5. Phoenix #2
“Bleh, Damien is yet another bat that didn’t need to exist,” Parker declared.
“And I hate the way he’s drawn to take more after Nightwing than Bruce, but that is a whole separate issue.
There is literally nothing to like about that character or where they went with the storyline leading up to his creation. ”
“Note to self: do not get him talking about comic books if we want to hear the intro to the movie,” Aspen declared, winding it back.
Parker blew him a kiss, then settled in with his notebook, while I clutched a pillow to my chest, head resting on a second one.
At home, I had a large stuffed Rottweiler I curled up with when I was watching TV, a gift from Raleigh and Murry.
I’d left it in my room so Aspen wouldn’t look at me funny for snuggling with it.
It didn’t fit who most people saw me as.
Hell, it didn’t fit with the image I’d cultivated to effectively help me do my job.
But it fit who I was when I was away from all that, like now, as I settled in to watch yet another movie I’d never seen before.
“What if they haven’t invaded because we’re in a huge no-fly zone?” I mused. “Like, to be avoided at all costs. A planet full of toxic waste and more-toxic idiots. Visit at your own risk.”
This time he paused, since getting through the intro of the movie already seemed like it was going to be an issue for us.
“How would they know not to come here if they hadn’t already come here?” Aspen responded.
“Point. Maybe the whole Roswell thing was how we got on the no-fly list in the first place,” I replied. “Those poor aliens were probably on vacation or some shit, and we shot them down.”
“I feel like I’m missing something,” Parker said. “But please continue, because this is amusing.”
“Well, if this is a giant television production, I’d like to have a chat with the casting director about switching roles,” I grumbled.
“Really?” Aspen asked. “And which part would you ask to play?”
I lifted my shoulder and let it fall, because I didn’t have a clue. It was one thing to believe that I could change my fate if I tried hard enough, and an entirely different thing to envision a future beyond the only lifestyle I knew.
“I find it hard to believe that nothing comes to mind,” Parker insisted. “Not even something drab and mundane?”
“Sad, isn’t it?” I replied. “I was a dancer before I was a bouncer, and before that I cleaned up after hours and stocked the bar, since I wasn’t legal to be in the place when it was open.
My mom was a dancer there; hell, my grandmother was queen of the stage before she bought the place.
I’ve never worked anywhere else, never explored another field.
I always figured on going from bouncer to bartender when a slot came open. ”
“At the very least, now might be the time to start looking at other possibilities,” Aspen pointed out. “If you’re at the point of wishing you could be recast in a different life.”
“True, but there are also those pesky things called bills that are due each month,” I pointed out. “And rent, which I don’t have to pay now since me and my cousins living above the place means round-the-clock security.”
“So basically, your whole life is tied to that strip club,” Aspen surmised.
“Pretty much.”
“How long ago did you stop dancing?” Parker asked.
“It’s been almost four years” I replied, fingers trailing absently along the scars that had ended my time on the pole. “I prefer getting to toss fuckers out over stripping for them.”
“So, it was your choice then?” Aspen asked, shrewd as ever.
I swore he never missed a thing.
“Let’s just say it was a mutual decision between me and my uncles,” I replied, because it had stung to have them shake their heads when the stitches came out and proclaim the damage to be too bad to hide beneath mesh.
They hadn’t called me damaged, never once, and they’d been pissed as hell and teed off at the person who’d hurt me, but business was business, and my scars would have hurt the bottom line when people lost all interest in seeing me up there.
“I see,” Aspen grumbled.
“Well, I don’t,” Parker declared. “Did you want to quit dancing or not?”
“Sort of,” I hedged. “Dancing was nowhere near as much fun as getting to toss people out on their asses.”
“But…”
Damn, okay, behind the playboy facade was yet another dude that didn’t miss anything either. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing yet.
Sighing, I rubbed the back of my neck and decided to give them the full story, since Aspen had already seen my scars.
“I got jumped in the alley behind the club by a guy I kneed in the balls when he grabbed me while I was dancing. My uncles installed a rolling gate afterward, but yeah, I came out in a hoodie, and he blindsided me, carved me up, and beat the shit out of me. It might have been worse if my cousin Glen hadn’t come out for a smoke.
By the time my uncles got ahold of the guy, Glen had already broken his arm, wrist, fingers, and who knows what else.
He kept stomping while the guy screamed.
I passed out while my uncles were beating the hell out of him and woke up in the hospital. ”
“Did they let him live?” Aspen asked.
“Barely,” I replied.
“Not sure if I would have.”
Okay, that sounded way too bloodthirsty for the man kicked back in the easy chair.
The tone was threatening; the growl raised the hair along my arms, yet there were no warning bells in the back of my head.
There was just this warm, sunny sensation that spread through my chest and made my stomach clench every time he got outraged on my behalf.
“We’d have needed a hell of a bail fund for the mess we’d have made,” Parker mused, and there went that sunny feeling again. Heat blooming until I squirmed a little, more than ready to go back to the movie.
“Would have been time for an OnlyFans page at that point,” Aspen declared, laughing as he hit play.
“Okay, wait a damned minute,” Parker said, prompting Aspen to hit pause again.
We were never going to get through this movie, though I was starting to be alright with that.
“What?” Aspen asked.
“After what I saw last night, you would have no problem at all making a killing on OnlyFans,” Parker pointed out. “I cannot believe you broke the whip out.”
“That was one of the best parts,” I muttered.
“Oh, you liked that, did you?” Parker said. “So did I.”
“He loved it,” Aspen said, meeting my gaze with a smirk that made that warm, molten feeling flood through my body again.
Shit, I was getting turned on.
“Do you ever use it on anyone, or is it just for show?” I asked, since he was obviously fucking flirting, so turnabout was fair play.
I hoped.
“That one is for show,” Aspen declared. “But I have an impressive collection of lonely toys waiting for someone to be bonded to.”
“If you’re offering, you can consider me an eager volunteer,” I replied.
“As soon as those stitches come out, you’ll get your wish,” he declared. “But not before then.”
Huffing, I deflated and willed the growing stiffy in my sleep pants to go down since it didn’t seem like there was destined to be a good time in my future until I healed from this latest misfortune.
“Tease,” I grumbled, pouting as I glared at the screen.
He chuckled as the movie started playing again, while I pouted, not finding one thing funny about being denied once the offer was on the table.
“Guess it would be cruel to offer to be the demo sub if you wanted a preview of what he had in store for you,” Parker said in between snickers.
“It would be par for the course for you,” Aspen declared dryly.
“You are not a nice human,” I told Parker. “Do not expect help if the flying foxes and trash pandas get ahold of you.”
He gasped, and it was so fake it was hilarious the way he pressed his hands to his lips, eyes widening dramatically. “How dare you cast such dastardly and disparaging remarks upon my person with no proof of the villainous deeds for which you speak?”
“Spell dastardly,” Aspen said. “Spell disparaging for that matter and villainous while you’re at it. If you can spell any one of the three, I will personally apologize for suggesting that your default setting is sarcastic taunts.”
“Daste… No, wait, Dast… Despair…hang on, that’s not right. Dasterdly? No, that’s off somewhere. Let me just…okay, so villinis!”
“Not even fuckin’ close,” Aspen declared. “Now sit there and look pretty so we can see how much shit the tornados destroy before I tell Phoenix all about your battles with spellcheck.”
Parker blew a raspberry at him, totally unbothered by the comment.
“Alright, precious, don’t make me stick a gag on you,” Aspen declared.
Dammit, so much for willing my hard-on to go down. Groaning, I wiggled, trying to subtly shift myself in my sleep pants.
“Problems?” Parker asked.
“As I mentioned before, you are not a nice human,” I declared. “I’d like to amend that now to say that you suck.”
“I can if you want me to come over there,” he offered, as nonchalant as could be.
My gaze darted to Aspen, who watched us with such a blank expression I couldn’t tell what the fuck was going on in his head.
Was I supposed to say yes to the offer?
No?
Hell, I was no longer sure if I was flirting with one, both, or if we were all testing limits together.
It felt more like the third. I just wished I had a clue as to what Aspen’s response would be if I invited Parker over to my couch.
“What’s taking you so long?” I replied, deciding to take the plunge.
Looked like we were about to find out.