Chapter 15 #2
I’ll just tell Clover we’re headed out, give her money for a cab—so she’s free to stay and hump Roid Rage’s thigh as long as she likes—and make a beeline for the play structure to fetch the kids.
Do not pass go.
Do not linger long enough to be introduced to the Chad the Chode in the Salmon Polo, who I’m itching to punch in his pimply chin.
Mind made up, I make a brief detour by the bar to say goodbye to the guys. I promise to put Capo’s product launch party on my schedule for Fat Tuesday—Why not? It’s not like I’ll have a date that night—and head for the dance floor.
It’s more crowded than it looked from the mezzanine, and Clover and Handsy Creep I Hate More than Head Lice aren’t where they were before.
They must have moved deeper into the crush.
I make a circuit of the floor, angling around a bachelorette party in matching plastic crowns wiggling to a Whitney Houston banger throbbing from the speakers.
Whitney, warbling about wanting to “dance with somebody,” is more wholesome than Prince, but I’m not sure it matters.
Once two people have gotten to the “humping in public” stage, they don’t exactly need musical encouragement.
Which is fine. Clover’s a free agent who can hump anyone she pleases.
I just don’t want to be anywhere in the vicinity while she’s doing it. I’d prefer to be in another time zone, but across town will have to do.
I check the pinball machines, remembering her saying she loved vintage pinball, but she’s not there, either.
She’s not…anywhere.
Not at the mezzanine bar or by the pool tables or in the kiddie zone below, checking in on the girls.
As I return to the dance floor, my chest tightens with worry.
I remind myself that she’s an adult dancing in a public place and most likely fine.
Maybe she hit the ladies’ room, or she and Roid Rage took the elevator down to the basement so he could show off his killing dinosaurs with a fake machine gun skills.
I’m about to head down to check when I see it—a flash of wild curls in the corner of my vision—and turn to see a laughing Clover disappearing through a flat black door next to the empty stage.
Handsy is hot on her heels…
The door swings shut behind them, disappearing into the wall. It isn’t an exit, or it would be clearly marked. It must be a backstage area or something.
I hesitate for a moment.
Clover led the way off the floor. She was smiling and laughing while she did it. She did not seem to be under any duress or to feel threatened in any way. She decided to seek out a more private change of location with Chad the Wonder Loser of her own free will, and that’s…fine.
It really is.
Only, can I really be sure it’s fine?
She barely knows this guy. She can’t be certain he’ll behave himself when they’re alone. It’s not disrespectful of her choices to just…pop my head in to make sure she’s okay. And if she is, I’ll tell her we’re leaving and excuse myself as quickly as possible.
I will not rip Roid Rage’s hands off.
I will not.
I am a grown adult, a father, and a player known for his cool head. I can come face-to-face with Clover making out with another man and remain in control.
Probably…
Willing myself to remember that there’s no one to take care of the girls if I end up in jail for strangling a meathead, I thread through the people now bouncing to the Beastie Boys to the black door.
I open it just far enough to slip through and close it behind me, surprised to be greeted by a gray cement wall. Guess it’s not a backstage area. It appears to be some kind of utility hall, wide, cool, and…strangely quiet.
There must be several layers of cinder block between the hall and the dance floor. The sound is significantly muffled, the lyrics of “Brass Monkey” reduced to a vibration against my palm as I brace a hand on the wall and follow the sound of voices coming from my right.
I peek around the corner, where the hallway continues behind the stage, to see Clover and Roid Rage locked in an awkward embrace.
Awkward in that Roid Rage clearly wants to embrace, and Clover clearly does not…
“Seriously, dude, back off,” Clover says, her voice hard and flat in a way I’ve never heard it before. “I really just wanted to talk. It’s so loud in there, I couldn’t hear anything you were saying.”
“I couldn’t hear you, either, but who cares?” he slurs as he lifts his other arm, caging her on both sides. “I think we both know talking is a waste of time.”
She pushes harder against his chest, maintaining the distance between them by force as he tries to lean his face closer to hers. “No, we don’t. I don’t, anyway. And I don’t like kissing people I barely know.”
“Sure, you do. Or you will once I’m done with you, baby girl,” he says, thrusting his bulging pecs into her palms.
“Ew. No. I’m not your baby anything. Stop.” Her biceps shake for a beat before losing the battle against his roid tits. His next push sends her elbows slamming into the cinder block behind her.
The pained sound that escapes her lips is all it takes to carry me across the last few feet between us. My fingers land on Handsy’s shoulders seconds before his fat lips smash into hers.
“Nope,” I grunt, tugging him backward. “Not today, buddy.”
Gripping handfuls of his polo, I swing him around, releasing him on a collision course with the opposite wall.
He hits it—hard—and stumbles a few steps before reeling with his fists raised.
“What the fuck, asshole? You don’t sneak up on a guy like that.
If you want a piece, come at me straight, bro. ”
“Leave,” I bark, glaring at him with enough heat to set his stupid pink shirt on fire. “Now.”
He starts forward, but hesitates as he gets a better look at what he’s up against.
He’s a big guy, but so am I. And I’m sober and older and at least five inches taller. Without those lifted tennis shoes, I’m betting Roid Rage isn’t even as tall as Clover.
And he’s a coward, the kind of man who only picks fights he knows he can win, a fact he proves by dropping his fists and whining, “She started it, man. She brought me back here, acting all horny and shit.”
“I did not!” Clover huffs. “I suggested we find a quiet place to talk. To talk. It’s a thing people with more than three brain cells to rub together like to do sometimes, Protein Powder.”
“I don’t want trouble, dude,” he says, ignoring her. “If she’s yours, that’s cool. I’ll just go.”
“Women aren’t property, dipshit, and no means no,” I say, pushing on before he can respond, “but yeah, you should go. Now. Before I decide it’s worth the hassle to smash your face.”
Anger and fear flare in his glassy blue eyes, but he hesitates only a second before backing away.
At the corner, he tosses a petulant, “I don’t like skinny bitches anyway. No cushion for the pushin’,” over his shoulder before sprinting for the door in his haste to escape the fallout of his dumb mouth.
Clover expels an outraged sound, her upper lip curling as she glares after him. “Ew. So much ew.”
As the door slams behind him, she shifts her focus my way, her brow wrinkling as she adds in a rush, “I’m so sorry.
Seriously, I just wanted to hear him. That’s it.
He kept shouting into my ear with his hot whiskey breath, and I thought if maybe I could…
” She winces and shakes her head. “I don’t know what I thought, but I never should have gone anywhere with him.
Not even into a hallway in a public place. That was stupid.”
“It was,” I agree, my throat tight. “Very stupid.”
She blinks, clearly surprised by my intensity. “Okay. No need to rub it in. I said I was sorry.”
“I don’t need you to be sorry, I need you to be careful. Next time, there might not be anyone around to step in.”
Pressing her lips together, she nods. “I know. Believe me, I know. I was just…”
“Just what?” I prompt, my tone still hard.
But fuck, I don’t like how close that was. I don’t like how easily that shit stain was able to overpower her. But what am I going to do about it?
Call Parker’s state rep contact and convince him to propose a law cracking down on recreational steroid use?
Arm every woman in New Orleans with a taser so they can zap back when big men press their advantage?
Buy a Batman outfit and hunt down every guy named and shamed for sexual assault on that “Get Away from Him, Girlfriend” website that an LSU cheerleader started after she realized her friends had been attacked by the same guy who stalked her in high school?
I don’t know. I don’t know how to protect Clover. How to protect my girls when they’re older. How to protect the other women I love.
Fuck, I’m in love with her.
I am, aren’t I?
It’s already too late to walk myself back from this ledge.
I’m still reeling from the realization when she adds in a shakier voice, “I was just trying to make myself want someone I could actually have, okay?”
Someone she could have.
Because she can’t have me.
She didn’t say it flat out, but the truth is right there, shimmering in her pained brown eyes. And suddenly, I can’t understand why we’re doing this. Why we’re denying ourselves what we both clearly want so damned badly.
Before she can say another word, I step in fast and close, cupping her face in my hands and crushing my mouth to hers.
And God, it’s good.
Instantly good.
Instantly, as sweet and hot and right as anything that’s ever happened to my lips, as she opens for me with a moan of relief that echoes through my bones.
Her hands fist in my shirt as she drags me closer, until we collide with the cinder block and she arches off it, pressing against me while I wrap her up in my arms.
She’s hot, burning up from all that work on the dance floor, and I am, too. Hot and already so hard, I know she has to feel it as she rocks against me as we kiss.
Good, I think.
Let her know what she does to me.
The way she makes me want her like nothing else.