Chapter 12 Caterina
CATERINA
Cayce: No panties tomorrow. I’ll check.
The first wrong decision of the night is the glitter shot.
Pru orders it because the menu says “unicorn tears,” which is a crime—unicorns should never, ever cry—and because the server promises it tastes like birthday cake.
It does.
It also tastes like a future headache and things I’ll have to apologize for tomorrow. I take it anyway, because tonight is about not being the timid version of me that says no to things and then lies awake wishing she’d said yes.
The club used to be a warehouse. They kept the bones—exposed beams, scuffed concrete, metal railings—then painted everything black and hung lights that pulse with the bass.
The stage is a long runway with a catwalk that juts into the crowd.
A red velvet rope pretends to keep women in their seats.
It fails every song when the men come strutting out.
“Welcome to sin with a cover charge,” Pru yells over the music, waving a handful of dollar bills. She’s already high on other people’s fun. “We’re getting the bride on stage.”
“I’m not a bride yet,” I say.
“A technicality,” she says, waving that away. She hands me a sparkling tiara that says brIDE in rhinestones. “Wear this or I will superglue it to your forehead.”
I put it on crooked and decide it’s better that way. If you’re going to be ridiculous, commit.
The opening act is three men in suits who pretend they hate each other and then somehow resolve their issues through choreography.
The crowd screams. A pair of women in sashes shove each other and then make up over a dancer’s abs.
The server keeps materializing with drinks Pru did not order and insists are “on the house” for the bride.
I push two back, then give in to a third because it comes topped with cotton candy and how do you say no to spun sugar in a glass you can keep.
“Pace yourself,” Pru says, which would be helpful if she weren’t the one upping my pace by repeatedly handing me drinks.
“I’m pacing,” I lie. My head is light. My hands are warm. For the first time in days, the knot under my sternum has loosened enough that I feel almost carefree.
The emcee spots the tiara. Of course he does. He claps to the beat and points at me; the spotlight swings. The crowd turns in waves and sees me seeing them.
“Bride!” he says into a mic, voice like a radio host who knows how to make rules sound like a game. “Come say hello!”
“No,” I say to Pru. “Absolutely not.”
“Yes,” Pru says, already halfway out of her chair and hauling me with her by the wrist. “Up you go, Saint Kitty Cat. I promised the women of Boston you would bless them with your presence.”
“This is the opposite of a blessing,” I tell her, but my feet are moving. The bouncer at the rail lifts the rope for us like we belong to his favorite team. Someone shoves a dollar bill into my hand. Another person presses a fake badge on my lapel that says JUDGE, which feels accurate tonight.
The stage is sticky with beer and glitter. The lights are hot. The dancer in front of me takes my hand and spins me like I’m in the world’s loudest square dance. I laugh in spite of myself. He grins like he won a bet and executes a backflip that makes the front row lose their minds.
“Okay,” the emcee says to me, cupping his mic. “Rules are simple. You can stand here and look pretty, or you can sit in this chair and we will change your life.”
“I already had my life changed,” I tell him, because I’m drunk enough to talk to strangers like they’re therapists. “It’s complicated.”
“Chair it is,” he decides, and the audience roars.
He sets me in a metal chair center stage.
Two dancers flank me, both shirtless, both oiled within an inch of their contracts.
They do not touch me without asking. It’s choreography and a consent demonstration.
They’re good at their jobs. I try very hard not to think about a man with a Jacob’s ladder and a voice that can make my knees unlock. I fail.
Pru is at the edge of the stage screaming laughter and threats. She holds her phone up and pretends to record. I pantomime throwing my shoe at her. She blows me a kiss and points at her mouth like a gremlin.
“Bride,” the MC says, tapping his earpiece. “Name?”
“Caterina,” I say, because lying is more work than honesty right now.
“Caterina. Good. On three, I want you to rate our friends here like you’re judging Olympic floor routines. One, two—”
His mic squeals. The sound shoots down my spine and makes my brain suggest a quieter room.
I nod at him. “Can I have my phone?”
“Only if you promise not to call the Vatican,” he says, but he flags a runner and the runner brings my purse from Pru’s table because Pru has already bribed everyone to keep an eye on our things.
I unlock my screen and look at my contacts. Cayce’s number sits there looking like a dare. I should not. I absolutely should not.
“Don’t,” Pru mouths, eyes gleaming. “Do. It.”
I do.
The phone rings once.
“Hello, Kitty.” His voice is low and clear and exactly the temperature that does things to my spine.
“You are a menace,” I say, loudly enough that the nearest row turns to stare. “And I hate your face.”
“Noted,” he says, amused. “Where are you?”
“At a museum,” I say. “The art is moving.”
“I assume Pru has you,” he says. “And that you’re safe.”
“She has me,” I confirm. “In a cage with men who take their shirts off for democracy.”
“I see,” he says. “Do you need me to vote?”
“No,” I tell him, and then, because the drink unfurls my tongue and I do not catch it, “I need your Jacob’s ladder and your mouth and the way you said good girl when you thought I was going to come apart in a church.”
Silence on his end. Then, quieter, “Caterina.”
“I’m not ashamed,” I say. “You did that. You did it on purpose. You said good girl like it was a name I belong to.” I swallow. The lights turn the world into a warm blur. “I hate you.”
“I hear you,” he says, steady.
“I also want you,” I add. “Frequently. Against my better judgment. I hate that, too.”
A dancer leans down to ask if he can lift my hand. I nod. He kisses the back of my fingers like a courtier and winks at me because he is doing his job and because he is not trying to ruin my life.
“What is that?” Cayce asks in my ear, very calm, very not calm. “Who is that?”
“A man who moisturizes,” I say. “Not a threat. He smells like coconut. Do you smell like coconut? No. You smell like expensive soap and the end of bad days.”
“Cat,” he says, and my name in his mouth is like a seatbelt, a kind of safety feature. “Is Pru with you?”
“Pru is attempting aerials.”
There’s a pause while he translates that, and then a sigh. “You’re drunk.”
“Yes,” I say happily. “And I am thinking about your…” I search for a word that won’t get me ejected. “Hardware. And your hands. And your rules. And how I hate being told what to wear and I wore turquoise anyway, so you can bite me.”
“That is definitely on my list,” he says, not rising to the bait. “Licking, too.”
“Also,” I say, because my lungs and honesty have cut a side deal, “I like you a lot. And that annoys me because I was going to give my life to God and now I’m giving it to you and I didn’t get a full debate on the pros and cons.”
“You’ll get one,” he says. “Tomorrow and all the days after.”
“Do not be nice to me,” I say fiercely, which makes zero sense and is the truest thing I have said. “I will cry if you’re too nice right now.”
“I’ll be precise,” he says. “Are you safe?”
“Yes,” I say, just as a man in a button-down leans in with a neon drink and a smile that has worked for him in the past. “No,” I correct. “Because men have eyes and arms.”
“Put Pru on the phone,” he says.
“Absolutely not,” I say. “You two will compare notes and I will end up in a bunker. I am going to dance on a table.”
“Don’t—”
I take the phone away in my pocket and stand because the MC is motioning me to the catwalk and because I am made of poor choices.
The crowd cheers. I laugh. The lights burn hot on the top of my head.
The rails are knee-high. I am not going to fall.
I am going to do a small victory dance and then get down and drink water like a grown-up.
I climb onto the table at the end of the catwalk, plant my feet, and sway like someone who grew up in kitchens with music and learned to close her eyes when she danced so she wouldn’t see who was watching.
The floor jumps with the bass. Women point and clap.
A hand reaches up from the floor to offer me another drink.
I shake my head. The world tilts a degree, then corrects.
My phone vibrates against my thigh, and I grab it.
“I told you not to do that,” Cayce says, low. “I’m six minutes out.”
“You’re home,” I protest.
“I was,” he says. “Now I’m not. Stay where you are. Do not get off that table without my men at your elbows.”
“Your men?” I say, indignant and too pleased. “Are they the ones with ears?”
“They are the ones with restraint,” he says. “Hold up your left hand.”
I roll my eyes but do it. Across the dark, near the entrance, three men raise hands in answer. They had been here the whole time. Of course they had.
“Those are yours?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says. “And they’re yours. Keep your hand up until the crowd sees they’re watching you. It will work like a fence.”
“Bossy,” I say, but I obey. The nearest men in the audience clock the signal and back half a step because they weren’t looking for trouble, just fun.
The MC hustles back over, evaluating me for signs of imminent disaster. “We good?”
“We’re good,” I say, and then into the phone, “We’re good.”
“Five minutes,” Cayce says. “Don’t do anything you’re going to have to explain.”
“I’m going to have to explain everything,” I say. “Is your ladder lonely?”
There’s a long exhale on his end that sounds like patience being counted. “Dance,” he says, resigned. “Then sit. Be my good girl.”
“Yes, sir,” I say, too sweet.
I dance. I don’t get wild. I move like myself and not the woman the crowd wants. It doesn’t matter; they cheer anyway. Pru screams approval from somewhere I can’t see. When the song ends, the MC helps me step down from the table to the safety of the catwalk. I wobble once and then steady.
“Water,” he orders into my ear like he’s family. “Now.”
“Yes, sir,” I say again, and take the bottle he hands me.
I’m three swallows into obeying when the room changes.
It’s subtle at first, then all at once. Heat changes.
Focus changes. The crowd’s attention slices toward the door like a school of fish turning at the same instant.
The security guy lifts his chin. The dancer nearest me smiles in a “we have company” way that is not about male attention at all.
Cayce walks in like he owns the entire freaking building.
He doesn’t push. He doesn’t have to. The path makes itself.
Behind him, two men you don’t want to meet in an alley hang back a pace, scanning.
He doesn’t look at the stage first. He looks at the room—exits, corners, anyone who seems to be paying too much attention. Then he finally looks at me.
My stomach drops like I missed a stair and then evens out because the look on his face is not anger. It’s possession edged with relief he doesn’t bother to hide from me. He nods once. I nod back, my lips pulled up in a drunken smile.
His men flow to the catwalk and take positions below me. They turn their backs to me, eyes outward, a tight perimeter for a queen who insisted on a table instead of a throne. It’s ridiculous and it’s exactly right. No one touches me. No one comes too close. I feel stupid and safe at the same time.
Pru, on the other hand, has found the main stage and climbed up.
She’s doing a competition grind with two dancers while the third pretends to faint into the footlights.
The crowd is living their best lives cheering for my girl.
Pru is too. I love her for it. I also wince because I see Tiernan before she does.
He appears at the edge of the stage like an executioner. He doesn’t shout. He doesn’t make a scene. He moves with the kind of intent that parts crowds. The dancer clocking him takes one look and decides he does not get hazard pay. He lifts his hands and backs off.
Pru sees Tiernan when his shadow cuts across her. She points at him and laughs. He does not laugh. He tosses the security rope aside, steps up onto the stage without permission from anyone, gets a hand around Pru’s waist, and flips her like she weighs nothing.
“Hey!” Pru yelps, legs kicking, fists beating his back. “Put me down!”
“No,” he says, voice calm enough to freeze beer.
He swats her ass hard enough to make the front row gasp and then wraps an arm around her body like she’s a sack of stolen sugar.
She shrieks and hits him again. He swats her again.
“Time to shut up and be a good girl,” he says, every syllable too even.
The room loses its mind. Half cheering, half outrage, all attention on the two of them.
Pru goes silent for a shocked second, then makes a furious noise that sounds a lot like surrender wearing a disguise.
He steps off the stage like gravity belongs to him, nods once at the MC like “thank you for your service,” and carries her toward a back hallway while she curses him in full paragraphs.
He ignores it. The last thing I see is Pru grabbing the back of his shirt like she doesn’t want to fall and doesn’t intend to admit it.
Cayce reaches the catwalk, looks up, and holds both hands out. He doesn’t grab me, just waits for my decision.
“Careful,” he says. “One foot at a time.”
“I’m fine,” I say, which is the kind of lie that doesn’t matter. I set one foot on the lower rail, then the next on the metal support, then step down into his hands like a trust exercise.
He doesn’t pull me. He steadies me. When my heels hit the floor, the club disappears for a second and there’s only his breath and my stupid heart. I press my mouth near his ear because the room is still screaming for Pru and Tiernan and men in uniform.
“I liked it,” I say.
His hands tighten at my waist. “What.”
“When you called me your good girl,” I whisper. “I liked it. In the church.”
He goes still. Then he breathes out through his nose like he’s putting fire back where it belongs.
“Then,” he says, in a voice intended for me alone, “be one now. Let’s go home.”