CHAPTER 22
Looking back, can’t you see how the way you dance with your demons was both beautiful and tragic?
Beside me, Roxy adjusts her teal G-string with a snap. She’s laughing at something Charlotte said as she pulls a matching bra from her locker and adds the layered pieces of her stewardess costume until everything is in its rightful place.
Her new lingerie is on the higher end, and the makeup littering her vanity has been replaced with some from top-name brands.
Even her ash-blonde hair has fresh highlights, and her dull matte lipstick now holds a fresh coat of lip gloss that shimmers with tiny sparkles.
Every bit of it gives me the impression that no cost has been spared in her attempt to maintain the top spot in this unspoken battle for hierarchy at the club, which is fine. I love a challenge.
Zora runs a brush through her long, golden hair and throws it over her shoulder, “Ya’ll will never guess who I ran into the other night?”
“Who?” Eva takes a second to respond as she lines her lips with red lipliner.
Zora spins around to address the group. “Mateo. I was just at the grocery store pickin’ up a couple of things for dinner, and little man, who’s not so little anymore, was there buyin’ big boy wrappers?”
“What? Candy?” Honey, the newest girl, asks with utter sincerity, and the entire group bursts into laughter.
Zora frowns at her. “Jesus, Honey, no. Condoms. The boy’s all grown up now, and he was loading up on condoms.”
Eva saucily adds, “Goose’s boy is sure growin’ up mighty fine. I can’t wait ’til he’s not jailbait anymore.”
My ears perk up, and I look around. All I see is naked flesh—tits out, someone lotioning their legs bare ass in the air, bits on full display, because, in the dressing room, there is zero time and room for modesty.
It’s something new dancers, like Honey, the one to my left, cling to for a few months, but all modesty goes out the window eventually.
I toss my hair and bend further over as I continue pulling up my white fishnets, mainly to hide my expression. It may not look like it, but my ears have zeroed in on the gossip.
Purrs and “Mm-hmm’s” follow. Then Eva fans herself. “I’d love to teach that boy a thing or two. If Goose isn’t up to havin’ the talk about the birds and bees with him, I sure am.”
“Well, if he was buyin’ condoms then he sure as shit already knows about the birds and bees, right?” This comes from Zora.
Eva smiles wickedly. “Yeah, but I’m talkin’ about a lesson with show and tell, no words necessary.” As a unit, the girls laugh and high-five each other.
Honey laughs along with them, but it’s an uncomfortable laugh.
Remembering the kid who brought Finn’s pills, I ask, “Who’s Mateo?”
Roxy raises an eyebrow and turns away from me without answering.
It’s Eva who does. “The dark-haired boy who stopped in a while back. You saw him, didn’t ya? Good looking, kind of emo. That’s Goose’s son.”
My heart stutters and tumbles over itself in shock. I snap my gaze to Eva. “He has a son?”
“Yeah, about what?” Eva glances around at the others.
“Seventeen,” Charlotte chimes in, dousing herself in perfume.
She’s an older redhead with breasts so large they enter a room a full second before she does.
“High-schooler. Goose used to let him hang around here a while back, but that stopped when one of the girls started flirting with him. Kid’s never been back since, except the other night. ”
“Jeez, Charlotte! That’s too much!” Eva waves her hand. “We don’t all wanna smell like a burnt rose.”
Roxy says, “Kid probably got his first chubby right here in this room.”
Charlotte shakes her head. “Don’t let the boss man hear you talkin’ about his boy that way. He’s protective as hell of that kid.”
My mouth moves on its own. “He really has a son?” Nearly every woman stops and stares at me for a moment. I realize how that must sound. “Is he… or was he married, or is his son from a previous relationship or marriage or something?”
Raven appears in the doorway. By the scowl on her face, it’s clear she caught some of the conversation. As the other girls sense her presence, an uncomfortable hush fills the room.
“We open in ten. Be ready and where you’re supposed to be.
And if you want to keep your jobs, I suggest you stay away from Mateo.
Is that clear?” She points at a few of the dancers, her glare forcing nearly every woman to avoid eye contact.
Then her gaze lands on me. Her frown deepens before she turns and disappears.
I move to my vanity to brush out my hair. I rip through any tangles with aggressive strokes.
Silence follows, except for a few hushed exchanges.
Eva stops behind my vanity before she goes out the door and lowers her tone so as not to be overheard.
“Not married, but I think he was at one point. And he must still love her, ’cause he’s never shown much interest in anyone here.
He keeps his personal life pretty private, though, so it’s hard to say.
He never touches the dancers, and anyone who comes on strong with him doesn’t stick around long. Just a word to the wise.”
I meet her sympathetic look with a forced grin. “Thanks.”
The fakeass smile stays plastered to my face as my mind reels. Internally, I try to shut off my emotions, but the switch isn’t working because too many questions are tumbling through my brain.
Mateo is in high school, so around the same age I was when I met Finn, which means he would have been a small boy back then.
If he’s Finn’s son, then why wouldn’t he have told me about him? And married… that can’t be right.
My world sort of tilts on its axis.
Pull yourself together, you have an act to perform.
But my head is a mess, and it bleeds through my performance.
When I catch sight of Finn watching from where he’s leaning against the wall, it only makes matters worse.
He’s in all black, wearing his cut, with half of his hair pulled back in a ponytail.
The neon lights highlight every impressive, masculine feature.
The steps, the choreo, vacate my mind completely. I end up improvising the end of the routine. The clientele doesn’t seem to notice my fucked up, but he appears to. If his furrowed brow and tilted head are any indication.
After exiting the stage, I find Raven and wait until I have a moment alone with her.
Getting ready for my next routine will take some time, and she’s busy assisting with props and a last-minute costume fix, but I pull her aside when I can, because there’s no way I’m getting back up there until I know more.
So yeah, I don’t mince words—neither of us has time for that.
“Does Finn have a son?”
She stops cold, and a strained look blankets her face. My arms cross over my stomach as I wait for her response. She eyes me critically. “Why? Do you have a thing against guys with kids?”
“What? No.”
She matches my pose and raises an eyebrow. “So, if I said yes, it wouldn’t bother you?”
That answer is a straight punch to the chest. I suck in a breath as I try to speak. “I—”
She cuts me off before I can wrap my head around it and respond. “Never mind, I can tell by your face that it does.”
It does. Fuck me, it does—but not for the reason she’s thinking.
She can’t read my mind to know that what she’s told me might rewrite our history.
It has the potential to turn our tragic story into something else entirely—a story not worth telling, where Finn and I were nothing more than two people playing house, while he had a son and possibly another woman out there somewhere waiting for him.
That’s insane, right? My mind instantly rejects the notion because I can’t see it. Finn surely would have mentioned having a son.
Rationally, I know he could have had Mateo with a high school sweetheart, or maybe he’s a stepson, or—fuck!
A million different scenarios flitter through my brain.
Perhaps he accidentally got a girl pregnant.
There has to be a reason for it. It’s him not saying a word about it that’s bothering the hell out of me.
But what if the past I believe is what was a fevered dream?
I relive some of our moments together and view them in a darker light.
The crisp pages of our story have cracked and yellowed with age, and now threaten to tear completely with this possible new version of it.
But maybe I’m way off base, because none of this makes any sense.
I’m too shaken to think clearly. Before I can gather my thoughts, Raven’s pulled away by other dancers clamoring for her help.
As she backs away, she calls out. “I promise, we’ll talk later, okay?”
I promise.
Those words gut me.
I nod numbly and turn for the dressing room.
I barely make it to the bathroom in time, before dropping to my knees to vomit into the toilet.
The bile scorches my throat, rising again and again until there’s nothing left.
I tell myself that it doesn’t matter. That this is a job, and precisely why I should have to stay away from him, like I’d planned to.
I let down my guard during the VIP performance because selfishly, I wanted one more memory with him. I’d told myself it would give me the perfect chance to get a closer look at his tattoos, to understand him better—but look how that turned out.
I cracked the door open a silver, and he barrelled right through.
It was a mistake—one that won’t happen again. Letting him weave his way into my heart when he has the power to destroy what’s left of it will only end one way—badly.
And not just for me. For both of us.