Sawyer and the Bookworms (Candyverse #3)

22. Kyrian

22

What in the actual fuck is going on? I’m growling like a wolf, and I couldn’t even fucking tell you why. Brinlee is not my girl. She’s not pack. Hell, I barely know her. Haven’t had a proper conversation with her by this point.

But it seems the pack already knows things I don’t. They keep starting things without talking to me first.

Damned Roman.

This has to stop.

Unless… unless they’ve already decided I’m out. Out of the equation, out of the pack. Did they already figure it out—figure out how useless I am, how stupid, how unworthy?

It’s a knife to my chest.

But I ignore the pain with the ease of long practice. Won’t let it show on my face, or in my behavior. We’re here to find Brinlee, find out what the hell is going on. Why would our girl—no, not our girl, fuck—why she would be working in this place.

The answer is staring me in the face, of course. She needs money desperately. It’s practically what the ticket lady said. Desperate souls gathered in this fine establishment, stuck here, unable to leave, waiting for the customer tips and the next paycheck.

And I shouldn’t fucking care! None of my business. Not my family. Not my pack.

The pack is my only family.

She’s not a part of it.

Lost in thought and simmering anger—and worry—I stalk after the others as they step inside the club, moving under the low lights that litter the ceiling like stars. I’m moving, but suddenly it’s as if I’m swimming through dark water, slightly dizzy, the pain in my heart morphing into a steady pulse that shakes my body. I’m gliding through an unknown ocean, uncharted territories.

I thought I had found my place in life, but it had been under false pretenses. I have no other but myself to blame.

I lied to my pack. Lied by omission. Let them think I’m normal, no, more than that, that I’m an intelligent person, and not the idiot of the village.

Sooner or later, it was gonna come back and bite me in the ass.

Well, it looks like sooner is here.

The pack wants Sawyer. And Brinlee. They’ve made up their minds—and why wouldn’t they? Both Sawyer and Brinlee are fucking great. Sweet, beautiful, and in need of protection and help.

Not me. I’m the hillbilly alpha who isn’t needed and doesn’t need any help, either. Besides, we already have an alpha. I’m the superfluous one.

See? I know a couple of long words, too.

Whole fat load of good it does me.

Point is, they didn’t ask me. Didn’t sit down to discuss with me what they want, what they’d prefer. That’s a clue, right there.

It’s messing me up.

“Hi,” Roman tells a guy who’s wiping down the tables by the dance floor. “We’re looking for Brinlee. I mean, Baby Doll.”

I take in the stage with the pole in the middle. There are two connected raised platforms, in fact, both with poles, tables set around them. We don’t have pole dancing at the Alpha Bet, though we have cages for dancers for special evenings.

“In the dressing room.” The man gestures somewhere behind him, at the back of the club. “She isn’t to be disturbed, though. Club rules. You only see her during her work hours, unless you arrange something else with the boss.”

“What the fuck did you just say?” It’s Sawyer, bristling as he takes a step to get into the man’s face. “The boss can arrange for her to see clients outside work hours? What for?”

“Sawyer, man…” Roman grabs his arm, hauls him back. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”

Right. It’s not the cleaner’s fault, what the boss does with his employees. A sour taste coats my tongue. I want to punch something.

I swear, I’m bristling, too, and it confuses the fuck out of me, because I haven’t agreed I want Brinlee in the pack, right? I’ve just established as much. Or Sawyer.

Then again, I also forgot that it’s not up to me, so… I shut my mouth and start toward the back of the club. “Let’s get this over with.”

“What do you mean?” Archer matches my strides.

“You tell me,” I grunt, furious at the inner workings of my mind, the fear I feel. Not sure what that means, either. Confront her? Demand answers? Will she decide to give them to us? And then what? “What is the fucking plan?”

“I guess we won’t know until we face her,” he says.

“Brilliant. Fucking brilliant. No wonder you’re the top alpha.”

But he chuckles and throws a heavy arm over my shoulders, muttering something about me being an asshole, and my breath leaves me.

How can I live without them? For the first time in my life, I have a family, or I thought I did, and it was so easy to smash my walls and let them inside.

Now I have no fortress left. Now I have no hidey-hole, no tower, no weapons. Now… What the hell will I do now?

We reach the door and I raise my fist to knock, but Sawyer beats me to it, getting in front of us and hitting his open palm on the door.

“Brinlee? Are you in there? It’s me, Sawyer.”

Roman joins us, propping his shoulder against the wall, frowning. I wonder what’s going on inside his pretty head. Roman is a wild card. I know he cares for us—or for Archer, anyway—and he pulls us along to try new positions in sex, new bars he discovers, new dishes, new activities. He’s so full of energy and light.

But he also has a darker side I glimpse sometimes, as if he can see through a dark lens; see things I don’t.

“Brinlee!” Sawyer thumps his palm against the door, then presses his forehead to it. “Please.”

He’s careful. Cautious. I’d have turned the handle and entered already. Then again, as we all know, I’m a brutal alpha who doesn’t know how to be around people.

He’s showing her respect, when I would have blundered inside to demand answers.

As if she’s mine.

A creak, and then the door opens a crack. I can make out… a mask? I flinch back.

“Brin,” Sawyer whispers.

And then the door swings open, revealing a… a mannequin. A doll woman. What the fuck is this? She doesn’t look like Brinlee—and yet underneath the paint on her face, it is her.

Red lips, bright pink cheeks, black lashes like sails over her eyes. Her hair is puffy and sprayed with glitter. Her dress is a sort of black corset with a red tutu, her legs wrapped in black stockings with red ribbons and her feet in red high-heeled sandals.

It does something to me—and yet, when I lust after women, which is almost never, I prefer them natural. That hourglass figure, though, her full tits pushed up, her legs, the pouty mouth, they seem to communicate directly with my dick and balls, giving the message to harden and throb.

She gazes at us, her mouth falling open, a paleness coming to her face. “Sawyer… what are you doing here? What are you all doing here?”

“Hi, princess.” Roman sweeps a stupid bow.

“How did you find me here?”

“You mentioned the place,” Sawyer says, a sheepish smile on his face. “Can we come in?”

She chews on her lower lip, getting red lipstick on her teeth. It’s cute. It’s sexy.

It annoys me.

“It’s a little cramped,” she says, “but sure, come on in. I don’t know why you’re here, but I have twenty minutes before show time.”

She steps back, and Sawyer enters the room, followed by the rest of us.

“Why are you dressed like that? Is it Halloween already?” I mutter, waltzing inside, pretending I’m not stiffer than the pole on the stage outside.

Her dark gaze turns to me. A defiant expression enters her eyes. “This is my dance costume. I’m a Baby Doll. Gotta play the role.”

“Figures.” I stop, afraid to bump into furniture, irritated and knowing I’m being an ass.

She was right, the place is cramped. Chairs, a dressing table with a lit mirror, costumes hanging on every surface, shoes stashed under the chairs. Hats, boas, whips—whoa—and all sorts of theater props litter the room.

“Nice digs.” Roman walks around, having no problems navigating the tight quarters, the smug ass. He moves like a dancer, like a cat, touching a thing here, a thing there, never disturbing anything. “Common dressing room for all of you?”

“Yeah.” She puts her hands on her waist. My God, she does look like a doll. It’s disturbing. In a good way. Is it a good way? Fuck, I don’t know, though my dick continues to think it is.

“The Alpha Cat, huh?” Archer, like me, doesn’t seem confident he can move without smashing up the place, so he has stayed by the door, parking his hip against the dressing table.

She shrugs. “You have the Alpha Bet, we have the Alpha Cat.”

Sawyer is staring at her. I think his jaw is slack. He’s hard, too, I notice with some amusement. But he’s also confused, judging by the frown. “Brin…”

“Okay, guys.” She huffs, turning to look at each one of us. “What are you doing here?”

Sawyer flinches. Poor guy, he’s such a goner for her. “I was… worried.”

“About me?”

“Duh,” I mutter. “No, he was worried about his dog, but here we are.”

“Cat,” Sawyer says.

“What?”

“I don’t have a dog. I have a cat. Get your facts straight.”

A snort escapes me. “Still pissed about me rearranging your books, huh?”

He shoots me an incredulous look. “Who wouldn’t be?”

Fuck, ow.

“Brinlee,” Archer says. “Sawyer was worried about you, and so were we. You stopped coming to the Book Café.”

“I’ve been busy.” She looks down at her strappy red sandals. Wiggles her toes. Her toenails barely show through the black stockings, but I think they’re painted.

It’s like a punch to my chest, those tiny painted toenails. That determined expression on her small face. That attitude in such a tiny, curvy package.

Fuck, what is it about this girl?

“Why are you working here?” Archer goes on. “Why this place?”

“What is this, twenty questions?” she all but snarls at him, and oh fuck, my dick hardens more. “Not all of us can be managers.”

“Are you treated well here?” Sawyer asks, his quiet voice dragging her gaze to him. “Does the boss ask you to do… extras?”

Her shoulders slump a little. “Private lap dances. Sometimes.”

“That’s all? Nothing more?”

“If you’re asking whether I’m selling my body for money, Sawyer…”

“Are you?” Archer asks.

I expect her to snap at him and shove us all out the door, but she simply… sits down in front of the mirror. The lamps around it light up her face, and it should be unkind, such harsh lighting, but she’s still pretty. Underneath the mask of paint and fake lashes, underneath the mask of bravado she puts on, she’s so damn pretty.

“I’m not,” she whispers. And underneath the words, I can hear the “not yet.”

It seems Sawyer hears it, too, because he goes to her, stands behind her, gazes at her in the mirror. “Do you need a job? I can’t offer much, but if you would like to work at the café, Bee has been looking for an excuse to go.”

Her red mouth twists. “I can’t, Sawyer. Thank you.”

“Why not?”

“She needs more money,” I say, and she looks at me through the mirror, her mouth pinched. “Right?”

“What for?” Archer pushes off the edge of the table and stands beside them, hands in his pockets. “What costs so much you need this job?”

“You can’t judge me,” she says. “I don’t have to have a special reason to need this job. Life is expensive, you know. Not everyone has a financial cushion.”

“Is it some health issue?” he presses, and that was my first thought, too, so I nod in approval.

She flinches. “I can’t tell you.”

“So it’s a secret? Come on. Is it a loan? You didn’t go to loan sharks, did you?”

Her pinched mouth trembles.

Oh fuck, she didn’t. Did she? Holy shit.

“Brinlee?” Sawyer’s face is all twisted up with fear now. “Did you go to a loan shark? Did you?—?”

She gets up and folds her arms under her tits. Man, she has good tits for such a slight thing. “I don’t have to explain myself to you. You know the way out.”

“Oh, come on, Brin.” Sawyer shoves a hand through his hair. “We’re only concerned. You?—”

“What can you do? You can’t pay me what I need. You can’t save me, Sawyer.”

“Save you from what? What aren’t you telling us?”

“This might shock you but I don’t have to tell you anything,” she says softly. “It’s my business. I didn’t ask for your help.”

“It’s only a matter of time before your boss whores you out.” Sawyer’s voice hardens. “There are clubs where this won’t happen. But that’s rare, and from what I understood, your boss won’t bat an eye at selling your body. Do you want that? Is that your plan?”

“I don’t have a choice!”

“Sure you do. Tell us what you need the money for.”

“I can’t. “

“Okay, guys, let’s go,” Archer says. “She isn’t interested in talking to us.”

“Now hang on a minute,” Sawyer says. “I’m not going. Brin, we don’t have to talk about money or the job?—”

“You should go, Sawyer,” she whispers.

His face falls.

It’s painful to watch.

I feel it in my chest. The rejection. The ache of realization that the person you want to be around is shutting you out.

I’d high-five him, but then I’d probably have to explain about my pack shutting me out of their decisions.

Not gonna happen.

Gathering around me the shreds of my manly pride, I turn to go. “Archer is right, Sawyer. Let’s go. I mean, you heard her. She doesn’t want you around, either.”

“Oh, fuck you,” she breathes, and it’s choked.

I refuse to glance back, see her face in the mirror. If I do, I may have to stay and wring the information out of her, or I won’t be able to sleep at night.

Loan sharks? Health issues? I don’t need the drama. Fuck, I need to talk to my pack, this can’t go on. I need a clue. Am I still in or out? Am I paranoid?

Have they somehow found out about my secret and haven’t told me?

Yeah, I have enough fucking drama of my own to deal with right now.