4
Sable
Igroaned as I rolled off the couch, hitting the floor.
“You know, there’s a bed in the other room.”
The sound of Anthony’s voice first thing in the morning was enough to give me a headache.
Well, at least one worse than what I was currently dealing with.
My head throbbed as I wiped sleep from my eyes, glaring at my ex who leaned against the kitchen island.
He had a steaming cup of coffee in his hand. I wanted it.
“Good morning to you, too.”
Anthony only rolled his eyes before he set the mug of life-giving liquid on the small coffee table in front of me. I grabbed it so quickly that the scalding beverage nearly sloshed over the edges and burned my hands.
“You look like shit this morning.”
Instead of answering him, I threw up my middle finger while I continued to sip at my coffee. He laughed before walking back to the kitchen to make another cup for himself.
Maybe it was a little odd that this was a normal morning for us.
Justine was right that it was dumb that I was still living with him, but there was no way I was sleeping in his bed again.
That was such a bad idea because when we’d still been an item, things between us had been hot.
Too hot. We put a burning building to shame.
I looked back at the couch. It wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world.
I even told Anthony that when he’d first invited me to move in with him.
The thing was harder than a slab of stone with absolutely no give.
It wasn’t even comfortable to sit on most of the time, but he said the damn thing matched his vibe and that’s why he’d picked it.
I made an immediate mental note that if I ever got my place one day that I would buy the comfiest couch possible.
Another sign that we were doomed from the start.
“I have to go into the office this morning, then a few friends are coming over this evening.” Anthony paused as he stood in front of me on his way back to his room to grab his jacket.
This was a familiar song and dance at this point.
“So don’t come home looking like I’m a stripper?” I said snidely.
He frowned. “Come on, Sable. You’re so much better than that job. How come you won’t find something else?”
I was on the defensive immediately. I wasn’t better than my job, and who was he to say I was.
I tried again and again to do other things, but I was born to be in front of people.
There was nothing wrong with loving the feel of showing off my body.
Anthony somehow had a way of always making me feel smaller for it.
I’d been putting money away for a while, so it wasn’t like I couldn’t afford to pay a deposit for my own place, but there was that weirdness about living alone.
I’d never done it. Even when I’d first left home at sixteen.
My friend Carlos from school had offered me a place with his family.
The house had been overcrowded, but they made me feel more welcome than my mother ever had.
That all ended when Carlos’s dad got picked up by an immigration officer, and the whole family ended up being deported.
I’d gotten two years with them, so at least I was eighteen by the time I’d ended up on my own.
What happened to that family was such bullshit.
They all worked hard and loved even harder.
When they came up with some lame charge that Carlos’s dad had assaulted his boss at work by hitting him when he threatened to fire him for speaking Spanish in the workplace... They were targeting the wrong people.
Modesto wasn’t cheap. Nothing in the San Joaquin Valley in California was, for that matter.
At some point I needed to grow the fuck up, realize that being by myself wasn’t the end of the world, and move on.
I’d already proven that I sucked at relationships—I wasn’t about to take Justine up on her offer of listening to her and her boyfriend fuck non-stop. I loved the girl, but not that much.
“We’ve had this talk before. I like my job. It doesn’t matter how many times you try to change my mind, I’m not changing that anytime soon.”
Anthony only shook his head before he put his jacket on heading out the front door.
The sound of the lock clicking behind him didn’t make me feel any better.
At least it hadn’t turned into a huge fight this time.
Anthony had been letting it go more and more the further we’d gotten from me ending our relationship.
It wasn’t his business anymore. It wasn’t his even when we were together.
He’d entered the relationship knowing what I did, and it bothered me that he wanted me to change.
I still had a while before I had to get ready to be at the club, so I pulled out my laptop, looking up a few apartment listings.
There had to be something I could afford.
Most times it wasn’t even that I couldn’t afford it.
It was that I had to explain what I did for work, and a lot of places would turn their noses up at it.
A job was a job, what did it really matter as long as I could pay my rent on time?
There were several places within my price range, and I started clicking on the ones I liked the most. The thing I had to keep in mind was that I didn’t drive. Any place I looked at needed to be near the bus line or within walking distance of the club.
“Well, look at you,” I said to myself as I found the most adorable studio apartment. It was a little more on the pricey end for a studio, but it was in a nicer area, closer to the mall, and came fully furnished.
It was risky to get my hopes up about places like that because it wasn’t like I hadn’t looked at them before.
The problem always came when they questioned my employment.
This place required a minimum monthly income, and at least my above- the-table wages covered that.
It still didn’t stop people from casting judgment on what I did for a living.
I still added it to my list as I kept scrolling through the listings.
One or two more places caught my attention—I saved them and wrote down numbers to call to schedule a time for tours.
I’d feel ten tons lighter being out of Anthony’s place, away from his judgment.
It was weird that I’d put up with it for as long as I had.
Though it was hard to move on when he didn’t charge me rent and I only had to pay for my share of the groceries.
Not feeling in the mood to ride the bus to the club, I ordered a rideshare.
It wasn’t something I did very often because the cost added up quickly, but it was something I splurged on every once in a while.
If I got my own place, it was something I would have to stop doing, but it was a luxury, not a necessity.
While waiting for my ride, I changed into a pair of tight shorts and a crop top.
The weather was still warm for early spring, with temperatures hitting the mid-seventies.
Anthony probably wouldn’t be happy with my wardrobe choice when I came home for the evening, but he’d get over it.
Even if we weren’t together anymore, maybe a blow job would shut him up.
The driver who picked me up was nice enough.
It was an older woman by the name of Brenda who wanted to tell me about her grandchildren.
At least she was kind and didn’t give me creepy stares or judgmental gazes when she realized where I was going.
She seemed unfazed by any of it pretending as if I were an old friend along for a ride.
Honestly, I would have preferred to put in my headphones and listen to some music to put myself in the right headspace for work, but it was nice not to have someone be a dick for once.
It was hard not to indulge her with the chit-chat.
The only time I refused to answer anything was when she asked me where I was from.
“Well, hon, we’re here. Anything else I can do for you?”
I laughed a little because I’d never had a driver ask me anything like it. The woman was getting a good rating from me.
“I’m good, unless you want to stick around until a little after midnight?”
Now it was Brenda’s turn to laugh. Maybe the ride from her was exactly what I needed because I felt ten tons lighter walking through the front doors of the club. It wasn’t open yet, and for once, I was early.
Victor was setting things up behind the bar—he looked up, giving me a wave. Since I had time, I wanted to thank him for helping me the night before. It wasn’t often that I had a panic attack like that—it sucked even more that it happened at work.
“Hey, Sable. How are you feeling today?” Victor asked as I sat across from him.
I shrugged my shoulders. “Better than last night.”
Victor gave me a smile, then passed a glass of water across the bar to me. I picked it up, taking a long drink, appreciating that he always seemed to care when a lot of others didn’t.
“You know you can take another night off if you need it,” he said while going back to arranging bottles, his regular bar set up before we opened.
As nice as that sounded, I’d missed out on a shit ton of money by going home early the night before. If I were really saving for my own place, then I couldn’t just miss work for the hell of it.
“We both know I can’t.” I finished the last of the water Victor had given me handing him back the glass.
He filled it again. I raised an eyebrow at him.
It wasn’t like him to force so much small talk, but the night before had been unusual.
Even if I had a history with Victor, he’d never seen me freak out like that, or completely shut down.
He waited until I took another sip before he spoke. “Listen, I normally don’t do stuff like this, but I was really worried about you last night.” He pulled a wad of bills from his pocket, setting it on the counter in front of me. It was enough to have me spitting my water out over him.
I picked up the stack. It wasn’t a small amount of money—something told me it was the tips he’d made for the night. There was no way I could take the money from him. He worked too hard to hand it over like that. We weren’t anything other than friends who occasionally fucked.
“You’re crazy, you know that? I can’t take this from you.” I pushed the wad of bills back in Victor’s direction, only for him to pick them up, walk around the bar, and stuff them into the pocket in the front of my crop top.
“You will take it. I want to do it for you. Just promise me that you’ll speak up before something like that happens again?”
My eyes watered because I didn’t deserve this level of kindness.
I threw my arms around his neck in a hug before I got up, walked back to the changing room.
I needed to get dressed for the night and warm up.
That had been one of my issues the night before.
Since I’d been in such a rush, my muscles had screamed at me the entire time I was on stage.
Justine and a few of the other girls were already back there getting changed.
They didn’t even blink when I walked into the room.
It didn’t bother them when any of us guys did.
Not that there were many of us. There was me, Quinton, and Marcos.
We’d just had a new one that went by Whiskey.
While it was nice that the club welcomed both male and female dancers, the women by far had the better reception.
I made my way over to the small vanity that held the little makeup that I kept there, getting set to apply it.
First came the concealer to hide those retched dark circles under my eyes because, fuck me, I was so damn tired.
Another side effect of the panic attack.
It took me a few days to snap back from them, but I couldn’t have my friends bailing me out all the time.
After that came the foundation, then a smear of some dark shadow over my eyelids, finished off with a lining of dark charcoal for my eyes.
It wasn’t a lot, but the goal was to highlight my features and not drown them out. I still wanted to look like me. While I wasn’t vain, I knew I looked good. It was why I was more popular than the other guys.
Suzette, stage name Pixie, made her way over to my table, leaning against it to look me over. “Hey, dollface, you sure you should be here tonight?”
My face heated because I hated that so many of them had seen me at my worst.
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think I could be.”
That was all I had to offer before I got up to change. Suzette seemed to accept it going back to getting ready.
All I wanted was to feel like everything was normal, but it was as if everyone was walking on eggshells around me. I needed to change that, but I wasn’t completely sure how.
Justine swooped in for the rescue. She turned on a radio that we had in the back, starting to sing along with the lyrics of the song.
It was something haunting and sexy. Desire by Meg Myers.
It was a little on the darker side, but it suited my friend as well.
She swayed to the beat—it was like getting our own show backstage.
Instead of only sitting and watching her, I stood, pulled my crop top over my head, joining her.
We twirled and swayed around each other, singing the lyrics as we went.
It was a great way to warm up. It seemed to do the trick in getting the room's attention off me.
By the time the song finished, half of the other dancers had joined in.
A light sheen of sweat covered my body. It felt good. I couldn’t wait to get the night started, make money on my own, and not need to accept charity from my friends. Because that’s what it felt like. I worked fucking hard for everything I had. It wasn’t like me to take handouts.