24. Damsel in Distress
TWENTY-FOUR
DAMSEL IN DISTRESS
Trish
“Trish! You came!” Angela bounds over, arms open, her full breasts swaying under the minimal support of her triangle string top.
We hug, our body glitter melding together.
“You’re on a first-name basis with a hot stripper.” Jules drapes an arm around my shoulders once Angela releases me. “You’re coming up in the world, Shortstack.”
The perky stripper gives Jules the once-over, a grin on her face. “And you brought friends with good taste.” She winks at me. “Even better.”
We’re ushered to a front row table, which I’m surprised is open, as the place seems rather packed for a Thursday night. Until I get a load of the group next to us.
“Sorry, this is the best seat at the moment, but it is next to those guys.” Angela thumbs over her shoulder at the group of rowdy guys behind her.
“They aren’t even here for a party, just decided to be drunk assholes tonight, I guess.
Wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t complain while the girls danced or, you know, actually tipped.
” She rolls her eyes. “I can move you if you want, but I’m up next, and it would be fun if you could cheer me on. ”
“No, this is great!” Jackie bounces in her seat, wide eyes taking in the scene.
Angela claps. “Oh, good. See you in a few.” She walks off, swiveling out of the way when one of the drunk men tries swatting her ass.
A guy hustles over with a notepad. “What can I get you ladies?”
“A dude as a strip club cocktail waitress?” Jules brings both hands up when the waiter gives her a look. “Not that I don’t appreciate the role reversal, I’m just surprised.”
He shrugs. “We’re short staffed. Gotta do what you gotta do.”
The guys next to us bang their hands on the stage, calling the dancer over like a dog. Though the dancer ignores them, our waiter narrows his eyes at the group of men.
“Yo! No banging the stage.”
The men barely glance his way, but at least they stop their slapping and hollering.
He gives us an apologetic look. “No one thought we’d be this busy on a Thursday night.”
We give him our orders, pleased when our shots and drinks come quickly given how busy it is.
The music changes, and Angela struts out on stage in a school girl uniform, the pleats of her overly short skirt flaring up with each step to reveal a red thong. The whole look would be clichéd if she didn’t look so good in it.
“Hot for Teacher” booms over the loudspeakers.
As a former dancer, I can see the strength and coordination in her routine. She isn’t just standing there gyrating or shaking her rear, she hits the beats with high leg kicks, launches onto the pole at the chorus, then falls back into a swan spin and lands in a crouch at the guitar riff.
“She’s my new hero,” Rose whispers, eyes wide.
But the guys next to us don’t care. With the low waitstaff, I don’t think anyone’s been keeping track of how many drinks they’ve had. They’re so loud I can hear them more than the music.
“You said Angela teaches a class on this?” From Jules’ speculative expression I have a feeling a pink cow barn isn’t the only home decor request she’ll make of Holt. I never heard of a ranch house with a stripper pole, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Jules installed the first.
“I wanna take the class too.” Jackie rests her head on her hands, eyes full of wonder as if she’s viewing Christmas and not strobe lights. Just then Angela does an inverted matrix hold on the pole. Jackie blinks. “Do you think NASA would consider this high risk?”
Just like pro athletes, astronauts aren’t allowed to do unnecessarily dangerous things when scheduled for a flight to space. It could get them taken off rotation.
Jules and Jackie start debating whether or not NASA would consider pole dancing a high-risk activity.
Halfway through the song, the men next to us start jeering, not pleased that Angela hasn’t taken off more than just her white button-down blouse.
“Can it, assholes.” Rose gestures to the stage. “I’m watching a show here!”
“You call this a show?” One man waves a hand, the drink in it spilling over onto the stage floor. “Where are her tits?”
“Wow.” Jackie gapes. “I think we found the missing link.”
I’m pretty sure she thought she whispered that, but intoxicated Jackie doesn’t have volume control.
He slams his drink down on the stage, sloshing more onto the polished floor. “What you’d say, girl?”
He steps toward us, but my eyes are on the liquid trickling toward the pole. Angela’s high up in a dove pose, but inverts to slide down in a hands-free icon spin.
“Angela!” I call out, waving my arms, but she can’t hear me over the music or see me while she’s focused on her spin.
Rose jumps up in the drunk guy’s face, blocking Jackie from sight.
Worried about Angela, I hoist myself up on the stage, just as her heel touches down on the wet stage.
The platform heel slips out, Angela’s head falling back in a downward arc to the hard floor.
Lunging, I manage to wrap my arms around her, turning us and breaking her fall.
Her ass lands on my stomach, knocking the breath out of me.
We lie there shocked and panting, staring up into the blinking lights.
Over the still blaring music, I hear Rose’s higher-pitched shout, along with the man’s deeper tone.
Struggling to my elbows, I see my friends standing too close to the larger group of drunk, angry guys.
Off to the right, one lone bouncer lumbers his way through the crowd while to the left, our waiter stands with his tray full of drinks, his shocked eyes bouncing from the stage to the bouncer to the fight. The rest of the crowd just stares.
After my adrenaline-pumping stripper save, I’m sober enough to worry about the police being called.
“What the hell is going on?” Angela stands, limping over to brace herself on the pole.
“Careful.” I get to my feet. “The stage is wet.”
She looks at the wet floor and the near empty drink sitting at the edge of the stage. “What idiot did that?”
“This idiot.” Rose points her finger at the drunk guy’s chest.
The man puffs out his chest, which is sadly still sunken even with his posturing. He sort of looks like a taller, older Joe Dirt without the mullet. “Who you calling idiot?”
“You,” Jackie says matter-of-factly. Standing behind Jules and Rose, she frowns at the man. “Was she not clear?”
Almost in slow motion I see the man raise his hand. Jackie’s eyes go wide, Jules’ arm goes up to block the hit, while Rose’s leg swings back like she’s going to kick a soccer ball.
My mind is silent as I run, leaping off the stage, hands out toward the man and his upraised arm. I grab his shoulders, swinging my body up and around him like I would a stripper pole.
In the chaos following my expertly timed shoulder mount tuck, strippers shriek, someone breaks a nail on someone’s nose, a tray of drinks crash, the bouncer finally makes it over, and in the not-too-far distance police sirens wail, all to the tune of Nelly’s “It’s Getting Hot in Here.”
The last thing I see before body glitter blinds me is Rose kicking the guy in the nuts, sending us both to the floor.
Ian
My alarm is going off. Why is my alarm going off?
Bleary-eyed, I frown at my phone, lit up on the nightstand. One forty-six in the morning.
Did I set it wrong?
It stops and goes off again.
Wait. Shit. That’s not my alarm.
Forcing my aching muscles to move, I manage to snag my phone off the nightstand. My biceps spasm when I lift the phone to my ear, making me regret the extra fifty laps I did in the hotel’s pool after my muscles started shaking. “Hello?”
“Ian. It’s Holt. We have a problem.”
Struggling the rest of the way out from under the blankets, I sit up and flip the lamp on, wincing when the light hits my eyes. “What kind of problem?”
“An hour ago the security team lost sight of the girls. For a while they figured they went to the bathroom together or something.”
My stomach clenches. “Let me guess. They didn’t.”
“Correct.”
I rub a hand down my face. “Jesus.”
“I located Rose’s phone.”
I don’t even ask how he did that. “Where is it?”
“Heartbreakers.”
“The strip club?”
“Yeah, I know. Probably Rose’s idea.” Holt sounds as exasperated as I am panicked. “Security is on their way there. I’m sure everything is fine, but you did ask me to update you if anything changed.”
“No, yeah.” I rub my face. “Appreciate it.” We hang up, and I spend a few minutes staring at nothing, contemplating the best- and worst-case scenarios.
Blinking out of my trance, I slap my face, trying to wake up. Mitch said the meeting was at eight. I still have plenty of time to sleep.
But an hour later I’m still wide awake when Holt calls again.
“Tell me you found them drunk and stupid but okay.”
“Well…”
Damn it . “What?” I flip the lamp back on.
“There was a fight between the girls, a few strippers, and a group of drunk guys.”
I pause to take that in. “Is everyone okay?”
“Besides Rose complaining about needing an emergency manicure and Jackie sad that Jules shoved her out of the way so she wouldn’t get injured for the wedding and therefore couldn’t execute defense maneuvers, the girls seem unharmed.”
“Okay, okay.” I nod to myself. “So everything’s fine and they’re on their way home.” My hopeful tone sounds almost pleading.
“Well…”
“Jesus, Holt. Spit it out.”
“Trish is in jail.”
“What?” I shoot off the bed, hand out to grab the clothes nearest to me.
“As part of police procedure, even after the stripper told the cops that the girls were just defending them, they ran everyone’s licenses.”
“Fuck.” I stumble stepping into my jeans. I don’t even bother changing the T-shirt I slept in.
“So I’m guessing you knew that Trish had a warrant out for her arrest?”
“Yeah. I knew.” I throw everything into my duffle— wet swim trunks, favorite suit, toothbrush. “Where’s Trish now?”
“At the League City Police Department in a holding cell, apparently awaiting extradition back to Georgia.”
Fuck. Shit. Fuck.
“Rose has her lawyer on the way over.” Holt snorts. “He’s gotten Rose out of plenty of scrapes, I’m sure he can help Trish.” He pauses while I shove my feet into my sneakers. “Though Rose never committed a felony.”
Sighing, I give up trying to protect Trish’s secret. “She didn’t commit a felony. She was falsely accused.”
He absorbs that information. “Anything you know, we should tell the lawyers.”
Shouldering my duffle, I grab my laptop bag in my other hand and bring Holt up to date as I hustle out of the room and toward the elevators.
“Dang. That’s messed up,” Holt says when I’m done. “Though it explains a lot.”
“Yeah, Trish isn’t half as sneaky as she thinks she is.
” Only a lone concierge is manning the front desk as I enter the lobby.
“I’m going to send you two numbers in a minute.
One is Gary Ranos, the private detective, and the other is the lawyer and ex-boyfriend, Chad Mitchell.
Make sure that Rose’s lawyer calls them.
” I jog outside to the curb, thankful when I see a few taxis out, catering to the party crowd.
“You got it.”
Across the night sky, still dark even with the overhead traffic lights, the red beacon of a plane shoots across. I click off the call and yank open the door of the taxi before it even comes to a complete stop.
“Where to?” the cabbie asks.
“Hartsfield-Jackson Airport.”
I have a flight to catch.