Chapter 27 #2
“I know.” His voice dips. “I want to. I want you to have an exit that doesn’t depend on anybody’s mood or a rideshare that never shows. If your social meter hits zero, you text him and you’re gone.”
I smile despite myself. “And where am I going?”
He chuckles, and it’s all warmth and appetite. “Where you said you wanted to be. Somewhere you can sleep in tomorrow. You can soak in my tub. You can get off your feet. You can be… taken care of.”
The thing about August is he says it like it’s practical. Like it’s logistics. Like he’s not also offering me a kind of safety I didn’t realize I wanted this badly.
“Fair enough,” I say, softer. “Thank you.”
“And for the record,” he adds, “I’m not only with you for your body.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I’m here for the brain too.”
I roll my eyes, smiling. “Clever.”
“I try.” A pause. “We land tomorrow afternoon. I wanted it earlier, but… it’s looking like early afternoon.”
Disappointment flickers in me, quick and sharp. “Okay.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, and the sincerity sits heavy.
Before I can respond, there’s a knock at my door and it swings open.
Wynter stands there in sequins and impatience. “Lee. Are you almost ready? The car is basically outside and it’s raining. I’m trying to get in and go before my entire look starts sliding off my body.”
“I’m ready,” I blurt, cheeks hot.
Wynter’s eyes flick to the phone. “Are you on the phone with your boss?”
“Wynter—”
She smirks like she’s holding back a laugh. “Wrap it up. Leggo.”
I bring the phone closer. “I’ll call you later, okay?”
“Oh no you don’t,” August says immediately, voice dropping, playful and hungry. “What were you about to say about my face between your—”
“AUGUST,” I hiss, laughing. “Have a good night, Mister CEO. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
He groans like he’s offended by my self-control. “Harlee—”
I hang up before he can talk me into something I’ll regret with an audience.
I step out and Wynter is already shaking her head. “Not you making me late for my big night just to flirt with your employer.”
“Shh,” I whisper, glancing toward the bathroom. “The subject of me, banging our boss is still new”
Wynter stops walking. Turns. Gives me a look so sharp it could open mail. “Girl. You’re still playing the ‘y'all just fucking’ card when you’re out here blushing like you got proposed to over pancakes?”
“I just don’t want it to get weird,” I say, and the truth is layered. “She and August have a rhythm. Work-wise. Socially. If it gets messy, she’s caught in the middle. And after everything with Cypress… I don’t want to be another source of tension.”
Wynter studies me like she’s reading a caption I tried to edit.
“You’re scared,” she says simply.
My throat tightens. I hate being perceived.
“So just… let me sit with it a little longer,” I plead, eyes wide.
Wynter exhales like I’m a personal project. “Fine. Only because we’re late and I promised myself tonight I’d twerk like I’m twenty-one again.”
She spins toward the door, skirt catching the light. “And if I don’t find a man with rhythm and a functional credit score in the next hour, one of you bitches is grinding on me. I’m emotionally available.”
I laugh, the tension easing. “Let me find my glove.”
“Tick tock, bitch,” she calls, already halfway down the hall.
I find my Freddy claw on the counter, slip it on, immediately nearly take out my eye trying to fix my hair with the wrong hand.
Lori emerges from the bathroom smelling like soap and ambition, fully dressed and glowing. “Shot time!”
Wynter hands each of us a shot glass like Oprah with bad ideas. “One for you. One for you. And I’ll take this one too.”
“What’s in this?” Lori asks.
“Consequences,” I say, and we clink.
Hennessy hits like a dare. I cough. Wynter laughs. Lori looks delighted.
We file out, down the stairs, into the drizzle. Wynter complains about the apartment like it personally inconvenienced her greatness.
Outside, the club car is waiting, black and glossy, and the city feels alive in that late-October way, wet pavement and neon reflections.
When we pull up to Lucid, the energy hits before we even step out. Bass vibrating the air. Umbrellas bobbing in a long line of costumes. Perfume, rain, and anticipation mixed together like a warning.
My phone buzzes again.
A: Jackson will be outside whenever you’re ready.
A: You’re not off the hook for that comment… or that outfit.
A: I have plans for you when I get back. ??
Heat unfurls in my chest, but I force myself to breathe.
Tonight is about Wynter.
And then she steps out of the car and the street becomes a camera flash.
Wynter’s sequins catch the light like fireworks. Her smile is megawatt, practiced and genuine at the same time. She’s immediately pulled toward a small roped-off area where photographers shout her name like she’s already inevitable.
I loop my arm through Lori’s. “Ready?”
Lori grins, eyes bright. “I haven’t been to a club since my early twenties. I was born ready, baby. Let’s show these bitches how it’s done.”
We reach the front. A bouncer built like a refrigerator looks us over.
“Name?”
I nod toward Wynter at the ropes. “We’re with her.”
He checks the list, nods once, and unhooks the velvet rope. “Welcome to Lucid.”
Inside, the music swallows us whole.
Strobe lights. Bodies. The sharp bite of alcohol and fog machine sweetness. Aerial silk dancers twisting above the crowd in masquerade masks like the ceiling itself is performing.
Lori leans in, shouting in my ear, “Holy shit!”
“It’s a lot,” I shout back, laughing, because if I don’t laugh I might short-circuit.
Wynter reappears like a comet, grabbing both our hands. “Come on, bitches. Section is this way!”
A bodyguard clears a path. People part without even realizing they’re doing it.
Upstairs, VIP is sleek and dim and curated. Plush booths. Bottle girls moving like they’re on a schedule. The chaos below looks distant, like a movie you’re watching from the balcony.
Champagne appears. Of course it does.
Wynter lifts her glass. “To us. And all the badass bitches out there.”
We clink and sip.
Then a man in a Vampire in Brooklyn costume approaches—cape dramatic, fangs fake, presence very real.
Not Spirit Halloween either. Tailored. The kind of black that drinks the light instead of reflecting it. Crisp collar, open just enough. Jewelry catching like it knows it’s being watched.
He doesn’t rush. Just… arrives.
And suddenly the space feels smaller.
He wraps Wynter in a hug like he’s allowed to. Like he’s always been allowed to.
Wynter’s face tightens for half a second at the invasion—barely there, but I catch it—then softens with recognition.
“Oh my God. X!” she squeals.
The vampire grins. “Heard you were doing big things tonight. And I heard this place has the best sound system in the city.”
Lori leans toward me, eyes wide. “Who is that?”
“I have no idea,” I admit, watching Wynter laugh like she’s known him forever. “But he’s got her full attention, and that’s… rare.”
My phone buzzes.
A: Having fun yet? Full report tomorrow. ??
I type fast.
Me: Just got here. I’ll tell you everything later. Maybe. If you behave. ??
Wynter turns back to us, eyes bright, voice cutting clean through the noise like she owns it.
“That,” she says, gesturing toward the vampire, “was Xavier De León.”
The name lands with weight.
“The producer?” I ask, because I’m not clueless. Just tired.
Wynter’s smile goes sharp. “Not just a producer. He’s… an architect. The kind who builds whole eras and doesn’t even sign his name.”
Lori blinks. “So he’s famous-famous—”
“Two truths,” Wynter says, holding up two fingers. “He had a platinum record at nineteen. Then he disappeared and came back quieter, richer, and meaner with the sound.”
She drops her hand, eyes glinting. “And the mystery? Nobody ever knows what he’s really doing until it’s already done.”
Lori fans herself with a napkin. “Okay. That explains why my knees got weak.”
Wynter laughs, then raises her glass again. “With my pen and his production? I’m about to cause a problem. A beautiful one.”
I lift my glass. “To world domination.”
“To building an empire,” Wynter says, clinking mine, “then stepping into the spotlight like we always belonged there.”
Music shifts downstairs, the beat turning filthy and familiar, and Wynter’s whole body responds like it’s instinct.
Lori grabs my hand. “Come on, Harlee. DMV time!”
I hesitate for half a second, then let them pull me up.
The bass hits my ribs. Champagne warms my blood. The lights blur into something electric and unreal.
And for a few minutes, I forget about the long week. The emails. The stakes. August’s voice in my ear. The way my life keeps splitting into different versions of myself.
Right now, I’m just a girl in a sexy Freddy Krueger sweater, dancing in VIP with my friends while the city roars beneath us.
And when I shout over the music, laughing, I say, “I think I need another drink!”
Wynter screams back, “THAT’S MY BITCH!”