Damaged Goods

by Nicole Williams

  Jake waved dismissively. “Hey, man, I know what kind of a badass you are. I should have known better than to invite the kingpin of all badasses into my joint. Lesson learned.”

  Will and Jake exchanged a smile, then Will said, “I’ll see you later, okay, Noelle?”

  “You better.” I then went from puzzling over what his whispered words had meant to realizing he’d called me Noelle.

  It was odd hearing it. I couldn’t recall him ever mentioning it before when we’d been together in the club. After last night, I guess I’d assumed I’d be Liv both in and out of this place, but I had demonstrated over and over how separate I wanted to keep this life and my real life. Perhaps he was only calling me Noelle to respect my wish to keep my two lives separate. Or maybe he was doing it to not arise any suspicions that we had a whole other relationship outside of Friday nights. Maybe he didn’t want Jake or anyone else to figure that out because he guessed I’d pay the price by losing my job.

  Whatever the reason was, and there were plenty of them, one thing I did know—I didn’t like Will calling me Noelle. I didn’t like him referring to me as the shadow of the girl I really was. No . . . not even the shadow of the girl I was. The lesser version of myself, the one who did things because she had to, the girl who chose to forget who she really was from nine to four five nights a week. I didn’t like to recognize my name inside this place—and I liked Will referring to it about ten times less.

  “Why don’t you wait for me at the bar? I’ve got to help get this place cleared out and explain to dozens of my best clients why their night’s ending before it even got started.” Jake sighed, looking at the sea of bodies like he’d prefer to have his arm cut off without anesthesia than have to do what he was about to. “You’d better order yourself a few shots, and order me a few too, will ya? We’re going to need them.” Giving his tie a final adjustment, he cracked his neck and headed into the lion’s den.

  I didn’t envy what Jake had to do every night to keep this place up and running, even with the insane amount of money he made doing it. Quality of life was worth more than a boatload of gold, and Jake pretty much lived, breathed, and slept The Body Shop. I knew what a hypocrite I seemed like as a person could evaluate my quality of life and give me an overall grade of failing miserably . . . but—the big but—that was changing. Ever so slowly, I felt the tides churning and turning around me. Instead of dead end after dead end after dead end blocking my path, I was starting to see that road leading into the distance widening. I was starting to see that speck of light off in the distance again.

  I was starting to live again. The good kind. The kind that’s primary objective wasn’t just to sustain but to thrive. My circumstances hadn’t changed much, but my perspective had, and as I was learning, perspective was everything when it came to either winning or losing at this twisted game of life.

  My perspective, my life, was changing. All thanks to one man.

  One man I had to admit something important to when I saw him next.

  JAKE CLEARED OUT the place faster than any of us dancers could have finished a lap dance. There was only one explanation for how he’d been able to do it—the man was the godfather of strip club ownership. He didn’t only know his stuff—it was like it was woven into the very fabric of his being.

  I watched from my perch at the bar as he shook hands with every single V.I.P., apologizing profusely. Before they’d walked through the front door, every single client left with a shrug and a smile. Turning lemons into lemonade? Yeah, Jake Clements could have invented the term.

  While he was busy with the clients, I explained to the dancers as they staggered into the turned-upside-down room what had happened (without giving exact details) and that —Yahoo!—we got the rest of the night off. The only person who seemed genuinely excited was Cherry. Her family had decided to camp out in the backyard that night and roast marshmallows, and as she didn’t have to strip for a full house of V.I.P.-ers, she could hurry home and enjoy the campout too.

  This was such a strange life. Stranger than most lives at least.

  When the last client had been walked to the door personally, Jake closed the doors, turned the lock, and thumped his head into the door for long enough that I was just about to yell at him to stop. “Do you know much money just walked out that door?” he seemed to ask the door. When I stayed quiet, Jake turned around, loosened his tie, and zeroed in on me. “That wasn’t a rhetorical question. I was really asking if you know.”

  My eyebrows came together. “Know what?”

  Jake thumped the back of his head against the door. “Money. How much money walked out these very doors.”

  I did some quick, fuzzy math based on my average take-home money and what I guessed would be the bar total. “Ten thousand dollars.”

  Jake’s eyes bulged as he slammed his head into the door one last time. “I wouldn’t get up to take a piss on a freezing cold night for ten thousand dollars.” As he headed my direction, Jake undid his cufflinks and studied the empty room with a pronounced grimace. “Close to thirty grand. Thirty fucking thousand dollars.” Despite his colorful word choice, he didn’t sound mad. Maybe that was thanks to the number of head thumps he’d sustained—maybe he’d managed to trip a wire or something.

  “Wow. That’s a lot of money. I’m sorry.” I eyed the shots sitting on the counter in front of me and the ones in front of the empty stool beside me. I should already have been a couple deep to make this easier.

  “You know how I feel about money, right, Noelle?” Jake continued toward the bar, shaking his head with every step.

  “Like you’d sell your soul to the devil for a dollar if he made the offer?” I said immediately and obviously without thinking. Although it was common knowledge that Jake would probably sell his mother to a sweat shop if he thought it could add a few bucks to his bottom line every month, it probably wasn’t something I should have admitted to his face. Especially as his face was as disheveled as I’d ever seen it.

  “Right you are, my smart girl. Right. You. Are.” Damn, Jake had the creepy calm voice down pat. “So you can imagine how angry I am right now, how pissed I am that I can’t see straight and I feel steam about to billow from my ears, right? You can conjure up that little mental picture?”

  I didn’t really need to conjure it when it was practically playing out in front of me. But I played along. “Sure, Jake, I can picture that.”

  He laughed, a bit too hysterically for my liking. Especially as after the bartender had poured those two lines of shots, he’d hightailed it out of the place with everyone else. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be alone with the madman careening toward his breaking point.

  “So you know what the funny thing is about that? Knowing how righteously, unappeasably pissed I am about that right now?” Jake said. It seemed like another rhetorical question, but he was clearly waiting for an answer.

  “No, Jake. What’s the funny thing about it?” In keeping with what I knew from watching television crime shows, I kept my voice calm and used the lunatic’s name in hopes it would keep him from blowing a gasket—or at least from blowing another one.

  Jake laughed like a mad scientist again before taking the last few steps toward me. “The funny thing is that’s not even what I’m most pissed about tonight. As far as my pissed-o-meter goes, losing thirty grand in one night falls to the number-two spot.”

  Shit. He wasn’t only pissed—he was close to going radioactive.

  “Why don’t you sit down and have a shot. Or twenty,” I added as I flashed my hand at the full shot glasses. “You said we would want these to get through tonight. What I didn’t realize was that we would need these.” Along with a couple of horse tranquilizers.

  “I could drink every last shot, along with yours, along with every drop in those bottles lining that wall.” Jake flashed his arms out in a grandiose way at the rows of full bottles—full bottles he’d expected to drain by the end of the night by selling overpriced drinks to wealthy men. “And it w
ouldn’t help me forget what I just witnessed in my very own club.”

  I grimaced and braced myself. “Would you care to stop being so cryptic and spell out just what exactly you’re so inexorably upset about?” I had a pretty good idea, but just in case . . .

  “Nah. I’d rather you take a guess.” Jake slid onto the barstool beside me and twisted to face me. “Because judging from that anxious expression on your face, you already have a real good idea what I’m so ‘inexorably upset’ about.”

  I exhaled and bolstered up some courage before looking him in the eye. “Me and Will.”

  Jake’s eyes widened, and he applauded silently. “Ding, ding, ding,” he chimed with a fake smile. “And the truth, unfortunately in this case, shall not set you free.”

  “Yeah, I kind of already gathered that on my own.” I blew out a breath then eyed the shots again. “Well? I’ll break my rule if you’ll break yours.” If there was ever a time to forget about my “no alcohol at work” rule, this was it. Especially as it would probably be my last time inside The Body Shop.

  Jake studied the shots then lifted one and gave it a hesitant whiff. “Fuck me. What did he pour us? The paint thinner I keep in the utility closet?”

  “I wasn’t really paying attention.” I lifted a glass and took a sniff too. He was right. Actually, I’d say paint thinner smelled better. “You want something else?”

  Jake set down the glass and slid out of his stool. From the looks of it, he’d dimmed a few radioactive levels. I wasn’t sure if that was because I’d admitted to having a relationship with Will or if a person simply couldn’t sustain that level of toxicity without exploding.

  “If you and I are going to break one of our cardinal rules, we’re going to make damn sure we’re drinking the good stuff.” Jake swept behind the bar and opened the wine cabinet. He knew exactly which bottle he was going for apparently, because he didn’t hesitate to free it from the dozens of others. “I hope you like pinot, because if ever it was a pinot night for me, this is it.” Jake grabbed a couple of large wine glasses and set them in front of me.

  “Pinot?” I inspected the label. While I didn’t know much about how to distinguish wine other than by its color, from the label and the year alone, I deduced that, as wine went, this wasn’t a cheap one. “Jake Clements drinks pinot?”

  He quirked an eyebrow at me as he uncorked the bottle and poured some into my glass, then the one in front of his empty barstool.

  “I don’t know. I guess I would have taken you more for a bourbon or scotch kind of guy.”

  Before Jake came around the bar, he slid out of his jacket and folded it on the end of the glossy mahogany counter. “Bourbon and scotch are for gentlemen. I run a strip club. I’m not a gentleman.” He shrugged.

  When Jake sat in the stool beside me again, he lifted his glass. He waited until I’d grabbed mine and lifted it beside his. From looking like he was tempted to cutting me into tiny bits and scattering me around the world to toasting over an expensive bottle of wine . . . Jake was hard to keep up with. I wasn’t sure if any woman even could.

  “To the future?” I deadpanned, giving him an unimpressed face.

  Jake shook his head. “No. To the past.”

  My expression morphed into one of confusion. Toasting to the past, what had been, what never could be again . . . As far as things to toast to went, it had to be bottom man on the totem pole.

  “To not letting it dictate our futures but to letting it guide our paths.” With those words, Jake clinked his glass with mine and took a long drink.

  I’d never considered myself a wine person, but when I took a small sip, I realized I could have been wrong. Then again, the three-dollar bottle I could pick up at the nearest convenience store tasted somewhat different that the twenty-year-old bottle Jake had just cracked open for us.

  “So.” He took another sip before setting the glass down and turning to face me.

  “So.” I took a longer sip.

  “How long’s it been going on?” Jake’s voice was back to normal, none of his fury that had been raging minutes ago even present. That didn’t necessarily make it any easier to broach this topic.

  “It’s kind of hard to put into a definitive time frame.”

  Jake leaned in. “Try.”

  Jake was a fan of the one-word sentences right now. At least he wasn’t following every one up with Any questions?

  I took another sip of wine and attempted to answer a seemingly unanswerable question. “That’s the thing. I’ve been trying to figure it out for weeks. Trying to figure out how I feel for him and he feels for me. Trying to figure out if I feel anything at all. Trying to decide if I do feel something, if I can ignore it and just keep pretending he’s nothing more than a family friend of yours and a client of mine. I’ve been trying, Jake.”

  “Just not trying hard enough,” he added.

  My expression darkened.

  “What? Tell me that’s not the truth. Because if you had tried hard enough, Noelle, you would have figured out some shit, and since you’re whining about how you haven’t figured out any shit, not even the basic kind, that means you haven’t tried hard enough.”

  “Easy for you to say,” I muttered.

  If Jake had a tenth of an idea of how complex and convoluted Will’s and my tenuous relationship had been up until last night, he would have changed his mind. Probably. Okay, maybe he wouldn’t have, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that I didn’t know how to answer Jake’s question as to how long this thing between Will and me had been going on.

  It could have been going on from the first night I met him and he’d made me smile and swoon and feel scattered and everything else he made me feel in that one simple introduction. It just as easily could have been last night, when I’d finally dropped those walls and let him into my other life. My true life. And, of course, it could have been any one of the hundreds of moments and instances we’d shared in between. I couldn’t put a finger on when Will and I had started. All I knew was that, somewhere along the way, we had.

  “Okay, fine, so you don’t know when this thing started between you and Will.” Jake grabbed his glass and took a sip. Apparently he’d decided he needed the liquid courage as much as I did to get through our conversation. “Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

  For another array of answers almost as multi-faceted as my last answer. Instead of listing all of the reasons, one by one, of why I didn’t tell him, I went with my standard go-to response to the tough questions that had been directed my way these past couple of months. “Because I was scared.”

  Yeah, I’d been scared of a lot. Maybe I’d been scared of everything.

  “Scared of what?” Of course that was Jake’s follow-up question. Why the hell not?

  Okay, if he wanted to know, I’d tell him. Not every reason because, Christ Almighty, we’d be there all night, but a few of the main ones. “I was scared of losing my job. I was scared of falling into that same pit of despair me and my sisters had been in before I came to you practically begging for a job. I was scared of you asking these very same questions and me having the same lack of answers. I was scared that if I admitted it to someone else, instead of keeping Will to myself, I wouldn’t be able to make my feelings for him go away. Because I wanted them to. I wanted them to go away and leave me alone and never come back.”

  “But they didn’t,” Jake stated. After what he’d seen tonight, it was obvious just how far I’d managed to push my feelings for Will aside.

  “No, they didn’t,” I admitted. “Instead, they grew.”

  Jake and I shared a long exhale before each taking a drink of our wine.

  After a few seconds, Jake shook his head. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing. Of the girls I’ve seen fall for guys they met at this club, I can at least say you picked the best one to fall for. The best one by a fucking landslide. If you’re going to break my number one rule, it might as well be for a guy like Will Goods.” The admiration in Jake’s voice
was back, like it always was when he referred to Will.

  Even though I could have clarified that I hadn’t met Will for the first time at the club, there was something else I needed to put on the table. “You know how you said one day when we had some time and were able to sit down, you’d tell me about how Will became such a great family friend?” I lifted an eyebrow and turned so I was facing Jake. “I think right now’s that time.”

  Jake considered that for a few moments, took a couple more sips of wine, then grabbed the bottle, refilled our glasses, and made like he was getting comfortable. “Why the hell not? Since Will seems to be the topic of the night, we might as well keep going with the theme.”

  I leaned into the side of the bar and got comfortable too.

  “Did I tell you that Will and my little brother were in the same platoon in the Army?”

  I shook my head.

  “Yeah, well, they were, but they weren’t just platoon mates, you know? They were good friends. Will looked after Andrew, and Andrew looked after Will. Those two got in trouble together, and they got out of trouble together.” Jake smiled, but the smile didn’t last long. “On their last tour in Iraq, they were doing some kind of recon mission late at night in this old building they suspected some high-level terrorists had been hiding out in. They’d done dozens of missions just like that one, and they’d both walked out alive and in one piece . . .”

  I shifted on my stool. When I’d hoped to have some light shed on how Will had become such a good friend to Jake, I hadn’t guessed the story would be riddled with war stories and unhappy endings. Jake hadn’t told the ending yet, but his face had.

  “It turned out their intel was bad. There weren’t a few high-level terrorists hiding out in that building. There was practically a fucking army inside. Andrew and Will’s squad got hit hard, and once the gunfire started, trying to find a way out of the maze of hallways while being shot at from just about every room turned out to be as challenging as keeping from getting hit.” Jake’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Will got out. Andrew didn’t.”