5 Cutter
I GLANCE AT MY PHONE when it rings, though when I see who it is, I shove it back in my pocket without answering. The last person I want to talk to is my piece of shit brother.
I guess I’m on autopilot when I find myself in the back hallway by the house dressing room.
That’s the only excuse I can offer for taking that route this time of night.
I don’t know how it is at other clubs, but the dancers here are as competitive as any athlete I’ve ever been around.
I want nothing to do with getting in their way.
They may act like they’re friends, but I hear what they say when they don’t think anyone is listening.
Too late to turn back now. I round the corner and clench my fists. Great, just what I need.
Aubie. is standing outside the dressing room, head tilted back against the wall, jaw slack, eyes closed.
I almost slip by without him noticing but then he opens his eyes. Our gazes lock. I ignore the stutter in my pulse and train my face into my familiar scowl.
I should just punch him. Get it out of my system.
No, I’m a professional.
Or so I think until my eyes wander down his body like a couple of traitors with no survival instinct. What the hell is he wearing? A floor length leather trenchcoat is open in front to reveal…is that a lace corset and garters?
My dick twitches.
What the fuck?
Stop staring.
His lips curl up in that sly smirk that makes me want to choke him. “You come back here to make sure no one’s having fun?”
Naturally he has to open his mouth, because that’s what he does. Still, doesn’t change the fact that I was staring.
That I was…just for a second…maybe just a little…thinking…
No.
“I was just…” What? What do I want to say? “Never mind.”
Where was I going?
“What’s the matter, Cutter?” he taunts, cocking his hip. “Chaton got your tongue?”
He pours on a thick French accent, the syllables rolling off his tongue. And still he manages to be obnoxious. It takes all my willpower not to murder him.
“Fuck off, Aubie.”
I storm away without looking back. When I get to Daryl’s office, I yank the door open and barge inside before slamming it shut behind me. Daryl looks up from behind his desk, his brows quirking.
“The hounds of hell on your tail?”
“What?” I grab a ginger ale out of the fridge and down half of it then start pacing from one side of the room to the other.
He watches me for a minute before sighing and tapping the top of the desk. “Please sit down before you spike my blood pressure. I’m not as young as I used to be.”
I snort. “You’re the same age as me, asshole.”
He chuckles. “All the more reason for you to calm the fuck down.”
“I’m twenty-eight, not sixty.”
“You could have fooled me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I snap.
“Just that you’re wound up tighter than a closer in the bottom of the ninth. Jesus, would it kill you to go out and have some fun once in a while?”
I plant my ass on the couch and roll my eyes. “Don’t start with that again. I work in a club six nights a week. You think I want to spend my free time in another one?”
“Ouch. Didn’t know you resented this place so much.”
“You know what I mean.”
He shrugs. “Fair enough. But there are other places to go besides clubs.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Oh yeah? Name one.”
“Um, well, there’s museums and parks and…
“Museums?” I laugh. “Seriously, is that where you go to have fun?”
“Well, not me, per se, but other people.”
I know how Daryl has fun. He’s always been a popular guy. Always had women hanging all over him. Not as bad as my brother, but he never lacked for company. As far as I know, he still doesn’t.
We met in high school. In addition to playing football, he was into media–video, music, web.
I always thought he’d go into music producing, he was that good at it.
But Daryl had other ambitions. He said he first got the idea for Eros when he was a senior in high school.
He refined it over the years until he had a business plan that would attract investors.
He’d had his own issues with my brother, so he was more than a sympathetic ear when the asshole crashed my world and sent me spiraling down a black hole.
I know my friends meant well in their attempts to get me to clean up my act, but all I heard from them before I pushed them out of my life was noise.
Daryl was the only one who got through to me.
“You’re better than this,” he told me after finding me passed out in the bathroom of a dive bar out in Bumfuck Nowhere. He never told me how he happened to be there. “Come on. Rinse out your mouth and let me buy you breakfast. Then we’ll talk about how you’re going to get your shit together.”
Daryl wouldn’t take no for an answer. It’s not that he didn’t hear it, he just has a blind spot where the word is concerned. He fully embraces the Jedi maxim, “Do or do not. There is no try.” That’s how he got this club.
That’s also how he got a self-destructive punk from the suburbs on the wagon. I don’t even crave it anymore.
Well, most of the time.
I wish I could say the same for the rest of my life. Work and my addiction are the only two things I’ve got under control. If I could just exist in that bubble, I’d have a perfect life.
Or I could have. Before he came along.
“Okay, now that you’ve cooled off, want to tell me why you burst in here like your ass was on fire?” Daryl asks, mercifully interrupting that line of thought.
“It’s nothing.” Nothing I want to discuss with anyone else.
“I think we both know that’s a lie.”
I run my hand back through my wavy hair and blow out a heavy sigh. “Callum called.”
“Did you answer?”
I frown at him. “No. But I can’t keep dodging my mom either. Every time I talk to her she asks if I’ve talked to Callum.”
“Well, maybe you should tell her the truth,” he offers. I resent how logical he sounds. If only it were that easy.
Callum is her favorite. Her golden boy. He can do no wrong in her eyes.
She’d never believe me, so why bother?
I let that thought circle the drain for a minute, leading to the same place it always does.
“I want you to come with me when I meet Scarponi,” Daryl says.
I pull myself out of my head and look up at him. I know the meeting is set for eleven-thirty tonight at Scarponi’s restaurant across town.
“You worried?”
He shrugs. “He’s not exactly legit.”
I’ve provided muscle for Daryl before, though it’s not something I particularly enjoy.
I did a little wrestling in high school, along with playing ball, and I keep myself fit.
Work out three times a week at a boxing gym.
Been in my fair share of fights. Even messed around in a fight club during my dark days.
Maybe I kept hoping someone would kick my ass so hard I’d never wake up.
Another thing I owe Daryl for. The least I can do is provide the occasional backup. That being said, I don’t want to punch above my weight class.
“Look, Daryl, if you don’t feel good about this we can back out. I’m sure there are plenty of other guys with contacts in Boston looking to invest.”
“No, it’s all right. I like that he isn’t hands on. I don’t want someone coming in here trying to fuck up what I’ve got going. I’m finally getting this place the way I want it.”
A soft knock on the door interrupts that train of thought as Izzy pokes her head inside. “You wanted to see me?”
“Come in,” Daryl says, motioning for her to close the door.
She glances from Daryl to me. “Is this a good meeting or a ‘I swear I didn’t do it’ session?”
“Nothing like that,” Daryl replies. “I have to go out this evening and Cutter’s coming with me. Which means you’re in charge.”
She nods. “You coming back tonight?”
He glances over at me and grins. “That’s the plan.”
Let’s not joke about this.
“So you won’t mind if I bring in a few of my lesbian friends to dance while you’re gone?”
It’s a running joke between them, though I know Izzy is partially serious. She’s been trying to convince Daryl to go full queer and offer women the same thing he does men, but Daryl’s response is always, “I have enough drama with the men. Plus I’d have to build another dressing room.”
I don’t know what made Daryl decide to open an all-male club.
As far as I know, he’s never shown any particular interest in men, though I suppose he could be hiding that from me.
I asked him about it when I came to work here and he told me it was because no one else was doing it and dealing with “drunk gay men was a lot less destructive than drunk straight men.”
How he would know that is another mystery.
But he’s not wrong. At least, not here. Other than the cell phone video issue, we rarely have a problem with our clientele.
Being a members-only club probably has a lot to do with that, especially since a membership at Eros is not cheap.
We have a lot of prominent people who come here.
The kind of people who value discretion and don’t want to find their business plastered across any kind of media.
I would venture to say a large portion of our male clientele are hetero married and closeted.
This club offers them a way to escape without being unfaithful.
Daryl ignores her question. “Renee wanted to talk to me tonight. If she comes by before I get back, tell her she can either wait or catch up with me tomorrow.”
Renee is the stage manager of the theater and a bit of a neurotic.
She’s always worried about stuff that either hasn’t happened or doesn’t matter.
Her saving grace is she has a great theater pedigree, having worked in some of the best houses in Europe.
She’s built a troupe of actors who would be the envy of any theater group, and her edgy productions are the talk of the industry.
Daryl is constantly fending off requests to admit critics and cameras.
“Anything else?” Izzy asks.
“No, that’s it.”
“Okay, let me know when you leave.”
She slips out the door and I start to follow her when Daryl calls to me.
“Meet me out back at eleven.”