t you guys come with me?”
    “In case you didn’t notice, the friends are pigs,” Scott said.
    “The short one’s not bad,” Dan said.
    “Yeah, if you like ’em shaped like the friggin’ Liberty Bell,” Scott said. “Her face is cute, but I saw her go to the bathroom before and there were big problems below the waist, dude. Besides, there’s nothing stupider than three guys going over to three girls.”
    “Yeah, you’re right; that never works,” Dan said and gulped his beer.
    “Come on, just go for it, dude,” Scott said to Andy.
    “Whatever,” Andy said, and got up casually. He figured he’d head toward the bathroom and look in the girls’ direction—if the cute chick made eye contact with him, he’d go over there; if not, he’d keep going. As he strode by the bar, he realized he was drunker than he’d thought and tried his hardest to keep his balance and seem sober. Passing the girls’ table he glanced at the girl with the bangs, and sure enough, she was looking at him, smiling. It was a definite green light.
    Weaving by a couple of tables, he headed over there. There was big trouble up close. She was at least twenty-eight, maybe even thirty. There was no way he could ever date an old ladylike that—his friends and roommates would never stop making fun of him—but she did seem to have a nice body. He figured he’d work toward getting her number and then decide if he really wanted to call her or not. If he did go out with her, though, she would definitely be one-night-stand material.
    “Hey, ladies,” he said. “Enjoying the game?”
    “Not really,” the girl with the bangs said, pointing to the Michigan State logo on her sweatshirt.
    “Oh, well, there’s always next year,” Andy said. “I’m a Michigan man.”
    The girls moaned.
    “Hey, don’t hold it against me,” Andy said, holding up his hands in a joking way.
    “Don’t worry, I won’t,” the girl with the bangs said and, the way she was looking at him, Andy could tell he was in like Flynn.
    “I’m Andy.”
    “Janet.”
    “Nice to meet you, Janet,” Andy said and shook her hand and held it a couple of seconds longer than necessary.
    “So when did you graduate?” Janet asked.
    “Four years ago,” Andy lied, figuring she might get freaked out if she thought he was too young. He could tell she was doing the math in her head, and then he said, “How about you?”
    “A lot longer than that,” she said.
    “How much longer?”
    She hesitated, then said, “Eight years ago.”
    Andy figured she’d probably shaved two years off, meaning she was about thirty-two—way too old to be seen with on a date.
    They continued talking and they actually had a lot in common. She worked in bonds at Morgan Stanley, so they discussed stocks and interest rates and the economy—serious shit like that. He didn’t want to tell her he hadn’t gone to grad school yet, so he lied and told her he was finishing up his MBA at NYU. He thought he was going to get busted when she said she knew one of