Love and Pixie Dust- A Bay Yanlış Reimagining.

When Bigfoot Lost His Chill

"Hey, sweetheart," Tolga grinned at me.

"Your nose healed nicely," I smirked, hiding my surprise.

Another man sitting in the passenger seat of what I belatedly realized was a very luxurious vehicle and most definitely not an Uber, turned to peer closely at me.

"Sharky?"

I was startled to hear the nickname I hadn't heard since college.

"Um, who wants to know?" I said warily. The guy looked familiar but I was better off pretending ignorance because most men weren't gracious losers and didn't take kindly to having their asses handed to them by a girl in any game.

"Holy shit! It is you!" He said with mounting excitement. "It's me! Haydar! We used to play down at the Royal Club."

I grimaced at the name of my old gaming haunt. It implied luxury but it was a hole-in-the-wall bar that smelled like armpit but ran an illegal as-hell poker game in the basement. I was pulled out of my thoughts of the past when I realized the car had pulled away from the curb and was now weaving through traffic.

"I should say you used to hand me my ass down at the poker club," he laughed. His laugh sounded like a braying donkey and now I remembered him. I'd nicknamed him Donkey Boy and I regularly fleeced him at the card tables. I swallowed hard when I realized the precariousness of my current situation.

"Where are we going? Let me out!"

"Sharky?" Tolga asked curiously, glancing at me through the rearview mirror.

"Yeah, man remember the chick we told you about?  Used to clean up at the Royal Club."

Damn. Damn. I saw the gleam in Tolga's eye as he glanced at me again.  It was the look of an inveterate gambler. They all got that same look in their eyes when they heard about me. Like there was a biological imperative for them to show a girl that her place was not at the card tables. It wasn't all bad, I reminded myself. Taking advantage of this Neanderthal attitude was what put me through college.

"Where are we going?" I asked him again, ignoring his curious glances.

"I'm taking you to your boyfriend's restaurant. But I heard he dumped you already so maybe not," he laughed obnoxiously.

"What kind of asshole cheats and then dumps his pregnant girlfriend?" He said, his eyes shining with malice. My spidey senses were going haywire.

"How do you know about all this?" I asked before I could think better of it. Of course, this douchebag would be in cahoots with Horny Hostess and that Fatal Attraction chick.

He laughed again.

My fear fled at the sound of his idiotish laugh. Laughing at the expense of a brother who'd done nothing to him but exist. 

"Why do you hate your own brother so much? Is it because you look like you fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down and he looks like every woman's wet dream? It's really unfair that he got all the looks and brains. Infuriating really. I get it. I do. Perfect people are annoying. It must really burn to be related to one that is not only beautiful but also intelligent and kind and dynamite in bed." I leaned back with a self-satisfied smile.

His smarmy grin melted off his face, replaced by fury. I belatedly thought it might not be wise to antagonize the man when I was at his mercy.

Donkey Boy brayed his stupid laugh again. Tolga said nothing and I knew I had hit a nerve. He was jealous of his brother. I suspected as much but now I knew.

He pulled over at La Gabbia. I looked around surprised. He turned around in his seat and looked at me.

"Tell my "brother"," he said and I could literally see the quotation marks around the word brother, "that the property is for sale. For the right price," he smirked.