Chapter 5
FIVE
Sophia
one week later
“Coming through! We’ve got a birthday boy over here!” I cheer from my perch atop a security guard’s shoulders, waving a brightly-lit sign over my head that reads ‘happy birthday, Dan!’
The two girls on either side of me each carry massive bottles of champagne, the birthday boy’s drink of choice to reach the table minimum.
I plaster on a big, blinding smile as we approach the table before hopping down to wish Dan a happy birthday and help the girls dish out the liquor to him and his friends.
One of Dan’s friends, I’ll call him ‘Spike,’ because he has a horrible triangular goatee under his lip that looks straight out of the early two thousands, reaches for my hip, tracing his thumb over the lines of the cowboy hat poking out of my emerald green high-cut bodysuit.
I bite back the urge to deck him across the face, choosing instead to take a step away.
“That because you like to ride? I can give you something to ride,” he says, looking down at his crotch.
I throw him a pity laugh because my boss would kill me otherwise, and I slap his bicep playfully, a little harder than could be considered flirting, then walk away with the other girls to load up a serving tray.
My eyes drift down to my hip and I let out a breath, fondly remembering my whirlwind vacation romance with Eric.
Was it a romance? It sure felt like one; magical and immediate and something out of the movies that every girl dreams about finding. Maybe it was just a blur of days filled with great fucking and weird drugs that I’d never done before.
I don’t know why I wasn’t honest with him.
I mean, I didn’t flat out lie about who I am, but I wasn’t completely real with him, either.
And I would have gone with him, really. I went to his hotel and stood outside for more than an hour, suitcase in hand, before I chickened out and left, because that’s what I do; I leave before I’m left behind, or I push them away.
Though I guess, in this situation, I’m not sure if I was the one leaving or if I forced him to leave me behind.
“Sophia!”
Turning around, I see my manager waving at me, trying to flag me down. I plaster on that big bright smile again and say, “Hey, I was just about to grab some more glasses for the birthday table.”
“No need, someone else will do it,” he says. “I need you up in VIP right now, high roller just came in and Nash wants you on it ASAP.”
I fucking hate working VIP. Since the first night I was bumped upstairs, I’ve hated it. The tips were worth it on some nights, but ninety-nine point nine-nine percent of the time, it just makes me feel like shit at the end of the day.
I hurry to the back room to powder my face, touch up my lipstick and change my outfit before making my way up the VIP section.
It’s almost always older guys – or younger guys with their daddy’s money – who get tables up here, at least at my club, and they’re almost always a little too handsy for my liking because they know how this place runs. They know the rules that we’re expected to follow; what we’re expected to do.
Even if they don’t order off of the secret menu, they feel entitled to every piece of us.
Some of the other girls don’t mind it; they thrive here. But for a lot of us, it’s like building up to a slow death.
Regardless, I throw an extra ounce of sway into my hips and straighten my back so that the corset top of my bodysuit shoves uncomfortably against my tits, making them push up to an unnatural degree.
I stop dead in my tracks when I see black hair – a lot shorter than Eric’s was, but he could have cut it - a suit that a rich investor kind of guy might wear when he’s not on vacation, and a fancy watch on one of the men seated on the couch. It couldn’t be him, could it?
I mean, I guess I never asked where he lived. For all I know, he lives two blocks away from here. My palms start to go clammy and the back of my neck chills as I step closer, but when I see a side profile with a long beard and not a dusting of stubble, I breathe a sigh of relief.
It’s not Eric.
I could swear that, even in my relief, there’s almost a prickle of disappointment that it isn’t him.
I stuff down my feelings and brighten my smile, going through the motions of putting on elaborate displays for them, letting them touch my visible skin, pouring drinks directly into their mouths.
They stay for three hours, and I am not allowed to leave their table outside of getting them more alcohol and a few trays of nachos.
It’s not a bad night. Between the two tables and one secret menu order, I walk away with a grand in cash after Nash takes his much larger cut.
I stuff my earnings into my little leather bag covered in rainbow flowers before changing my clothes and head back out to the bar.
I take a seat at the corner, where I’m least likely to be bothered, and wave over my friend working the bar.
“What’ll it be tonight, Soph?”
“Gimme whatever is left on tap,” I say. “Thanks, Vin.”
He brings a beer over just a minute later, setting it in front of me and fixing me with a considering look, but he keeps his mouth shut.
We’ve worked together for five years and have been friends for three, so normally I would welcome his advice and opinions, but I can already hear the lecture if I told him about Eric.
Once he stopped freaking out about the sex and the drugs.
Vin is kind of like the protective older brother of all of the girls here.
If a customer was disrespectful or made us feel threatened, we’d go to him before we ever went to security.
The man is six-foot-three and three hundred pounds of pure muscle, built like a steel wall.
One of those guys that if you saw him in an alleyway, even a big tough guy would turn tail and run.
But deep down, he’s just a giant cinnamon roll.
At least, when it comes to us.
I think the only reason he still works here anymore is because he knows what happens upstairs and he wants to be a safe haven for us.
When I finally reach the bottom of my beer, the club is starting to empty. I pick up my glass and walk around the bar to start washing it, but Vin pulls it from my hand and raises a brow at me as he starts cleaning it himself.
“Okay,” I sigh, “you’ve been giving me that look for an hour. What?”
In that thick New York accent of his, he says, “You’re distracted. Someone fuck with you?”
“No. Same old, same old tonight,” I assure him. “I was just thinking about what a good time I had on my trip.”
“Sure.”
“Really!” I insist, giving his arm a playful shove. “Hey...have you ever heard of a guy named Eric? Dark hair, southern sounding, has a lot of money, does investing?”
“You know how many rich guys named Eric probably came through here in the past two months alone?” He asks as he dries off a glass and sets it on the bar. “Sorry, kid. I got nothin’.”
“I didn’t think so.” I grab my purse and step through the partition. “If you hear anything though…?”
“Am I calling you or hiding a body?”
“Calling me,” I laugh. “Please.”
“Got it, kid. You get home safe.”
I’m a little embarrassed that the first thing I do when I climb into bed and pull the covers up over my chest is open every single one of my social media apps and type ‘Eric investor’ into the search bar; the same search query I’ve typed out every night since I got off of the plane.
I scroll and scroll and scroll, opening a few articles or pages here and there in hopes of seeing his face, but nothing comes up.
He didn’t seem to have any issue flaunting his wealth in the time that I spent with him, so I can’t imagine he would be quiet about it online or in the public eye.
I rack my brain, trying to remember any detail about himself that he may have let slip.
His friends names, his favorite places to go, anything to narrow down my search, but I don’t think we covered anything like that.
Everything moved so fast between us, there was hardly time to breathe unless it was the air sparking electric between us.
“Ugh!” I groan, closing out my social media and pulling up my messaging app so I can type out a quick text to my best friend.
Me: Are we going out this weekend?
Ava: We can! Do you work?
Me: Not on Friday. Wanna hit Arcane? I need a distraction.
Ava: No updates from your kinky cowboy?
She’s teasing me a little bit, but it’s okay; only because we’ve been best friends since elementary school and she’s earned the privilege of teasing me about things like silly little crushes – okay, mild obsessions, maybe – over the mysterious man that I met on vacation who took my breath away.
She was a little surprised when I showed her my tattoo, and told her about his, but she didn’t say a word other than ‘good for you!’
I’m really lucky to have her.
Me: NO, and it’s making me nuts!
Ava: See, in the future if you get the number, you can avoid things like this.
Ava: You can always date my brother if you get lonely.
Me: Only if you date mine.
Me: :*
I sigh and turn my phone off, forcing myself to resist the temptation to keep scouring the internet for him, and I set it on the nightstand next to me.
I have got to get over this guy.