four
Rumor Has It… The newly crowned king and queen were seen having a lover’s quarrel at the local ice cream shoppe. Don’t get any ideas, girls. It was quickly resolved and the couple remains blissfully in love.
Gloria Walton
A knock sounds at my dressing room door, and I pull my satin robe closed just as the door eases open and my boss pokes her head in.
“Hey, Ms. Scarlet,” I say, swiveling around. I’ve rarely seen the owners of the place since I started working in Envy. By then, Ms. Scarlet had finished training me and Mr. North had finished drilling the rules into my head. I know if I needed them, they’d be here in a heartbeat, since he works in the office, and she works in the diner downstairs. But I don’t like asking for things. Long before Lennox North, I had my own set of rules, reinforced by the consequences of wanting anything for myself.
“Hey, darlin’,” she says. “You make it in okay? I saw some roads were washed out up your way.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“It’s really comin’ down out there,” she says. “You stop by my office downstairs if you need an umbrella on the way out.”
“I got one,” I say, nodding to where the big thing sits in the trash can, shedding the water it collected on the way in. “But thanks. I appreciate it.”
“Sorry I haven’t been up to check in on you more,” she says. “I was told I get too attached, try to mother the girls, so I’ve been trying to keep my distance. But if you need anything, anything at all, you know you can always holler at me.”
“Thank you,” I say, wondering if her husband told her that, or the girl who used this dressing room before me. If that’s why she no longer works here. “It’s been great. You’ve thought of everything. I can’t thank you enough for taking a chance on me.”
“I didn’t give you anything you didn’t earn for yourself,” she says, glancing at the ceiling as a boom of thunder shakes the club. “Mavvy-baby told me you had some trouble getting on your feet when you first got here. I just wanted to let you know, you don’t have to go to his parents for help. We’re right here.”
“Thank you.”
In truth, I haven’t needed anything from the Norths that they haven’t already provided. Infernal Vices is a well-oiled machine, a tight ship with every detail already taken into account. Besides my bouncers, Angel, and the other dancer who shares my dressing room, I don’t see much of anyone. The other girls are close—some of them even live together. They all hang out, go for drinks after work, grab burgers at Boehner’s, take trips to Little Rock to shop at their mall since ours shut down. They’ve invited me a few times, but I always say no. I keep to myself here the way I do at school. It’s hard to trust people after everything.
“Alright then,” Ms. Scarlet says. “I came on by to let you know a client booked your room for a private session. You up for it?”
“I’ll have to do one sooner or later.”
Groups book private sessions often, but when a single client books one, paying extra to be the only man in the room, they expect things. They’re paying for time alone with a sex worker, and they think we owe them sex, even though the club is very clear about their rules. From the bits and pieces of conversation I’ve gathered from the other girls, they all hate how pushy the guys get. I haven’t had one yet, but it’s only a matter of time.
“That’s the spirit,” Ms. Scarlet says, coming in and straightening my wig as I sit at the mirror. She smiles, her scar crinkling. “Just remember, you don’t owe them any more than when they come in with a group. And we don’t allow sex in the club. You’re there to entertain and tease, not to satisfy. They give you any trouble at all, the bouncer is just a shout away.”
“I know,” I say, standing and drawing myself up. “I’m ready, Ms. Scarlet.”
The moment I step out from my hallway onto the stage, I know I was wrong. I’m not ready for this. It would be one thing if it was Rylan, or even the Dolce boys come to make fun of me. But it’s not any of them.
The man sitting alone at the edge of the stage is Colt Darling.
I trip over my heels and stumble, only catching myself on the pole by inches. I grip it like a lifeline, so thankful I didn’t fall on my face in front of him that I can barely stand. The music starts thumping out the sultry rhythm of the night’s first dance, but I can’t move. I’m frozen in terror.
Fuck fuck fuck.
I cannot dance for Colt. I’ll die of humiliation.
But my body knows the way, and before I can think too hard, I’m turning my back to the pole, sliding my ass down it. I move on autopilot, the way I used to, before dancing here made me feel powerful. My head is spinning with questions, but my body finds its rhythm, moving to the beat.
Why is he here?
Did he know I would be here? Is that why he got the private room?
And what does he want?
I know he doesn’t want to fuck me. He made that clear in the locker room. Is he here for revenge? What is left for him to take?
I finish the first song on the pole and strut to the edge of the stage. His expression is unreadable, his smoky blue eyes watchful, and I want to scream that I can’t figure him out the way he’s figured me out so easily. My knees wobble, and I feel clumsy and foolish, like a kid wearing her mom’s heels for the first time. My heart is hammering so hard I can’t think straight, drowning out the drumming of rain on the roof overhead and the strains of the next song as it begins.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, gyrating my hips as I stand over him, my movements jerky and uncoordinated, as if I’ve lost all sense of rhythm with a single look from him.
“What are you doing here?” he demands.
“I work here,” I say, grasping onto the thread he gave me, the clue.
He doesn’t like it.
“Why?”
“Why do you think?” I ask, smiling down at him as I run my hand down my chest, my abs. I turn to the beat, caressing my hips, rolling them sensuously and giving Colt a good long view of my ass. I’ve filled out a little without the pressure of weekly weigh-ins and calorie counting, without anyone to tell me that I can’t eat ice cream or French fries, but none of my clients have complained.
I flip my hair and turn to look at him over my shoulder. He crosses his arms and sits back, scowling up at me. “You shouldn’t be taking off your clothes for money.”
“What else am I going to do?”
“You should have told me you needed a place to stay,” he says. “I would have helped.”
I snort. “Because we’re such good friends.”
“There are empty bedrooms at my house.”
“Oh, so I’m going to live with you?” I ask, going to my knees in front of him. “I’m sure your girlfriend would have something to say about that.”
“Fuck Dixie,” he says. “Come home with me. I’ll give you a place to live.”
“I have a place to live,” I say, toying with the strings of my thong.
Colt eyes my fingers, and I feel that sense of power start to return. He may not want to fuck me, but I turn him on. I gyrate slowly, rising onto my knees and then sinking back, my hips moving up and down.
“You don’t need to do this,” he says.
“What if I want to?”
“You want to be a stripper?”
“Your friends didn’t seem to mind.”
His gaze snaps to mine, his eyes narrowing to slits. “What friends?” he grits out.
“Rylan.”
“Rylan is not my friend.”
“You sat with him at lunch.”
“He sat with me,” Colt corrects. “If he was my friend, I wouldn’t have gotten him expelled.”
“I thought you might be responsible for that,” I muse. “Why’d you do it?”
“Because he didn’t treat you the way you deserve.”
“And how’s that?” I ask, slipping my fingers into my panties. I can barely touch myself without sending a tremor of white-hot lust straight to my core. Usually I do it to tease and feel nothing, but with Colt watching…
My thighs quiver, and I quickly pull my hand away. I’d die of humiliation if I made a wet spot on my panties in front of him.
“Like a queen,” he says flatly.
“Hm,” I say, going onto all s. I lean over the edge of the stage, so my face is close to his. “And you’re going to?”
“Maybe,” he says. “If you tell me why you’re doing this.”
“I told you.”
“Alright,” he says, pulling out his wallet. “How much money do you need?”
I laugh. “I’m not taking charity from you.”
“It’s not charity,” he says. “It’s paying you for the work you’re doing. Here. This is to get you on your feet until you can find another job.”
He counts out a thousand dollars onto the edge of the stage, one hundred-dollar bill at a time.
“You don’t have to tip me in a private session,” I point out. “You paid for the room.”
“How much to make you stop?”
“I’m not taking your money,” I say. The song ends, and I brush it off the stage onto his lap. “Now tell me what you want.”
“I want you to walk out of this place and never come back.”
“Why?” I ask, cocking my head.
“Because,” he growls. “It’s not where a queen belongs.”
“Maybe I’m not a queen,” I say. “Maybe I’m a whore.”
“You’re not.”
“You don’t get to decide that,” I say lightly. “Maybe I want to be a whore.”
He leans forward, his fingers wrapping gently around the front of my throat, his nose an inch from mine. “Then be my whore.”
I’m pretty sure my soul leaves my body.
When my mind comes back to itself, Colt is still there, staring into my eyes like he’s trying to see into the soul that just departed. I can tell by his slightly unfocused gaze that he’s fucked up, either drunk or on those pills he takes. But even though he’s not sober, and he has his hand around my throat, and he has every reason in the world to hurt me, and he’s done it before, I don’t pull away. I’m sure he won’t hurt me. Not physically, anyway.
I was scared of that last year, when it all went down. Scared that he’d treat me like the Dolces did. This time, I’m not scared. I don’t know if it’s because I’m fearless now, or because I’m as crazy as everyone says, or because he’s shown me that he’s not that kind of person.
Slowly, I lift my hand and wrap it around his wrist, stroking the skin over his pulse point, where a heartbeat line is inked. When I feel the hard thrum of his heart, I smirk at him. “That’s not allowed here.”
“Am I allowed to touch you?” he asks.
“Depends,” I say, since we’re allowed to set our boundaries in these rooms, and since I don’t yet know what I want. I’ve never given a lap dance, and the thought of doing that for Colt has my heart pounding for entirely different reasons. “Is that what you want?”
“Yes,” he says, sliding his hand from my neck, over my shoulder, and gripping my upper arm. His other hand does the same on my other arm, and then, he waits.
“You have me for another forty-five minutes,” I murmur. “What do you want to do to me, Colt?”
“You know what I want to do to you,” he says. “Now show me what you want to do to me.”
Gripping my upper arms, he drags me forward off the stage. It’s not how I pictured, not the tease Scarlet told me to be. I don’t get to stroll to the edge of the stage and take my time strutting down the steps, swinging my hips as I walk toward him before floating gracefully into his lap.
It’s rough and urgent, animal and messy.
He pulls me into his lap, and I land hard, one of my heels knocking his drink to the floor. The glass rolls away, but he doesn’t even look. He’s only looking at me.
I have no time to be embarrassed about my clumsy mounting. He pulls my legs into position on either side of his, so I’m straddling his lap, and then he clamps his hands on either side of the chair and smirks at me. “Do your worst, Queen Gloria.”
His smirk brings me back to my senses, reminds me who he is, how we are. “Oops!...I Did It Again” starts and I flip my hair in his face and then back. I’m rewarded with a startled look, so I rise off his lap and lean forward to do it again before I start to roll my hips above his.
“Don’t you mean Glory Hole?” I ask, bracing a hand on the back of the chair and leaning in, so my tits are in his face.
Ignoring them, he stares up into my eyes. “I’m not going to call you that.”
“Why not?” I challenge, strolling around his chair, grazing my fingertips up the side of his neck. I lean down and whisper his ear. “You don’t like my hole?”
I rake my fingers through his long hair, trying to ignore the way his silky strands feel between my fingers, the way it makes me picture doing that while my legs are wrapped around his hips. I start to scold myself, to tell myself to keep my head in the game, and then I remember there is no game. He won in that locker room. He knows how I feel. He knows I’m his the moment he says the word. All he has to do is take me.
He drops his head back and grins up at me. “Your hole is pretty glorious. But it’s not my favorite part.”
“Now I’m interested,” I say, leaning over him, letting my hair cascade over his cheek and down his neck. “Tell me more.”
“Guess.”
I strut around the other side of the chair and straddle him, this time facing the stage. I lower myself onto his lap, grinding my ass into his groin. He sucks in a breath, and I grind again, and again, moving slowly with the rhythm. I turn and give him an inviting grin over my shoulder. “Did I guess right?”
“No,” he says.
“You sure?” I ask, dropping my head back so the tips of my hair trail against him as I give a few quick bounces on his dick. “You seem like one of those guys.”
“What guys?” he asks, his voice taking on a guarded tone.
“A dog,” I say, standing and bracing my hands on my thighs to twerk over his lap for a second.
Then I pivot and step over his thigh, lowering myself to sit this time.
“Can’t deny that,” he says, giving me an aww-shucks grin that makes my tummy flutter and my heart skip a beat, even though he’s admitting to something that shouldn’t make me hot.
“My mom once told me that men fall into three categories—pigs, dogs, and little boys who want their mommies. Since working here, I’ve figured out who likes what.”
“Which is?”
“Pigs go straight in. Their favorite part is pussy. Dogs are always sniffing after tail—they call themselves ass men. And little boys, well, they want boobies.”
He finally lifts his hand from the chair, cradling my chin and thumbing my lower lip. “This is my favorite part. Your mouth. These lips make me lose my fucking mind, and that forked tongue cuts like a knife. What does that make me?”
“You like that?” I ask, cocking a brow. “My sharp tongue?”
“No,” he says, staring at my mouth like he’s about to devour it. “I fucking love it. Every time you walk by at school and don’t cut me down, I die a little. I miss it. I miss you.”
Suddenly, my eyes are stinging, and I want to cover myself, to run into the back room and hide. But I can’t, because we’re not even halfway through. The next forty minutes are going to be hell on earth after that confession.
Colt leans forward, sliding his hand behind my head and burying it in my hair as he rests his forehead against mine. “Am I allowed to kiss you?”
I want to say no, to tell him I can’t do this, I can’t keep enduring this torture. But he endured mine for a year, so I swallow the dagger in my throat and nod. He leans in slowly, brushing his lips over mine. My heart quivers, and I melt on his lap. He pulls my head closer, giving me a little more, his lips commanding mine to answer. I open, but he doesn’t give me his tongue, pulling back from the kiss instead, then starting again. I let him take the lead, following his cues. He kisses me gently, intensely, tenderly, like we’re not in the middle of a strip club with “Let Me Blow Ya Mind” thumping from the speakers, like I’m not in a thong and a top that doesn’t cover much more, like he’s not paying for this.
At last, he opens for me, and I melt into his mouth this time. His piercing presses into my tongue, and I shudder against him, burying my hands in his hair the way I wanted to earlier. He moans into my mouth, gripping my hip and squeezing, his fingers digging into the soft flesh. The sound makes my core throb, and a rush of heat fills my center.
The next song starts, “Never Be Me,” a slow song that I use to visit the tables and walk around collecting tips and flirting, but Colt doesn’t let me go. There’s no one else here, and he doesn’t seem to care that it’s not a dance song. He grips my head, dragging my mouth deeper, our tongues battling, dancing, playing. My clit throbs every time his tongue piercing reminds me what it can do to other parts of my body. I grind slowly against his thigh, aching with need.
His hands move over my hips, up my sides, around my back. I don’t have to tell him what’s off limits. For him, nothing is. I’d let him lay me back on the stage and eat me out like he did in the locker room. I’d let him fuck me right there, where the owners or bouncers could walk in on us, even if it meant getting fired. But he doesn’t even undo the strings holding up my top.
He presses his fingers into the center of my back, between my shoulder blades, and moans like he’s fingering my cunt. I whimper helplessly into his mouth in response, needing him inside me so badly I think I’ll explode. His tongue strokes over mine in a rhythm that makes my head spin and surges of wetness bloom in my center with every pass. I’m soaking his thigh, but I don’t care. I’ve never been kissed like this in my life, not even by him. I never want it to end, but I need it to end, need so much more. My swollen clit aches, and I grind harder, dragging my piercing against the hard muscles of his thigh until I can’t hold back.
The climax ripples through my entire body, pulsing in my center, clenching my thighs, curling my toes, tingling in my fingertips and the crown of my head. I tear my mouth from his, dropping my head back and gasping out my bliss, riding his thigh while I cum and cum and cum. When I start to sink back into my body, he drags me forward, swiping his tongue along my collarbone and up my neck, licking up the dew of sweat on my skin. He moans into the hollow of my throat, nipping at my skin. I let out a breathy giggle as his teeth graze over the tickling spot, and he does it again, his low chuckle vibrating through me and electrifying me all over again.
“Are you laughing at me?” I manage, too dazed to feel the mortification I should.
“I found another ticklish spot,” he murmurs against my throat, stroking his thumb inside my hipbone and making me giggle again. “I remember this one from before.”
“You’ve found all my weaknesses,” I say, cradling his head, not wanting to let go, to let even a few inches of space separate us. “When do I get to find yours?”
“I only have one,” he says, nuzzling my ear.
“Then I should know it. It’s only fair.”
“You already know it,” he says. “You are it.”
“Fuck,” I whisper, sliding my arms around his neck as a new song comes on.
“No more Miley?” he asks.
“There’s more later. Why? You like Miley?”
“I love her now,” he says, still holding me close, like he can’t get enough either. He cradles my shoulder blades in his palms, his eyes falling closed like he’s lost in pure bliss just having me in his arms. It’s so foreign to me that I don’t know what to do with it, how to process that someone could want to touch me in a nonsexual way, that a man could want anything else. Even last year, when we were so wrapped up in each other we were blind to the world, it was pure and raw, the most simple, primal instinct driving every encounter. It was sex and only sex.
Wasn’t it?
We sit there for an entire song, tangled together, holding on without words, Colt’s head nestled under my chin, his ear against my chest, his arms supporting me, mine around his neck.
Finally, I kiss the top of his head and pull away. “Your time’s halfway up. What do you want now?”
“I want you to walk out of this place and never come back.”
“That’s not on the menu.”
“Then do what you just did again,” he says, his voice hardening. “But this time, do it on my dick.”
“Okay,” I say. “I’m going to change the music.”
I have a couple playlists, and they all work, but I need a minute to get my head on straight. He didn’t like when I told him no, and he’s pissed, and I have to tread carefully because I know what angry men are capable of. I’m thankful for the moment to walk away, to breathe, to tell myself he’s just a client, and it doesn’t mean any more than any other client. He has a girlfriend, and now that I pissed him off, he’s ready to humiliate me. I steel my nerves, change the music, and then tease him by spending the first song on the pole again.
Then I get to strut down the steps the way I wanted to before, feeling his gaze on me as I approach, swaying my hips, letting my fingertips graze my skin as I go. He watches, his eyes glazed with drugs and lust, his jaw set. He has another glass of bourbon in front of him now, and he toys with it while I make my way over.
I approach cautiously, my heart hammering, my mind clear and sharp. I have to be. I’m a snake charmer wading into a pit of vipers. He could hurt me in a million ways, and even though I could call for a bouncer, by the time they reach us, plenty of damage could be done. I know how quickly a life can be ruined.
I don’t tease this time, don’t do my sexy stroll around his chair or grind my ass on him. I don’t want to turn my back to him right now, so I straddle his lap, slide all the way in until our hips connect, and watch him. There’s no talk this time, no smiles, no playfulness. I sit on his dick, and I grind.
He stares back, not taking his eyes off me. I can feel the thick ridge of his erection, and I drag my pussy along it from base to tip, giving a little pump against the hard piercings I can feel in the head. His nostrils flare, and the muscle in his jaw flexes, but he doesn’t react otherwise. I do it again, and again, and I don’t stop until the song is over. We’re locked in some silent battle of wills, and I’m not going to stop until he stops me, until he can’t take it anymore, until he shows his hand or folds.
The problem is that I always fold first. I care more, I love more, want him more. I try to hold back as I find my tempo to the next song, but before it’s over, I know I’m going to lose this one like I lost in the locker room. How can I stop myself? He’s a fucking wet dream in human form, his strong arms covered in ink, the tattoos climbing his neck, the piercings in his nipples obvious through his shirt, the ones I can feel in his cock through his jeans. His smoky blue eyes that smolder with lust as he watches me lose control, the long, messy waves of his hair, still tousled from my fingers.
“Colt,” I cry, rising from his lap, knowing I’m going to break before he does.
His hand shoots out, closing around my throat. It’s not hard, but it’s enough to stop me. He slams me down onto his lap. “Keep. Going,” he growls, his voice ragged.
“I can’t,” I gasp, and then the last threads of my self-control slip, and I feel my core throbbing out my climax against the thick head of his cock, my piercing making my clit painfully sensitive as it pulses against his damp jeans. I want to hide my face in shame, that I lost again, that I can’t get him off.
But when I drop my gaze, it snags on his chest, the planes of muscle straining against his shirt, the rapid rise and fall as he breathes. No, it’s not just breathing.
It’s panting.
A thrill goes through me, and I take a second to catch my breath.
Maybe he didn’t cum, but he’s hard as a rock. He’s breathless for me. He’s looking at me like a caged animal about to rip through the bars and eat me alive. I know that look. I am that look—always wanting too much, falling too fast, loving without reciprocation; always hungry, never sated.
Heat shimmers through my limbs, and I begin to move again, slowly at first, then faster, watching his face as he struggles for control.
The game isn’t over until it’s over. I have fifteen minutes to get him there, and it doesn’t matter how many times I give in. It only matters that he does too.
He told me to show him what I’d do, so I show him, as much as I can with our clothes on. I ride him fast and hard until I’m out of breath, and then slow and sensuously until I can’t hold back again. But I keep going because I know he’s close too.
He drags in each inhale if through pain, labored but quick. His cock throbs under me each time I move. His eyes are wild, unfocused, mad with lust. As I moan out my orgasm, rising and falling against him, I throw my head back, letting my hair fall down behind me, swaying with my movements. When I straighten, resting a hand on his chest to steady my trembling body, his eyes fall closed, and his fists clench at his sides.
My clit is swollen and tender, so overstimulated I wince every time it drags across the soaked denim of his jeans. But I do it anyway. Nothing can stop me from finishing him off. I wouldn’t stop if the owners walked in right now, if they fired me on the spot, if they brought the whole town to see the mess I’ve made in his lap. I’d keep going, chasing his orgasm instead of mine. Watching him fall apart as the last threads of his control slip.
As he loses that struggle.
I rake my nails down his chest, gripping his belt and grinding on his tip. I feel it throb hard under me, and a rumbling, helpless moan rises in his chest. I whimper in relief when wet heat spreads under me, my clit throbbing uncontrollably in response.
“God damn,” he grunts, his hands releasing the chair and clamping onto me this time. He tugs aside the string covering my clit and entrance and lifts his hips, grinding against my bare flesh. He moans again, the sound echoing around the room, and moves my hips in tiny circles, smearing my pussy over the slippery mess we made. The sight of my bare, swollen flesh grinding in the white cream seeping through the fabric of his jeans is dirty and nasty and so fucking hot I think I’m going to cum again.
A wordless sound of pleasure slips from me, unbidden and primal, before I can stop it. Colt’s whole body shudders under mine, and he lifts his head at last, burying his face in my shoulder. He groans, his arms circling my body as he pulls me flush against him in a tight embrace. I can feel his heart hammering against my chest, racing in tandem with mine. My whole body is shaking and spent, and I have no idea how I’m going to dance after this. My legs feel as fluttery and delicate as moth wings, my core is throbbing painfully every few seconds, and my head is fucked six ways from Sunday.
I can’t stop seeing the absolute bliss on his face, bliss that I gave him. Can’t stop hearing the noises I drew from him, the sounds that make my whole body shiver with heat and swell with power at once. I made him lose control like that. I made him moan. I made him cum in his pants, can still feel the hot slickness of our combined release soaking my thighs, cooling under me.
“Damn you, Gloria Walton,” he murmurs into my neck, squeezing me harder, crushing me against him. “Damn you.”
The last song of the hour starts, time I would normally use to walk around the room working clients for one more tip, making them want me or ask me to meet up later. I always tell them I don’t do that. They can look but not touch. They get to want me, not have me.
I’ve never played this song for them, though. I put it on the end of my playlist just for Colt, and now I watch him, waiting for him to remember, to say something, do something, to show me he does. To bring up the admission I made in the locker room, to show me it meant something, anything, to him. How could he forget that week, forget when he was my wildest dream, and I was his? And if he doesn’t remember it, how can he not want to know?
When he doesn’t react, I slowly rise off his lap, adjusting my thong to cover my swollen, tender flesh. “The hour’s up,” I say, my throat aching.
He lets out a sort of dazed laugh as he looks down at his drenched lap. “Now I get to walk out of here looking like I pissed myself.”
My heart falls, shattering into a million shards in my chest. But like I told Gideon a million years ago, you just go on. I must keep dancing, because if I stop, I’ll sink into depths of despair I can’t even fathom. So one more time, I force a smile onto my face.
“Hey, you like humiliation,” I remind Colt, like it doesn’t bother me, like it doesn’t mean any more to me than it does to him.
“Humiliation?” he asks. “More like pride. Most of this is yours. It’s a fucking badge of honor.”
I turn away, trying to get myself under control, to not break down and fall apart the way I want to, need to. He’s making jokes and gloating, while I’m barely holding on, wrestling to keep the gate to my cage closed, the gilded bars now tarnished with soot from the scorching blasts of the tortured, feral beast inside. I can feel its rage building every day, its frustration, its helpless fury. It threatens to tear free, to trample the world, to leave nothing behind but a barren wasteland. And every day, the temptation to let it grows.
But I know when he walks out, impossible as it feels, I’ll keep dancing. Just like I did when we lost everything we’d ever known, my dad went to jail, and my mom wouldn’t even let me say goodbye to the boy I loved. Just like I did after every time the twins turned our way, and I stepped forward so they’d choose me instead of my sisters. Just like I did after every time Royal used me and walked away hollow eyed, leaving me alone to nurse my bruised body and tell myself that loving him was enough, even if he felt nothing. Just like I did after my best friend disappeared, and I thought she was dead, and I was eaten with guilt and grief for months. Just like I did after my brother died, and my mother kicked me out, and my sisters fucked the boy I once thought I’d love forever.
Just like I’ve done every time Colt has walked away and shown me that I’m not worth remembering.
I’m about to turn away when Colt grabs my wrist. “Wait,” he says, his eyes narrowing. “I know this song.”
I force a laugh. “Yeah, everyone knows this song. It’s Taylor Swift.”
“No,” he says slowly, shaking his head, his eyes hard. “I know it from you.”
“What do you mean, from me?” I ask, my world tilting on its axis. Suddenly I’m so dizzy I have to grab onto the bar along the stage so I don’t faint. I don’t know why I tempted fate. I knew he’d hate me for it. I should have just left my confession as it was, and let him go on pretending it never happened, that I never admitted it.
“From last year,” he says, staring at me with such unnerving intensity I can’t breathe. “When we fucked.”
I blink at him, my mind racing, trying to remember why I didn’t tell him before, when it might have made a difference. I thought he knew, that he was fucking with me, pretending to forget. But the look on his face in the locker room said otherwise. And now he’s done pretending nothing’s changed. He’s ready to make me pay.
He stares at me as I stand there, my heart plummeting as the song ends and silence fills the space between us, the only sounds those of the stormy night outside. The room feels cavernous suddenly, and yet, I’m suffocating, as if I’m trapped underground in a dark, airless cavern.
“You lied.” A dangerous fury burns white-hot in his blue gaze. “Why?”
I swallow the trembling, wobbly, liquid feeling in my throat. I open my mouth to apologize, to try to make it right, but there’s no making this right. No words come. I can’t speak.
“You kept it from me long enough,” he says, his eyes growing fiercer with every passing moment. “I want the truth—all of it. So start talking.”