Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
ROONEY
The meaty guy who invited me to this club is pure unwiped asshole, and would be better served by a crabs-infested brothel than an upscale lounge.
And honestly, I’d rather be on the floor selling shots in my underwear than sitting on his lap right now.
I forgot the douchebag’s name five minutes after we met, so ever since I’ve been mentally calling him Bowlcut McFuckface. Three guesses why.
Unfortunately, this is a class establishment, not a strip club, and I’m too bitchy to be an escort.
I barely kept my tongue behind my teeth long enough to get my first drink, much less the fish scale cocaine Bowlcut promised me if I was still with him by night’s end.
He’d better not be expecting a fuck for it, but I’ll swing a blowjob if it gets me a to-go bag. Long as he washes first.
But even the blowjob is off the table when I get back from using the bathroom—clean, without used condoms on the floor, a full trash can, broken latches, or suspicious sounds coming from any of the stalls—and find his VIP booth empty.
The waitress wiping off the table gives me a pitying look that grinds my molars, resentment sawing something ugly in the back of my throat.
“They left, hon,” she says, in case I had any doubts. She cocks her hip and props the ball of her hand on it, inspecting me.
My closet isn’t well-stocked, bereft of anything suitable for this establishment, so I dressed like a skank. Which I usually do, but I played it up, sheer tinted tights with tight black overall shorts and a teal crop top underneath. Red’s more my color, but I’ve been drawn to cool shades lately.
Either way I look like a whore, which is insulting not because I have anything against prostitutes; rather, I don’t have the range. I’m good at two things: pole dancing and talking shit. I can tell preemptively neither of those are gonna save me from being booted out on my ass.
“Do you know anyone else here?” the waitress asks, carefully. Unlike at Caution, people who work here still have to be polite.
Fuck all that.
“Piss off,” I tell her, then huff my way to the vestibule.
I keep my chin tipped up as I leave and gaze forward, not giving the bloodhounds guarding the wealthy patrons any reason to manhandle me.
It’s not until I get to the exit proper I remember I left my trench coat in Bowlcut’s car.
Genuine leather doesn’t stop working secondhand, and it’s the nicest warm thing I own.
Owned. I only wore it because Shard’s callout about stomping around in halfway-to-nothing affected me more than I wanted.
I don’t need my nosey boss to care how cold I am, and I’m about to be very, very cold.
First thing I do when my boots hit the sidewalk is pull up my banking app, hoping there’s enough to afford a ride home.
There’s a whole lotta jack shit in my checking, and the bank closed my savings last year for being perpetually empty.
I check the price on three different rideshares, but this squeaky clean suburb doesn’t associate with my town’s crumbling infrastructure, and there are too many numbers between the decimal point and the dollar sign.
I feel broken down for the first time in a long while.
I’ve gotten used to most setbacks, but this one is hitting deeper for some reason.
Abandonment gets me sometimes—rarely, because I don’t give most men the opportunity, but apparently it’s too sharp an edge to be ditched by a guy who has to lure strippers into dating him with promises of fancy cocaine. Apparently I’m not worth even that.
With nothing left in my tank, I search walking directions to Caution, which is closer than my apartment. The cold stings my face and arms, and every windy slap feels like claws raking over my exposed sides. I’ll blame that for the tears gathering in my eyes. At least no one’s here to see—
A shiny SUV in a garish shade of royal blue turns into the crosswalk, blocking me from the curb. I stagger, reeling with indignation so hot it hisses when it touches the cold. To make matters worse, the car stops in front of me. A snarl cracks my bottom lip, but the pain amplifies my rage.
“Yo, dickhead, what the fuck do you think you’re—”
The tinted window rolls down, and across the sleek leather passenger seat I see the driver, none other than him: Shard, my fucking boss, the guy who appeared in my bathroom, the guy I can’t stop fucking seeing when I blink, a wash of iridescent blues that calms me as much as it frustrates me.
“What’re you doing here?” I demand, though it’s weak, my usual energy bar so low there’s crisis blinking in a dangerous red.
Shard pushes the passenger door open. “What do you think?”
Deeply conflicted, I gnaw the split in my lip. “Have you been following me?”
Shard doesn’t answer; he just watches me with eyes such a vivid blue I can’t place the shade.
I try to wait him out, but eventually the cold makes the decision for me. Avoiding him, catching hypothermia on my walk back to the club, and eventually dying in a dirty alley won’t get me answers, so I huff and hike my leg up onto the footrest so I can climb into the passenger seat.
As he drives, Shard’s eyes remain on the road, hands positioned precisely on the wheel, and I bet he adjusted all his mirrors before turning the key in the ignition.
With exhaustion dragging me down, I ask, “Don’t you have anything better to be doing?”
Again, Shard doesn’t answer.
At last, I sigh. Too many coincidences say I’d rather be wrong and able to blame it on brainfreeze than living in denial. “You really did show up in my bathroom, didn’t you.” It’s not a question.
A small smile brings life to the corner of Shard’s mouth. The attention he’s paying the road doesn’t waver, but even though he doesn’t look directly at me, I feel intimately perceived all the same. “Sharp boy,” is all he says.
We’re quiet the rest of the drive.