11
Orion
Iran my hands under the faucet, not just to wash the grime from working on Mr. George’s car away, but to clear my head. All I could think about was how stupid I’d been last night. What the hell had I been thinking? In what world did I think it was okay to watch Sable with another man?
And then I stayed.
I went too far and my head swam with so many feelings of guilt.
It was enough to make my stomach hurt, for me to lose focus at work.
There was a nice new scratch in the paint job on the old mustang and it was all my fault because I couldn’t stop thinking of the way Sable’s face contorted with pleasure while he touched himself. Then he’d tried to come toward me?
Yeah, I’d run.
I had to, because if I’d stayed any longer, I was bound to cross so many more lines. If he’d wanted to touch me, I would have let him. He could have his way with me and I would have been a willing participant.
“Orion.”
My father’s voice made me jump. I reached up to turn off the tap, grabbing a towel to dry my hands.
Dad stood in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest. He was always so damn intimidating, but with all the ways that I hated him and realized I was becoming just like him, this made everything so much worse.
“What can I do for you?” I asked as I went to brush past him, but he shoulder-checked me, pushing me back into the small bathroom. Just fucking great.
“Get your head out of your ass, boy. You’re better than this. The last few weeks you’ve been making all sorts of stupid ass mistakes, shit like that costs me business.”
I rolled my eyes because he made far more mistakes than I did—most of mine as of recently had been tiny.
They were still there, though, when they hadn’t been before.
He had a right to be upset, but I wasn’t in this to make him money.
I was in this because his customers deserved better than the half-assed job he and his other employees would do.
When I went to leave the small bathroom again, he grabbed the front of my shirt, pushing me back into the sink. The porcelain dug into my back, but he only pushed harder, making me wince in pain.
“Have some respect, you little piece of shit. Don’t forget who signs those paychecks you and your pretty little wife live off of.”
I growled, pushing back at him because I hated it whenever he brought Whitney into things. Especially with how shitty I was already feeling about how I was treating her recently, I didn’t need him adding on extra guilt for putting her livelihood at risk.
“Don’t you dare bring up Whitney.”
He laughed. A deep evil laugh because he knew how to get under my skin.
He’d hated her ever since the day I’d first introduced her to my family and had tried everything in his power to stop us from getting married.
Shit, he’d probably be thrilled if he found out I was following in his footsteps of being unfaithful.
The biggest lesson he’d ever tried to teach me was that marriage and love were a waste.
There were too many fish in the sea—we shouldn’t have to settle for one when there were so many options.
The speech left me feeling queasy—it led to my spending my first night with Whitney.
It was such a shitty way to experience my first time with her, but I needed the comfort and she’d been so willing to give it.
I was a piece of garbage. Always had been and always would be.
I wasn’t expecting it.
I never was, but when his fist came flying and hit me square in the jaw, I fell backward. It was the last thing I needed after last night. But maybe I deserved it. It was the universe reminding me that I was fucking everything up.
What I should have done was get up and fight back, but I’d learned long ago that fighting my dad only ended up with me being embarrassed and covered in more bruises and cuts than I cared to explain.
Instead, I stayed there on the floor. It made me a goddamn coward, but I didn’t care.
I didn’t have the fight in me today. Not anymore.
Dad spat on me, the glob of saliva landing in the middle of my head. I gagged. I always hated it when he did that shit because it was even more degrading than if he’d only hit me.
“You piece of shit, little pussy. You’re worse than your mother. You know that? She never could stand up for herself. I shouldn’t be surprised that you’re not any better.”
He left the room, and I stayed on the floor waiting to make sure he left the office space entirely.
The sound of the door clicking shut was like a gun firing, and I bolted from the floor to wash the nasty spit from my hair.
I dunked my head beneath the faucet, turning it on full blast. Once I was convinced I’d gotten it all out, I grabbed the same towel from earlier, running it over my short blond hair.
My reflection was a fucking mess. There was a bruise forming on my chin from the impact of his fist—that was my sign to call it a day. Whitney would have all sorts of questions when I got home. I didn’t know how to answer any of them.
Mike, one of my dad’s other employees, was standing at the front desk when I left the bathroom.
He had a grin on his face. I was in danger of starting a fight myself.
He could be just as bad as Dad sometimes.
This just confirmed my decision to leave.
Instead of acknowledging Mike, I grabbed my jacket off the coat rack and headed out the front door without looking back.
I’d get an earful tomorrow for not cleaning up and putting my tools away, but I was past the point of caring.
As my feet carried me down the street, I realized which direction I was walking.
This was so fucked. I slammed my eyes closed, taking a deep, fortifying breath because I needed to turn around and go home.
The last thing I should be doing was heading back to Faded Sins. Especially not after the night before.
But I couldn’t force my feet to turn around and head in the direction of home.
Maybe it was because I didn’t know how to talk to Whitney.
She was back in one of her moods where she was sad about everything.
I was getting worse and worse at putting her at ease.
If I’d only been honest from the beginning, it wouldn’t be so bad, but I was so deep into the lie at that point there was no escape without tearing her world apart.
It was still early in the day. The club probably wasn’t even open, but as I approached, Victor was standing outside the front door smoking a cigarette. He raised an eyebrow at me as he watched me approach.
“We’re not open yet, man.”
I huffed a laugh, leaning against the wall next to him.
“I figured as much. Don’t even know why I came here if I’m being honest.”
Victor nodded, taking another long draw from his cigarette before tossing it to the ground, stomping it out with the heavy boots he was wearing. He pushed off the wall, turned to face me—his expression fell from a playful smile to one of concern when he saw my face.
“Dude, what the fuck happened to you?”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t really want to talk about it.”
He laughed, running a hand through his dark, tousled hair, shaking his head. “Shit, dude, are you trouble?”
That was a first.
Never in my life had anyone accused me of being problematic, but I could see how someone got that impression. There I was with a bruised ass face. I knew I looked tough, and the tattoos helped. It was just one of those preconceived biases that people had.
“Not trouble. No. Just had a rough day.”
He nodded again, stuffing his hands into the front pocket of the loose hoodie he wore. “Look, I’m not really supposed to let people inside before we open, but you look like you could use a drink and you’ve been nice enough to ask about my boy in the past, so...”
His boy? Shit. Had I been eyeing someone who belonged to someone else? Not that I was doing any better as a married man. I shouldn’t have been looking at anyone.
“Are you two a thing? You and Sable?” I didn’t know why I asked it. Other than I desperately wanted to know as much as I could about the little dancer that was breaking down all of my walls.
Victor laughed as I followed him into the empty club. He threw his head back and, okay, so that was funny to him. There obviously wasn’t anything between the two of them.
“We fuck. Sometimes. But it’s not anything serious. Friends with benefits, maybe?”
My face heated at the admission. I knew that lots of people made relationships like that work, but I had never wrapped my head around it. I was always all in with one person until the last few weeks.
When I continued to not say anything, Victor turned around to look at me. “Are you scandalized? He’s got a nice ass. It takes a lot for him to trust people to touch him, and he seems interested in you, which is different. He doesn’t normally take an interest in customers.”
Why the hell did it make my heart flutter a little that Victor had said Sable was interested?
That much had been obvious when I’d gotten home last night—I realized he hadn’t charged me a single cent for what happened in that room when he should have.
Sure, he’d said something about charging me to watch, but he hadn’t actually done it. Was it all a joke?
“He’s interested?” I needed to keep my damn mouth shut because speaking up was a huge ass mistake. There was no way I should be letting anyone know that interest was returned, but with the way Victor trailed his eyes up and down my frame, he would have figured something out.
I was on one side of the bar while he leaned over the other. He studied me for a moment before grabbing a bottle of beer, opening it, and handing to me. I took it, but set it on the bar top without taking a drink.
“Oh, Sable doesn’t give a lot away, but he’s asked about you. That he even makes an attempt to come and see you when you’re here? That says a lot.”
I frowned before picking up the bottle of beer and taking a sip. “I honestly thought it was part of his whole thing.”
Victor shook his head before he opened another bottle of beer and came around to sit next to me.
It was a little strange to be sitting there having a drink with the bartender, but it was even stranger to be sitting in an empty, silent strip club.
Though it wasn’t totally silent. Soft music played over the speaker system, a complete contradiction to the heavy, sexy beats that played while the dancers were present.
“What do you mean by his whole thing?” He seemed genuinely curious as he shifted his body to face me. His beer bottle hung loosely in his hands, and he tilted his head to the side as he waited for me to answer.
My face heated because I never should have said anything. “I don’t know. He sells himself. I don’t want to make that sound like a terrible thing, because it’s not. You can do whatever the fuck you want with your body...”
“Watch it.”
I looked up at Victor because, even though I wasn’t trying to come across as judgmental, I could see how it still could.
Instead of getting defensive about it, I raised my hands in surrender.
“I’m just saying that I get why people do the things they do.
I don’t think any less of them for doing it.
But when you have a job like that, it’s hard to tell when someone is actually interested or is just out to make some money. ”
That seemed to make Victor relax a little. He nodded and picked at the label on his beer bottle.
“Let me put it this way. Sable doesn’t seek out customers.
He’s perfectly content to walk that gorgeous little ass of his around this place night after night, not have anyone talk to him.
The fact that he made a special effort to talk to you?
That’s not like him at all. When he started, he didn’t sell himself at all. ”
That had my attention. “What changed?”
Victor shook his head before he took a long draw of his beer. “Not my story to tell.”
As much as it disappointed me that he wouldn’t tell me why Sable had made the shift, I could respect that he wanted to protect his friend’s privacy.
That didn’t mean that my curiosity went away. Something major must have happened for him to make the change from dancing to actually selling himself.
“So you think there’s something special there, then?” God, I was fishing and sounded like a teenager again, even to my own ears. It was pathetic because I shouldn’t be excited about it.
Victor laughed again. “I don’t know, man. I’m just saying that he’s different with you, and it’s something I noticed.”
Little butterflies exploded in my stomach as I lifted my bottle of beer to take another gulp.
Heat rushed to my face as Victor kept watching me.
All I wanted to do was ask more questions about Sable, but I was already pushing my luck by being there before the club opened.
Was that how you knew you had a problem?
An addiction maybe. That’s what it felt like at that point.
Like I needed to come in and get a hit of him to get through my days.
I itched to ask more, but held myself back. Instead, I finished my beer and set the empty bottle on the counter.
“Want another?” Victor asked as he stood from his seat.
“Are you supposed to be serving people before the place opens?” It was an honest question.
Victor shrugged as he pulled out two more bottles of beer, popping the caps off. It should have surprised me that he was also drinking, but the rules had to be different when you worked at the bar.
“I don’t think there’s any actual rules. None that have been told to me, anyway. And don’t worry about it; it’s my treat. You looked like you needed someone to talk to.”
He wasn’t wrong—it wasn’t like I could go to Jayden. He’d only laugh about my dad hitting me again. What man in his late twenties let his deadbeat dad beat him without fighting back?
Victor sat next to me again, setting the frosty bottles on the counter just as the front door to the club opened. My heart stopped to see the man walking through the door because it was like talking about him had summoned him into existence.