Fakers with Benefits (Crimson Club #2)

1. Nick

NICK

Mindlessly, I scrolled down on my phone, barely seeing the various items for sale.

“Nick?”

“Ow!”

The door to my room flew open and Aiden, my BFF, hurried inside. He skid to a stop and grinned. “Did you drop your phone on your face again?”

I rubbed my nose and sat up. “Would you believe me if I said no?”

“No.” He looked around my tiny room, his gaze lingering on the messy piles scattered on every available surface. “I thought you were cleaning your room? It looks like a bomb went off in here.”

“I was, but then I found this.” I motioned to the worn leather jacket at the foot of my bed. “I haven’t seen it in years .”

“And let me guess, you got distracted and started looking at jackets online. Then you got distracted again and you were looking at…” He tilted his head, a studious look on his face. “…sexy-times stuff?”

“What kind of sexy-times stuff, if you’re so smart?” I tried to glare at him but couldn’t help grinning.

“I’m gonna go with lingerie, but you started by looking at something a little more steampunk. Maybe a harness? Or one of those strappy belt thingies you’re currently obsessed with.”

That was…scarily accurate. “You’re annoying.” I rolled off my bed.

“Not on purpose. I just know you.” True story. After nine years as besties and five of being roomies, Aiden knew me better than I knew myself. “Ready to go?” he asked.

“Now?” I checked the time on my phone. “Shit!”

Chuckling, Aiden leaned against the desk that had been covered with crap since he helped me assemble it back in high school. “I thought you were going to set an alarm?”

“I did.” I tossed my phone on my bed and raced across the room to rummage through a pile of clean clothes I’d neglected to put away. “But I turned it off and forgot about it.” I sniffed a pair of sweatpants then stepped into them.

“Is there an event at work tonight, or is it a regular night?”

“An event. Same as tomorrow. I think tonight is a party of some sort. Birthday, bachelorette, something like that.” The crop top I’d bought last month but hadn’t worn yet caught my attention. I grabbed it then hurried over to my dresser for undies and socks.

“Are you good to get a ride home tonight?”

“Yup.” Hurriedly, I stripped off my “It’s Britney, Bitch” shirt and tossed it into the corner that was currently serving as my hamper.

“What about tomorrow?” he asked as I tugged on my clothes.

“Got it covered.” I didn’t, but that was future Nick’s problem. I shoved my feet into a pair of old sneakers. I didn’t bother dressing up when I was working at the club. I wouldn’t be wearing my clothes long enough for anyone to appreciate my outfit.

“Ready?” he asked.

I shrugged on my newly found jacket and nodded. It was the beginning of June and way too hot for a leather jacket, but whatever. Fashion over function, right?

Aiden pointed at my phone still on my bed.

“Oops.” I tucked it into my pocket. “Now I’m ready.”

In the hall, I closed the door out of habit so he wouldn’t be subjected to my mess. Aiden was a bit of a neat freak and I tried really hard to make sure the common areas of the apartment stayed tidy, but my room was a lost cause.

“Did you eat?” he asked.

“Dammit.” I sighed. I’d meant to, but forgot, again.

He pointed to a takeout container on the kitchen table. “You can eat that in the car.”

“Thanks, babes.” I peeked inside the box. He’d brought me a club sandwich and a pile of sweet potato fries from work. “You’re the bestest.”

“I know.” He twirled his keys around his finger. “There’s an iced tea in the fridge, too.”

I retrieved the drink and cradled my dinner in my arms. We locked up and headed toward the main entrance of our building. “How was your shift?”

“Not bad. Had a total Karen in my section right in the middle of the dinner rush. That was fun.” He made a face.

“Gross.”

“Oh yeah. She comes in and the first thing she does is yell at Melanie because she didn’t have a reservation and it was a forty-minute wait. I mean, what did she think would happen on a Saturday night during the dinner rush?”

“Obviously the restaurant should have anticipated her arrival and put aside the best table for her.”

He pushed open the main doors and waited so I could exit first. “Obviously.”

“So what happened? Did she wait?”

“Yeah, but not getting her way must have activated her Super Karen setting. Didn’t let me finish my greeting, wouldn’t let me tell her the drink specials, but then got mad when the other people in her party had to ask me for them.”

“Big yikes. I’m guessing she didn’t stop there?”

“Hell no.” He pointed left. “I’m that way.” Our building didn’t have a parking lot or any dedicated street parking so Aiden usually had to park on one of the side streets. “She ordered tea, but in a glass with ice, two packets of sugar, and three lemon wedges, one in the glass and two on the side.”

“So an iced tea?”

“Yup. But she lost her shit when she saw an iced tea on the bill. She demanded to only pay for tea because according to her, ice, sugar, and lemons are free. It’s two bucks for brewed tea and less than three for iced tea, and we have free refills.

All that to save ninety cents. Like, why?

What could possibly happen in someone’s life to make them yell at a server and throw a tantrum to save less than a buck? ”

I shot him a commiserating look. “I don’t get it either. Did she chill out after she got her drink?”

He snort-laughed. “I wish. The first one I bought her was too cold and had too much ice in the glass. Second try didn’t have enough ice. I ended up just bringing her everything so she could make it herself, which she loudly complained about.”

“Ten bucks says she made a crack about getting paid because she’s doing your job for you?”

“You’d win that bet. It’s like they work off a script or something!

After the drinks were settled, I spent two minutes trying to explain to her that the kitchen staff couldn’t make the seafood linguine vegan and still have seafood and cream sauce in it.

Oh, and she left me seventy-two cents in small coins as a tip.

On a nearly hundred-and fifty-dollar bill and they stayed at the table for over an hour after they finished eating. ”

“And that’s why I swing around a pole twice a week.” I sipped my drink as Aiden unlocked his car. “I can’t with those types. I can barely handle the ones we get at the café.”

“I’d be right there with you if I had any sense of rhythm.”

We slid into our seats and buckled up.

Aiden was my ride-or-die, but the guy couldn’t dance to save his life.

He could barely clap along to a song in a steady beat without messing up.

I’d tried to teach him a simple box step when we were sixteen and he stepped on his own toes and fell on his face.

Twice. He was lucky he was so hot his lack of dance skills didn’t matter.

“Was the rest of your shift good at least?” I asked, then shoved a handful of fries in my mouth.

He shrugged. “Same shit, different day.”

I scarfed down my food as he drove the rest of the way to work. I’d just finished my last sip of iced tea when he pulled up to the entrance.

Leaning across the console, I pecked a kiss against Aiden’s cheek. “Thanks for the ride. Love you.”

“Love you.” He took the empty containers from me. “Have fun slutting it up.”

“Always.” I winked and pushed the car door open.

The club wasn’t much to look at from the outside.

The squat building stood on a private lot and was flanked on three sides by greenspace.

The neon sign simply said “Crimson Club” in bright yellow script, which always struck me as weird.

Shouldn’t it be red? The brick facade was devoid of any windows, and blackout cling film covered the main doors.

Nothing about it screamed strip club , but that’s exactly what it was.

My gaze fell to a spot near the side of the building. A shiver of unease passed through me and I quickened my step.

A week ago, Dash, one of the other dancers, had come flying into the back room screaming about how some assholes were trying to kill Gray, my other bestie and work hubby.

The memories of rushing outside with the rest of the crew and seeing him on the ground as two guys beat the shit out of him were as fresh now as they had been that night.

The attack had been an isolated thing, but it still freaked me out that he’d been targeted by those jerks because he was a stripper.

Gray was healing from his injuries, but seeing my big, strong friend bleeding on the ground and barely able to talk from the wound on his head was going to stay with me for a long-ass time.

Shaking off those thoughts, I hurried into the club.

“Yo.” Mitchell, one of our bouncers, upnodded me as the main doors closed behind me.

“Hey.” Keeping close to the walls, I made my way toward the back room, our staff area.

The inside of the club matched the outside in that it was boring and a little campy with wood paneling and grungy carpets, but whoever organized this event had obviously spent a small fortune sprucing the place up.

It had been transformed into a magical garden of sorts with sheer panels of material covering the walls, all folded and draped in ways that created intricate patterns and the illusion of elegance.

Swaths of the same material and what looked like vines of ivy were draped over the bars that held the lights to the ceiling, hiding the sound and light equipment.

Strings of fairy lights twinkled whimsically as they dangled from the ceiling and several huge panels with lights and vines in them had been set up so they created room dividers and blocked all the unsightly parts of the club, including the bar, from the area around the stage.