Chapter 435

Tasha was kind to Mosche. Not in saying anything nice, but in not saying anything at all. She knew he was there in the dark with his new romantic interest and she didn’t say a single thing about him, or the previous months of dating, or what she’d done with you and Sabrina and Gemma. She could have torn him to shreds. She could have eviscerated him with her words, turned the crowd and Iris against him.

So she was kind, not doing that.

And you knew that Mosche, with all of his neuroticisms and poor social judgement, would probably make the wrong assumptions and think that maybe they were OK or something. You could even see him trying to introduce Iris to her after the show, or something equally dumb.

Tasha was on fire, though. You had to guess that she was channelling her frustration with everything into her act. She had you grinning and chuckling, and both Sabrina and Gemma giggling, throughout her ten minutes on the stage. The one shot she did take at Mosche was doing some crowd work that actually got laughs as she went back and forth with a trio of middle-aged women a few times about the depressing state of the women’s bathroom in the club and the long lines. That had Gemma and Sabrina almost tearing up, they were laughing so much, even if it went over your head.

You ordered a fresh beer for Tasha about two-thirds of the way through her set, and as she dismounted the stage to raucous applause she emerged from the dark with a big grin on her face. Making a show of lifting the beer up to her, she held out a hand with a finger up, asking you to wait a minute, and went back around the bar to the tables where the other comics were. There was some clapping and loud encouragement from back there, but a minute later Tasha came back around to you. She grabbed the beer from your hand, took a long drink of it, then lowered it and shuddered as she swallowed. Her smile was a lot dimmer.

“What happened?” you asked in concern.

“Exactly what I thought would happen,” she said. “Dogs being dogs. Two different guys tried to make passes at me when I sat down. I got out of there as soon as I could.”

“I’m sorry, babe,” Sabrina said, rubbing her back. Tasha was dressed in all black, though her blouse had some silver accents and her heavily distressed jeans had white all through the distressing. If she’d had on a dress you were sure that Sabrina would have been getting handsy with any bare skin.

“You should say something to the manager or something,” Gemma said. “You have a right not to get harassed.”

Tasha sighed and shook her head. “I’m getting pretty good, but I’m not ‘kick other comics out’ good,” she said. “And if he kicked out every scummy guy who wanted to get into comedy there’d only be a handful left. Comics have shitty filters by trade, and it’s something I’ll be dealing with for a long time. What I do need is to finish my drink.”

“And then get some dick from John,” Sabrina said, thankfully quietly, but with a pretty little naughty grin.

Tasha snorted and then laughed, then looked at you and nodded.

“Can’t wait,” you said, trying to use your eyes to tell her how much you wanted her, too.