fourteen
The gym was half-empty, just the way I liked it.
A few college kids over by the free weights, someone doing hip thrusts in the mirror with way too much eye contact, and the front desk guy occasionally glancing up from his phone.
It smelled like rubber mats, eucalyptus cleaner, and faint body spray—sharp, clean, impersonal.
I adjusted the incline and let the burn build slowly in my calves, pushing through the ache until it dulled into something I could live with. Something I could use.
Three days.
It had been three days since the dinner. Since Magari. Since he looked at me like I was background noise.
And in that time, nothing.
No call. No text. Not even a half-assed check-in that could pass for concern.
But I hadn't reached out either.
I didn't even let myself consider it. That urge—the one to poke the silence just to see if he'd still answer—had shown up maybe once or twice. But I buried it. Ran it out of my system. Let it sweat through my pores and dissolve into the floorboards beneath me.
Because what would I even say?
I'm not built for games. I'm not wired for the version of liking someone that comes with conditions or stage lights. I want something real. Something rooted. Not whatever that was.
He made his choice and I'm making mine.
I wasn't even mad. Not in the loud, dramatic way I used to be when I got disappointed. I didn't cry, didn't fall apart, didn't call Sam in the middle of the night to rehash every detail. I just... unplugged.
Let the silence stay silent.
I'd been here before. Too many times, with too many people who smiled in private and vanished in public. And each time, I swore I'd get smarter. Get stronger. Get quieter.
And I had.
I adjusted my sports bra and picked up the pace. My heart pounded harder now, steady and insistent, a beat I could rely on. I liked the way the treadmill didn't lie to me. It didn't promise more than it could deliver. It didn't smile and disappear.
It just ran.
I kept my gaze forward, even though the mirror in front of me caught everything—my shoulders rising and falling, sweat glinting at the dip of my collarbone, the tension still lingering in my jaw.
I looked good.
Strong. Focused.
Unbothered.
Maybe that wasn't 100% true yet, but I was getting there. Every drop of sweat was a reminder that my body still belonged to me. My choices. My energy. My path.
Brooks was the furthest thing from my mind.
And even if he wasn't, I'd keep saying it until it became true.
I slowed the pace down into a cool down, letting my body ease back into stillness. My shirt clung to my skin, my throat dry but satisfied. I grabbed my water bottle and took a long sip, eyes closing briefly as the coolness slid down my chest.
This was how I'd gotten through everything else—small routines. Sweat and silence. One foot in front of the other until the hurt turned into background noise.
I stepped off the treadmill and wiped it down, ignoring the dull ache settling in my thighs. It was a good ache. Earned.
In the locker room, the tile was cold against my sneakers, the mirror fogged slightly from someone else's long shower. I glanced at my reflection—not with judgment, but recognition.
Back to me.
Back to work.
Because the truth was—I was doing just fine before he ever showed up.
And I'd be fine now too.
By the time I got home, the sky had dipped into that moody purplish blue it always hit right before full dark. The kind that made everything look like it had a filter over it—softer, but also a little lonely.
I kicked off my sneakers by the door and left my gym bag half-zipped on the floor. My apartment smelled like vanilla and clean linen, the faint remnants of a candle I forgot I'd burned earlier. I peeled off my clothes and tossed them in the hamper, moving on autopilot toward the bathroom.
The shower was cooler this time. Less about sweating things out and more about rinsing everything away. I let the water hit my back as I closed my eyes and leaned into the tile.
I wasn't thinking about him.
I wasn't.
When I stepped out, I wrapped myself in my robe and padded barefoot into the kitchen. The fridge hummed gently as I pulled open the door and stared inside at nothing I really wanted. Eventually, I grabbed a bottle of water and sat on the edge of the couch, still damp, hair twisted up in a clip.
This was the part no one ever talked about.
The in-between.
Not the heartbreak. Not the crying on the bathroom floor. But the quiet detachment after—the part where you're not sad anymore, just... still. Like you're waiting for your body to catch up to your mind. Like you're just trying to feel normal again.
I reached for my sketchpad on the coffee table, flipping past the half-finished brows and eyes I'd started earlier. My pencil hovered over the page, but nothing came. My brain wasn't quiet enough yet.
I set it down.
Instead, I scrolled for a little bit—DMs, memes, a couple of Tati's selfies from the other night. One of them had Seth in the background, laughing with a glass in hand. I paused on it for just a second.
Then kept scrolling.
My phone buzzed with a notification from the club's group chat. Tim letting everyone know it was a full schedule tonight. No cover for women before ten. Main floor rotation listed. My name was in the mix.
I didn't mind.
The club was a place where things made sense. Music, movement, light. I knew how to disappear there without feeling invisible. Knew how to own a room without needing to say a word.
Maybe that's exactly what I needed tonight.
I sat on the edge of the bed in my robe, hair still damp from the shower, scrolling through my phone like it might offer me something—connection, distraction, I didn't know.
A notification pinged at the top of the screen.
I stared at the message, thumb hovering over the keyboard.
Devon was easy. We'd hooked up a couple times over the last year, mostly when I was bored or needed to feel something. We never talked about much, never stayed the night. He knew better than to try to make it more.
I tapped the screen.
His typing bubbles popped up almost immediately.
I hesitated, chewing the inside of my cheek.
I could. I could go over there, let him touch me, let it all go quiet for an hour. He wouldn't ask questions. He wouldn't expect answers.
That could be exactly what I needed—a clean escape from the knot in my chest.
I pressed the phone to my thigh, letting my head tip back against the wall. My throat felt tight, my ribs hollow.
This was the part that always got me.
Not the sex itself. Not the aftermath.
The in-between.
The moment when I had to admit to myself that I
didn't want to be alone. That maybe I never had.
My thumb hovered over the keyboard again.
Three dots.
I almost laughed. I set the phone down on the comforter and pressed the heels of my palms to my eyes.
I didn't know why I always did this—reached for someone who didn't matter, like it could fill the empty space for a little while.
Like it could make me forget that I wanted something real. Something that felt like it was mine.
I knew better.
Sex never fixed it.
It just postponed it.
But sometimes...that was enough.
The screen lit up again.
I stared at the message until it blurred, my vision going watery for half a second before I blinked it away.
No tears. Not for this.
I swallowed hard, closing out the text thread.
I wasn't going over there.
Not because I didn't want to.
But because I knew it wouldn't help and because somewhere under the bruised part of me that wanted to disappear into someone else, there was still a part that hoped the next time I let someone in, it would matter.
I set my phone on the nightstand and stood.
Time to get ready.
I stood, stretched out the stiffness from my back, and moved toward the closet to start getting ready.
By the time I got to the club, the sky had shifted again—deep navy now, the kind of dark that made the neon outside glow like it meant something.
Inside, the bass was already pulsing through the walls, muffled and steady like a heartbeat. I flashed a quick smile at Darius at the front, slipped past the bouncer, and let the familiar scent of perfume, sweat, and stage lights settle over me like a second skin.
The dressing room was half-full. Girls at their vanities, lashes halfway glued, curlers steaming on the countertops.
Tati was sitting cross-legged in a robe, bent over her phone.
Heather had her leg up on the chair, shaving under the soft glow of her mirror light.
Sam was zipping up her boots in the corner, AirPods in.
No one looked up when I walked in, but that was normal. We all had our own rhythms.
I dropped my bag on the bench, peeled off my hoodie, and found my spot near the far wall.
"Back from your spiritual retreat?" Sam joked without looking.
"Didn't last," I said, pulling my makeup bag open.
She smirked and kept it moving.
The chatter was soft tonight. A low hum of gossip, playlist debates, and the occasional loud laugh. Tati eventually glanced over and raised a brow. "You on main or private tonight?"
"Main floor, first rotation," I said.
"Mm. Good luck out there. Crowd looks thick."
I nodded, but I didn't need luck. I just needed the music.
I took my time getting ready. Lined my lips in a warm brown, shimmered out my eyeshadow, slicked on gloss. I put on my earrings, adjusted the straps on my top, and stood in front of the mirror just long enough to find the face I needed tonight. Confident. Untouchable. Unbothered.
I knew what I looked like when I was fully in character. I knew what it took to get there.
Tim stuck his head in the doorway just as I was fixing the straps on my heels.
"Main stage in five," he called out. "Let's keep it moving."
The girls groaned, but no one argued.
I grabbed my robe and walked out with the others, the hallway buzzing under our feet. The closer we got to the main floor, the louder the music swelled, drowning out everything else.
The curtain backstage was drawn halfway open, and the lights from the stage bled across the floor like liquid gold.
The lights hit before I did.
A slow sweep of violet and amber washed over the stage as the first chords of a bass-heavy track rolled through the room.
The air was thick—sweat, smoke, spilled whiskey—and humming with that end-of-week buzz.
Booths full of men half-watching, half-talking.
Girls on the floor, girls at the rail. All of it a blur I knew how to move through.
I stepped out of the curtain like I'd done it a hundred times.
Because I had.
My heels caught the light just right, silver-glinted. The stage was warm underfoot. The pole stood center, cool and patient, like it was waiting for me.
And I didn't rush.
I walked the edge first, slow and steady. Letting the room adjust. Letting them see me.
Back arched. Shoulders relaxed. Chin up.
I didn't make eye contact—never at first. It wasn't about one person. It was about me.
The music built, and I let it move through me like breath. One hand on the pole. A slow turn. My hair sweeping over my shoulders. My body finding rhythm not in the beat, but just off of it—like I had my own tempo.
I climbed easy, muscles pulling tight and smooth. Held myself up with nothing but thighs and core. A slow inversion. Pause.
Let them stare.
Then a drop.
Controlled. Beautiful. Practiced.
The kind of drop that makes people hold their breath without realizing.
Applause cracked somewhere in the dark. Money hit the stage. But I didn't react. I never did too quickly. The key was always to stay just out of reach.
I rolled to my knees, flipped to stand, and hit the next move—fast spin, body tucked, then flared out wide, long limbs moving like silk in air.
Up again.
Twist.
Hook.
Hold.
I could feel the ache building in my thighs, but it didn't matter. My body was a machine when I needed it to be. The club had taught me that. How to be weightless and heavy all at once. How to float above it all.
The music dropped into the final chorus, and I hit my last sequence—a slide down, a backbend, a slow rise to my feet, one hand in my hair, the other dragging down the front of my thigh.
And just like that—
The lights dimmed.
I exhaled.
A wave of cash fluttered to the floor as the next girl stepped into the wing behind me.
I grabbed my robe off the chair, slipping into it as I walked offstage.
Back into the noise. The movement. The backstage hallway where the high faded, and routine returned.
Then Tim appeared.
"Private room. Now."
I blinked. "Right now?"
"Client requested you by name."
That wasn't unusual. But something about his tone—
Still, I nodded. "Coming."
I followed him past the curtain, past the girls laughing at the rail and the men nursing their drinks, toward the hallway that led to the back rooms.
The lights got dimmer here. The bass softened.
I fixed my robe. Pulled my hair off my face. Exhaled.
Then I opened the door.
And there he was.
Brooks.
Sitting alone in the center of the room, elbows on his knees like he'd been waiting.