Chapter Text
“Can I buy you a drink?”
Layla didn’t even bother looking at the man who had claimed the stool next to her. “I’m not having sex with you.”
This straightforward pronouncement was met with deep but gentle laughter. “I didn’t think you were going to.”
“Then why are you trying to buy me a drink?” She traced the wet ring her glass had left on the coaster with a fingertip.
“Because you look like your day has been total shite and I thought I would try and cheer you up a little bit.” He gestured to the bartender.
She turned to look at him suspiciously. “Why would you do that? You’re a man.” She drawled the last word out. “Men are jerks.”
“Ah. Boyfriend trouble?” He looked at her curiously. For all her bluster, she looked soft and gentle by nature, rather than bitter. She had a dimple in her cheek and no sign of frown lines.
“Ex. He called me today at work to break up with me over the phone so I couldn’t yell at him.”
He winced in sympathy. “I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “He’s a jerk. And do you know why he’s a jerk?”
“Why?”
“Because he’s a man. And men are jerks.”
He nodded in somber agreement. “Right. I had forgotten that.”
“Don’t.” She drained her drink and motioned to the bartender for a refill. “Your life will be much easier if you just remember that simple rule.”
“I’ll try.”
She waved her empty glass at him. “You know what the only redeeming feature about men is?”
“What?”
“They have penises.”
He choked back a laugh as the bartender grabbed her glass from her hand.
She put her head down on the bar and muttered, “Life would be so much easier if penises were detachable.” The bartender set her refilled glass by her and she sat up and took a swallow. “Oh wait!” He could see the light bulb illuminate over her head. “They are! Remind me to stop and get batteries on the way home.”
He sucked his lips between his teeth to keep from laughing loudly at her charming forthrightness. “So why did he break up with your lovely self?”
She squinted her eyes at him and waved a finger in his face. “Don’t you try and flirt with me. You’re a man too, and I know what that makes you.”
“A jerk, yes, I hadn’t forgotten.”
She nodded emphatically. “That’s right.” She paused for a long moment and then continued so softly he could barely hear her. “He’s sleeping with his grad student.”
“Ouch.”
“I know, right? I didn’t think I would get traded in for a younger model when I’m only twenty-seven to begin with, but apparently they fell in love in the jungles of some Indonesian island looking for beetles.”
“Beetles?”
“He’s an entomology professor. Do you want another valuable piece of advice?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t date people who study insects. It makes them think small is normal.” Her eyes widened somberly as she poked him in the arm to emphasize the importance of this pronouncement.
He laughed. “Well fuck him, who needs him and his beetles anyway?”
“No, don’t fuck him!” She waved her finger at him in warning. “He’s not so great in bed. And he has a small dick. Not that those two things always go together, but seriously, if you’re underendowed, you have to step up the game.” She stressed the last few words.
“I see.”
“Do you know how long it has been since I’ve been properly fucked?”
He bit his lips again to keep a straight face. “No. No idea.”
“Too long. Because he’s too short.” She giggled at her own joke and then looked at him appraisingly. “You are tall,” she said, as if realizing something of great importance.
“Yes, I am.”
“Do you have a big dick?”
He blushed at the blunt question. “I’ve never had any complaints,” he temporized.
Her eyes narrowed as she leaned in closer to him. “Why do you look familiar?”
“I’m an actor. You may have seen something I’ve been in.”
He could see her wracking her brain for clues. “Oh, you were in The Hobbit. You’re one of the dwarves. Not the pretty one, his uncle… Thorin!”
“Yes, I’m not the pretty one.” He wasn’t sure how to take that. He never would have used the word pretty to describe himself, but was she saying she found him unattractive?
“Do you know how to fuck a woman, Thorin?”
He coughed as the bourbon burned down the wrong tube. When he recovered, he said, “I enjoy making love to a woman, yes.”
“That’s not what I asked. Do you know how to do panting, groaning, sweaty, nails biting into your skin, name screaming, have marks on your skin the next day, leave me limp and exhausted fucking?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes widened at his confident answer and she looked him up and down slowly, realizing exactly how handsome and large he was. “Good for you. Maybe you are slightly less of a jerk then.”
“I hope I’m not a jerk at all, though I realize that me being a man, of course, makes that impossible.” He smiled at her.
“Have you ever broken up with a woman over the phone?”
“No.”
“Well, that’s a point in your favor. He says he wants to still be friends.”
He took a sip of his bourbon. “What do you think about that?”
“I want to kick him in the ankle.”
“Just the ankle?” He raised an eyebrow in disbelief.
She giggled and looked down at her drink. “Well, maybe other places too.”
He smiled.
“He said he didn’t want to wait until he got back to break up with me because he didn’t want to hurt me anymore.”
“Well, that seems honorable of him.”
“You know what’s honorable?” She sneered the last word as the anger flared in her voice again. “Not cheating on your girlfriend.”
“That is also true.”
“He a jerk and I’m pretty sure he just broke up with me now so I would pack up all his shite for him instead of him having to do it when he got back.”
“You two were living together?”
“For two years, been together for three.”
“How much longer will he be gone?”
She sighed. “Another month.”
“That’s rough.”
“It would be a pretty jerky thing to do to set all his stuff on fire, wouldn’t it?” She looked at him and he noticed tears in her eyes for the first time this evening.
“Probably. But you can probably burn a few things if it makes you feel better.”
She let her eyes roam over his face, trying to figure out why he was there. “Why are you being so nice to me, Thorin?”
“Maybe because I don’t want you thinking all men are jerks.”
“But they are.” She needed to believe that, because if it wasn’t true, then it meant that he really didn’t want her, he wanted someone else.
“Well, how about I want to show you that some men are less of a jerk than others.”
“Maybe.” She looked down at her empty glass. “Did you drink this?”
“No, you did.”
“Are you sure?” A faint slur crept into her voice on the last word. “I don’t remember drinking it.”
He nodded. “And that’s a sure sign that you need to get home.”
“You’re not the boss of me.”
“No,” and he leaned in so their lips were almost touching, his big blue eyes fixed on hers, “but I could be if you play nice.”
Her mouth fell open a little bit at the hot promise in his eyes and at the rough rasp of his voice along her nerves.
He closed her mouth with one finger under her chin, the rough skin enticing against the delicate flesh of her face. “Now, let’s get you home before you regret tomorrow morning even more than you already will.”
She stood, wobbly on her high heels, and he reached out a hand to steady her. His fingers closed around the soft skin of her upper arm. “Are you alright?” he asked as he stood.
She nodded, but that sent the room spinning. “Maybe I should sit back down.”
“No, let’s get you in a cab.” He helped her out of the bar and hailed a taxi. He helped her in and then got in himself. He looked at her expectantly. “What’s your address?” he finally asked when she didn’t say anything.
“I’m not telling you. I barely know you.”
“You need to tell the cab driver so he can take you home.”
“I don’t know him either! What do you think I am, stupid? This is how women end up murdered in back alleys. I’ve seen Sherlock.”
He shook his head. “Fine, we’ll go to my flat then.”
“Okay. As long as you don’t know where I live.”
He looked at her in bemusement and wondered what in the world he was getting himself into as he gave his direction to the cabbie. He watched the young woman sitting next to him, all auburn curls and freckles and flushed skin, and he realized he didn’t even know her name. “I’m Richard, by the way.”
“I’m Layla. Richard’s a nice name. Better than Thorin,” she added and she yawned, a wave of exhaustion battering at the last of her willpower. She leaned against him. “You’re pretty nice for a jerk.” She was asleep before he could respond.