by Aiden Bates
Which didn’t explain why, as Noah and I passed through the crowd of hot, sweaty, shirtless Alphas at the Backdoor the next weekend, behind every set of broad, muscled shoulders, I was still catching myself looking for Duncan’s face.
“God, this place is weird,” Noah yelled over the heavy, thumping house music. “I’ve touched like seven dicks already and I’ve had my hands in my pockets the whole fucking time.”
He wasn’t wrong—the Backdoor had a reputation, and not the kind that you wrote home to your parents about. Where the Ballroom was known for being a place of class, elegance and a bit of naughty fun on the side, the Backdoor took naughty to whole new extremes. They kept half their dancers imprisoned in cages like the lovechild of a ’60s’ go-go club and Alcatraz, which horny Alphas could feed tokens into until the cell doors popped open, releasing the dancer of their choice. The other half of the dancers were wearing so little, they made the golden thongs Noah and I wore on our own shifts look prudish by comparison.
I grimaced as a smirking Alpha with glazed-over eyes shuffled against me, gyrating his crotch like it was something special when I could clearly see he couldn’t have been packing anything longer or thicker than my thumb. He had the same coloring as Duncan, the dark waves and lightly tanned skin, but there was something completely unintelligent about his expression. Nothing compared to Duncan’s perpetually sharp, sparkling eyes.
“God,” I breathed, pushing the Alpha off me and pulling Noah back as he sought to delve deeper into the fray. “Do you want to just go home, man? I’m honestly not feeling great, and this place is just…so, so skeevy.”
“You sick or something? Want me to grab us some drinks?” Noah offered.
I considered it, but whatever part of me that normally itched to let loose on Grey Goose and Redbull was currently lying dormant. In reality, I hadn’t really felt right in weeks—not sick or anything, but suddenly a little more fragile. Like, for no real reason, I needed to move everywhere more carefully now. Maybe to avoid bumping into someone like Duncan Rourke again—or maybe because the tension in my gut was constantly leaving me hoping that if I was careful enough, I might actually bump into Duncan Rourke himself.
“Nah,” I said, trying to shake the weird vibes of the club off my shoulders. “Best keep a level head tonight. Don’t want to go back to Foster without any precious information.”
“It’d be his own damn fault,” Noah said with a laugh. “Who sends dancers out on a reconnaissance mission?”
I chuckled back at him. He was right—if Foster had wanted real information on what the Backdoor was doing to pack their house every night despite having worse dancers and worse music, he should have come around himself. “Some spies we are.”
“I’m gonna go grab a whiskey ginger. You want anything?”
“A water would be nice,” I answered, watching Noah disappear toward the bar.
Despite the creepy crowd, the discomfort on the faces of the Backdoor’s dancers, and the general feeling like I was one cocktail away from being roofied in a place like this, I had to admit it had at least one thing going for it: it wasn’t the Ballroom. As much as I loved the atmosphere, the ambiance, the dancers and the patrons of my own stomping grounds, I had to admit that it had been harder to go to work there after Duncan and I parted ways.
The Ballroom was the place where I’d first laid eyes on him. The place where we’d made the stupid, ill-conceived bet that very well might have ruined the only genuinely good relationship that either of us would ever have. I thought about it every night in bed, how differently things might have ended up if I’d just asked him on a date instead of gambling with my fucking heart. And even though I knew that there was no way of changing things—I wasn’t even sure that I would if I could—every time I took the stage at the Ballroom these days, I found myself scanning the crowd, hoping to spot an impeccable suit cut for a man the size of a linebacker. For his dark waves and his smug, lopsided smile.
I’d left him there on the sidewalk, waving goodbye to me outside our Italian place, but hauntingly, the ghost of Duncan had been following me around ever since. Even my yoga class had become a sore spot—the one session I’d tried to attend earlier that week had ended in disaster, with Nico teasing me about my missing partner and making a weird pass at me that had made my stomach churn. I couldn’t see Nico’s stupid man-bun without remembering the way Duncan had made fun of it, and I couldn’t drink my traditional post-yoga smoothie without remembering the way Duncan had blanched at the taste of kale.
He was everywhere now. In every kissing scene of every movie, in every Armani suit I saw on the corner of Broadway and Wall Street. We’d said our goodbyes, but I was quickly realizing I’d never be rid of him.
“You look like you could use a drink,” a voice oozed from just behind my left shoulder. “Do you always wear your heartbreak on your sleeve like this?”
“I’m not drinking,” I said, turning to see a man much shorter than I was—an Omega who stared at me in the same way Alphas so often did. He was familiar looking, but not in a way I could place. His brown hair was slicked back and shining with oil, and he was grinning a smile that felt like it had too many teeth in it. “And I’m not heartbroken.”
“Hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but people in happy relationships don’t show up here.” He slipped his arm around my waist and tucked himself beneath my arm, swaying gently to the music’s heavy beats. “I know who you are, Kieran Drake. Did that bastard boss of yours send you here to scope out my club, or are you looking for a little change of pace? We’re always hiring, you know.”
I blinked as I realized who I was dealing with—Wesley Harmon, the Backdoor’s owner. I should have known it the second that I saw that smile of his—I’d heard a group of Alphas talking at the Ballroom about how when Wesley Harmon gave head, he’d been known to use an awful lot of teeth.
“Hiring, huh? Tempting offer.” It wasn’t really, but I couldn’t exactly tell him that Noah and I were here to snoop. The club’s atmosphere was all wrong for my kind of dancing, though. I could see the look of disgust on the face of the nearest go-go dancer as a drunken Alpha freed him from his prison—not exactly the way I wanted to spend my evenings. “Don’t think I’d fit in too well with your crowd here, unfortunately.”
“Oh, don’t mind the cage dancers. Putting a body like yours in a little cell like that? I’d never dream of it.” His eyes raked over the way my shirt clung to my chest in a way that made me feel dirty. “I’ve seen you perform. If I had a dancer like you on my roster, I’d have you up on stage in an instant. VIP show, once a week. With these horny bastards lurking around, you wouldn’t have to work any more than that. They’d empty their wallets over someone with your…talent.”
Somehow, I heavily suspected Wesley’s ideas of my talent began and ended with my six-pack—but it was a flattering offer nonetheless, if not exactly an appetizing one.
“I’ll think about it,” I said with a little shrug, knowing that it was a lie even as the words left my mouth. “You got a card on you?”
He whipped one out of his suit jacket immediately, tucking it into my pocket and patting it for good luck. “Give me a call any time, handsome. Whenever you like.”
As Wesley stalked off, chuckling and licking his lips, I caught Noah’s eye from across the club. My look said, We need to leave now, and his glance back at me was one of intense agreement.
“God, I literally watched a guy slip something in my drink at the bar.” Noah covered his face with his hands as we poured ourselves into the cab. “Didn’t even wait until I wasn’t looking.”
“Did you dump it on his head?” I asked, feeling queasy as the cab lurched forward. The breakup with Duncan had left me half-sick in a way that didn’t seem to stop, but after my encounter with Wesley, I was willing to trade a little motion sickness for the ability to get home as quickly as possible.
“I did,” Noah admitted with a laugh. “Glad you were ready to leave too. You okay? You�
�re looking…I mean, not to be rude or anything, man, but you’ve been looking a little green all night. Something happen?”
“Nah,” I said, shaking my head. “Just this breakup or whatever with Duncan, I think. It’s really doing my head in.”
“Aw. Poor thing.” Noah reached over, ruffling my hair. “Your first heartbreak’s always the worst one. Stupid of you to put it off for as long as you have—it’s easier when you’re a teenager.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I said, staring at the window and trying to steady myself by counting the street lights as they rolled past.
“Look at it this way—could be worse.” Noah chuckled sympathetically as he watched me suffer. “At least you’re not pregnant.”
And suddenly, a wave of nausea hit me like a fucking truck. Instead of counting the street lights, I was counting backward in days, weeks—all the way back to the night I’d shared with Duncan.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” I said abruptly, and the cabbie, in true New York fashion, pulled off to the side of the road and screeched to a halt.
There wasn’t anything in my stomach to throw up, but as I retched on the sidewalk, I realized how all the numbers suddenly added up. The tightness in my abdomen, the feeling of inexplicable frailness, all leading back to that night Duncan and I had spent together.
Three times with a condom…one time without.
16
Duncan
I groaned at the desk of my home office, louder and more furiously than I needed to because there was no one else there to be bothered by it. The numbers on my spreadsheets were useless, the letters of the business reports I was meant to be reading all jumbled and nonsensical where they’d been laid on the page.
Trying to forget about Kieran was like trying to stop breathing. The sudden focus on something that was so naturally automatic meant that instead of fading away, he was ever-present in my mind—and there I was, dying from lack of oxygen on top of it. Whatever else I was meant to be doing was suddenly irrelevant, as irrelevant as all the extra rooms in my penthouse and the extra chairs at my dining room table. The version of me that had put the down payment on my apartment three years before had done it under some kind of notion that someday, I’d meet someone worth sticking with long enough to fill all those rooms and chairs up with.
What a stupid schmuck I’d been then. Dozens and dozens of flings, one-night stands and trysts that didn’t last any longer than the buzz from my morning coffee, and the only man I’d ever met who was worth spending more than one night with had written me off as another bad decision. Notches in each other’s bed posts. Nothing more.
I checked my watch, glanced back at the spreadsheets again, and rose from my desk chair. I was still dressed in my Armani from the business dinner Sterling had dragged me to earlier. Could still smell the overwrought cologne of the boring date he’d procured for me—a nice kid, sure, but too young and starry-eyed for my tastes. I’d watched him fall over himself to appear interested in what I did for about half an hour before he realized that I wasn’t interested, and I realized I could easily introduce him to the good-looking Alpha investor that Sterling and I were schmoozing with instead. He’d looked excited when I suggested they exchange numbers. I’d just been pleased that someone had ended up happy for the evening—seeing as I certainly wasn’t.
Seeing as I was already dressed and the night couldn’t get any worse, I grabbed my jacket off the back of the desk chair and shrugged it back on. My phone vibrated on the desk as I reached for it—more a sign of how many texts and emails I got throughout the day than any real telepathy on my part. I checked the sender, expecting a message from Sterling to let me know we’d sealed on the new account, and was surprised to see a message from my mom instead.
Happy birthday, honey. You deserve everything in this life you can get at. Miss you lots! it read, drawing a sad kind of laugh from my chest.
I didn’t have to check the calendar—my birthday wasn’t for another nine months yet. Instead, I plugged in a reminder to myself to go out and visit Mom over the weekend. I didn’t hear from her much these days, but I headed upstate as often as I could to check up on her. The dementia that had wracked her memory had made this city where I worked into a difficult place for her, but the little country care home I’d put her up in seemed to do her good. My only regret was that I couldn’t see her more often these days. Sometimes, my visits did more harm than good.
It seemed like such a stupid thing as I made my way out to the elevator, but the text from my mother had managed to change my mood. I knew my normal modus operandi: go out, get drunk, find some more-than-willing Omega to bring home, fuck him until he forgot his own name and I forgot whatever sense of dissatisfaction with my life I’d been brewing in the background.
But as I pushed the button for the ground floor, I knew I didn’t want just some Omega. It wasn’t about the warm body in my bed anymore, the temporary absence of aloneness.
I wasn’t alone anymore. I hadn’t been, not since that night I first saw Kieran Drake dancing on a table in his cowboy boots. He’d been in my thoughts, tucked away in the shadows of my mind, tinging every memory with his presence or absence ever since.
I hailed the cab before I could change my mind, slipping into the back seat and taking a deep breath in.
“Where to?” the cabbie grunted.
“Heaven’s Ballroom,” I answered, taking my phone out to text my mother back.
Thanks for everything. Love you, Mom.
I caught a knowing glance from the Omega taking tickets at the door. A nod from the bouncer, accompanied by what sounded an awful lot like a sympathetic grunt. The bartender gave me a sad smile when I perched myself on a stool before him, serving me up a martini “on the house” before he returned to flirting with one of the club’s mustachioed waiters, and every dancer who passed me in a waft of feather-white angel wings seemed to look at me like my dog had just died.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that word might have gotten around about Kieran and me.
It wasn’t sympathy I’d come to the club for—quite the opposite, actually. I could still remember the story my mom had told me about the night my father left her—how much she wished she’d fought harder to make him stay, how she’d wondered about what her life could have been ever since. It was a heavy thing to learn as an eight-year-old. Not a story I’d ever want to tell my own kids, anyway. But where before Kieran, I’d always thought it had served as a warning—don’t fucking fall in love with anyone, because they’ll leave you—now I knew better than that.
It was a cautionary tale, sure, but the takeaway was different now that I’d felt what my mother must have felt. Fight for what you love—that’s what I should have walked away knowing. I wasn’t about to let Kieran Drake become some kind of wistful fucking regret.
“Kieran around tonight?” I finally forced myself to ask the bartender.
“…Oh. He didn’t tell you, did he?” the bartender replied, and I earned myself another sympathetic grimace.
“Tell me what?” I pushed my martini out of the way, untouched, and leaned forward to hear the man over the cheer of the crowd as someone undoubtedly removed some article of clothing up on stage.
“He’s auditioning at another club tonight. We’re all hoping he won’t go, obviously, but…” The bartender shrugged. “Says he needs a change of pace. Too many memories here.”
My teeth ground against each other, heart racing as I realized the full extent of what our relationship had done to Kieran. We’d lost ourselves in each other—our senses of identity, the stupid walls we’d built up around the idea that we didn’t need anyone for more than a night at a time—but now, in the aftermath, Kieran wasn’t recovering himself. He was recreating himself completely.
Idiotic little shit. It was like repainting the Mona fucking Lisa—when the original was perfect to begin with, why bother?
“Which club?” I grunted, offering the bartender a fifty from my wallet for the drink
—and the information.
He waved it away, smirking knowingly. “The Backdoor. Trashy place.”
I scowled. Trashy didn’t begin to describe that club. “I know it.”
“He’d be miserable there, you know. You going to go get him back?”
I nodded, wishing that I could match the man’s smirk—but unfortunately, until Kieran was in my arms again, I was feeling determined, but particularly fucking grim. “Can’t let him go throwing his life away, can I?”
“Suppose not.” The bartender swept my drink away, looking strangely smug. “You know, we’ve all been wondering what kind of man you were. Kieran’s not the kind to get into shit like this—and he’s especially not the type to get so worked up over someone else…”
I raised an eyebrow. “What’s your assessment, then?”
The bartender laughed, casting a glance over my shoulder at the mustachioed waiter he’d been making eyes at since I walked in. “I think you’re in love with him, for one.”
“Think you might be right,” I grunted, feeling those words resonate clearly with the burning warmth in my chest.
“And for another…Hell, I think you might actually deserve him.” He tipped my martini down the sink. “Bring him back to us. The Backdoor’s no place for an angel, Mr. Rourke.”
“No,” I agreed as the warmth in my chest roared to new levels of flame. “No, it’s not.”
