（Untitled） #2
Her eyes were still on me. Not on Brett, not on Killian — on me, trying to decide if I was actually serious or if this was some kind of fucked-up game. Both things could be true at once, couldn’t they?
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. “You think I’m joking?”
“I think you’re drunk and throwing money around to see what sticks.”
“Smart girl.” I grinned. “But I’m serious. Thirty grand. Cash. Tonight. You and me, one hour, and I promise I’ll make it worth every second of your time.”
“Dude—" Killian started.
“Shut up, Kill.”
Her jaw moved, working out the offer. She glanced back at the bar, thinking. Calculating, maybe. Memorizing escape routes. Sending a wicked mayday in some chick telepathic code.
I leaned back against the seat. “Fine. You’re a hard bargain. Thirty-five. You don’t even have to fake moan.”
She took a breath. A long one. It told me she was about to tell me to fuck off in the politest way possible. In three, two—
“I appreciate the offer,” she said, tipping her head to the side and smiling me the fakest smile anyone had ever smiled in the history of smiling. “Enjoy the whiskey.”
Then she turned on her heel and walked away.
I watched her go. Watched that little slip ride up higher with every step. Watched the way she kept her spine straight even though I could see her hands shaking around that tray.
“Well,” Brett said, slapping the table. “That was fucking brutal.”
Killian was looking at me like I’d just kicked a puppy. “The hell was that, man?”
I didn’t answer. I picked up my glass and drained it.
Brett shook his head. “Thirty-five grand for a stripper? Cross, come on.”
“She’s not a stripper. She’s a waitress.”
“Whatever the fuck she is, she just turned you down cold.” Owen was still grinning. “When’s the last time that happened?”
Never. That’s when.
I poured myself another drink, eyes tracking her across the floor. She’d made it to the service station — a small alcove near the bar where the girls dropped off empty trays and picked up fresh orders. Her back was to me, but I could see the rigid set of her shoulders.
“You gonna let it go?” Owen asked.
“Dude, shut the fuck up,” Killian snapped at him.
I took a sip. Let the whiskey burn down my throat.
“Nope.”
“Milo—"
That made me look at Killian.
“Man, just… don’t. We just got back,” he said. “Have your fucking whiskey, get a lap dance, and just call it a night.”
I snaked my arm around his shoulders. “I love you, man. But fuck you.”
I pushed up from the booth before Killian could say another word. The world tilted just slightly — the whiskey making everything softer and sharper at the same time. Especially in the center.
My center was her.
Brett called after me, something about letting it go, but his voice got swallowed by the bass. His shout reached me as half-formed consonants, drowned by the subwoofer’s pulse.
She was still at the service station, her back to me, talking to another waitress — a tall Black girl in the same tiny slip. The other girl clocked me first. Her eyes went wide, then narrow. She said something to Baby Doll that I couldn’t hear over the music.
Baby Doll turned.
“I feel like we started it off on the wrong foot,” I told her, adjusting my technique. Apparently, being an asshole wasn’t doing me any favors tonight. “I’m Milo.”
She looked at me hesitantly. “Mary.”
I turned the name over in my head. Tried it this way and that, and then another way besides. It didn’t hold up. Nah, she was Baby Doll to me.
“Perfect,” I grinned. “Now that we've got that out the way — what about thirty-five and you won’t have to worry about your rent for a solid year?”
But before I could get an answer — a slap, a no, a bullet — a whatever — I felt a hand on my arm. I turned my head and saw Dahlia standing there. My first childhood crush. What a woman.
“Milo, you’re harassing my girl,” she said in my ear, over the loud music.
I felt a slight sway, the whiskey kicking in overdrive. I reached for the counter and sighed. When I blinked, Mary was gone, but Dahlia was still there.
“What you’re doing isn’t cool, dude,” Dahlia told me, reaching around the counter and producing a bottle of water. She took off the lid. “Drink.”
I took the water bottle but didn’t drink.
I didn’t know how I ended up on a bar stool, but there I was. Still holding that goddamn bottle. Dahlia plucked the water bottle from my hand, and held it up to my mouth like I was a toddler. “Drink. Or I’m calling Remy and having him toss your ass out. I don’t care how much money you spend here.”
I drank. The water tasted like plastic and disappointment, but I drank it anyway because Dahlia had that look on her face — and I didn’t mess with that look.
Listen, I know. I am an asshole — an incredibly rich and good-looking asshole, but I digress.
That being said, I do know when to stop.
That is if I get hit on the head with the stop sign plenty of times.
Dahlia? She was a clear fucking stop-block.
A cockblock if you will.
“There,” I said after I’d swallowed half the bottle. “Happy?”
“Ecstatic.” She crossed her arms, hip cocked against the bar. “Now. Tell me. You want her to get a restraining order against your stupid ass? Because that’s how you get a restraining order, Milo.”
“You’re being dramatic,” I said, resting my arm on the counter. “It’s all in good fun.”
“Yeah? I fail to see the fun in tormenting a girl on her first night.”
“First night?” That made me pause. “She just started?”
“Tonight. Like three hours ago.” Dahlia’s eyes narrowed. “Which makes whatever game you’re playing extra shitty, Milo.”
I set the bottle down on the bar. “It’s not a game.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s—" I stopped. Tried to organize my thoughts through the bourbon fog. “I know her.”
“From where?”
I didn’t need to answer that question.
“Hot fucking shit, man. Really?”
I reached for the water bottle again. “Apparently.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“For what? She puts it out there!”
“And what? That gives you the right to treat her like shit?” she asked. “Wait, don’t tell me — rockstar privileges.”
I grinned. “You got it.”
“I swear to God I’m gonna smack you. And get you banned from this place.”
“You won’t,” I said, because we both knew she wouldn’t.
Dahlia and I went back too far for that.
She’d been dancing here when I was still playing dive bars for fifty bucks and free beer.
She’d bought me drinks when I couldn’t afford them, let me crash on her couch when I got evicted, listened to my shitty demos after I bribed her with cheap wine.
But that didn’t mean she wasn’t pissed.
“Okay, fine.” I held my hands up in surrender. “I was being a dick. But saying no to thirty-five grand? Come on, that’s insane.”
“That’s called having self-respect, you asshole.” Dahlia leaned in closer, her voice dropping low enough that I had to strain to hear her over the bass. Then she pulled me in for a hug. “Come on. I know you ain’t like this. We ain’t like this, dude.”
I closed my eyes for a second, breathing in her familiar perfume — something floral and expensive that some rich fuck probably bought her. When I pulled back, the room spun just a little.
“Come on. Buy me a private dance — I wanna talk to you about the tour,” she said.
I let her lead me toward one of the private rooms in the back.
The hallway was dimmer than the main floor, lit only by those red bulbs that made everyone look like they were already mid-sin.
Dahlia pushed open the door to one of the smaller rooms — just a chair, a small stage, and walls thin enough that the bass still rattled through.
We talked. We laughed.
She never danced — it wasn’t that kinda arrangement.
And for a moment, I forgot I was supposed to be an asshole.
But Baby Doll still lingered at the back of my mind.
Always.