by Shel Stone
Better Run
By Shel Stone
Copyright ©2018 Shel Stone
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the work of the author's imagination, or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.
Shel Stone - Author
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Chapter 1
Miami
NOOK STOOD AND WAITED outside her apartment complex. A woman in a mobility scooter passed, going point two miles an hour, grumbling as Nook wasn’t quite fast enough to step out of the way. “Filthy whores,” the woman said under her breath and Nook rolled her eyes. With her hand, she scrunched up her blond hair with the pink sprayed tips and with her eyes searched for Samie’s car down the road.
She heard it before she saw it. A beast of a car. A Charger. Samie was more proud of it than anything else in his life. Wouldn’t want to guess what he did to afford it. For all she knew it was stolen, but Samie rode it around like a prize stallion.
“Hey,” he said as he pulled over to the curb. “Get in.”
Jaz was in the back and he nodded as she got in, his eyes roaming her body. Jaz didn’t say much, but he watched everything—including her. Nook was used to guys salivating. It was just part of her life, and it paid the bills. She wasn’t quite up on stage taking it off, she was just serving the drinks to the dudes that watched, trying to avoid their hands as much as possible.
Samie handed her a joint and she took a drag. Not too much. These guys were exciting to party with, they knew all sorts of people and she never knew where she’d end up when she hopped in Samie’s car, but she didn’t trust them enough to completely let herself go. Samie was alright and watched out for her, but if she let him, Jaz would probably give her an STD.
“How’s everything?” Samie asked.
“Good.” It wasn’t. One of the bouncers at work was giving her a hard time, trying to influence her. Guys did that, tried to make her believe that her ongoing good name at the club was dependent on them. It was one of the strategies they used to try to get in her pants. But the reason she worked there was that the boss was okay. He didn’t expect side benefits, so that’s where she stayed. So the bouncer could go fuck himself. But it wasn’t wise to directly say that to a guy with big, meaty fists, because he might feel his dignity was worth sacrificing his job.
The little leather skirt she was wearing was riding up and Samie was getting distracted, so she put her denim jacket over her lap so he could pay attention to the road. “Where are we going?”
“There’s this club I thought we’d try.”
Pursing her lips, Nook nodded. She loved clubs, loved to dance. It was where she could just let herself go. It was always safe on the dance floor. It was when you got off that you could get in trouble, but with Samie and Jaz, she was assured of her safety when it came to anyone else. They watched out for her, and didn’t expect anything in return. They were cool.
Jaz was a DJ in town and his cool, reserved exterior worked well for him. Most people saw him as mysterious and girls fell over each other for his attention. Samie was more the smooth talker. Girls never liked him at first, but they came around. Samie always got what he wanted in the end. It took some work sometimes, but the girl always succumbed.
It was a hot, humid night and Nook stuck her head out the window, letting the breeze cool her face. Closing her eyes, she enjoyed the moment. It was going to be a good night. She’d drink, perhaps smoke a bit and see where the night took them. Sometimes into the suburbs to some crazy party, sometimes from club to club, or maybe to some money house where rich kids were partying in Miami for the weekend. They had the best booze.
Pulling her head in, she lit a cigarette and watched the streets go by. This was a crazy city. It had everything, and a heartbeat that everyone felt. She loved it here. There was always something to do.
Hopefully she wouldn’t run into Hendrix, her ex. It always sunk her high. He literally sucked the life out of her. They’d been good for a while—she’d thought she’d been in love with him, until she’d caught him screwing some girl in the back alley. That had been that. He’d had the brains to not come around and try to lie to her. But seeing him was awkward.
Truthfully, she was still a little cut up about it and only dabbled with guys. There was no need for them to get close. Play with them for six hours and then kick them out. It was perfect, wasn’t it? You had this strong and intimate connection because you were strangers. Talked, fucked, bared your soul. It didn’t matter. There were no consequences and no repercussions. Nook felt she could utterly be herself—and then it was over. Everyone left on a high and life was good. No heartache, no recriminations, no bullshit.
Perhaps she’d see some hot guy tonight and leave Samie and Jaz behind. They knew how it went. They did the same to her if the evening went that way.
Breathing in the scented air of Miami, she felt the excitement rise. Grabbed a lollipop from her pocket and reached her phone out of the window and took a photo of them. They looked good. Sometimes she liked doing before and afters as the night when on. The smiles got wider, the eyes glassier. She loved those candid shots that represented a moment in time. Only happy photos, though. What was the point of introspective and reflective when it was awesome to be alive. Crap was for forgetting.
“Hey, you got room for Tommy on your couch?” Samie asked. “He’s being evicted.”
“Hell no,” Nook replied. Tommy was gross in every sense of the word. She did her best to keep her place clean. Didn’t always succeed, but she wasn’t inviting a slob like Tommy into her place. “Tell him to get his shit together and pay his rent.”
It was okay to party, but you had to at least keep your shit together. Some couldn’t. They lost the plot and became junkies, and Tommy was heading that way. There was no point holding a junkie up—you were just delaying the inevitable and they’d take you down with them if they could. Hell no was she going to let Tommy stay at her place.
They pulled over along a street, where darkened stores and a few fast food joints lined the street. There was absolutely nothing special about it. “This way,” Samie said, leading them down an alley. The club was down a nondescript set of stairs. It looked like nothing but a grungy alley if it wasn’t for the bass vibrating through the concrete wall.
The music hit like a blast as they opened the door. Not the kind of place that restricted people from entering. Might not even have bouncers at all. The music was heavy with a fast beat. The walls were graffitied. It was just one large space with a DJ set up, a bar and a packed crowd dancing. Jaz must have heard about this place. It was a pop-up. Probably wouldn’t be there in the morning.
Girls with practically nothing on danced. A few guys, but mostly they just stood around and watched, drooling half the time.
“I’m getting out there,” Nook said. “Get me something sweet with rum, will you? In a bottle, unopened. She’d seen what happened to poured drinks too many times to trust one of those. You couldn’t even trust the bartenders in some of these clubs. She gave him ten bucks and he disappeared. Samie didn’t argue. He’d stopped trying to argue, because Nook didn’t let guys she had no intention of sleeping with buy her drinks. And so far, she hadn’t seen anyone she’d let buy her drinks, but there was potential.
This club had the musos and their crowds. You had to know people to get invited here. It did make it feel that more exciting. Damn sight better than the tourist bars, where sunburnt office workers from Michigan drank stupidly prized cocktails and sweated like pigs.
The DJ was cute. Nook knew of him, had seen him a fe
w times before, but there were some bad things said about him. Unfortunately, that didn’t necessarily put her off. How much bad stuff could come up in a six-hour relationship when everyone was the best version of themselves?
His eyes were dark and the thin t-shirt clung to his body. She wasn’t the only person admiring him. The music he spun was pretty good. Enough musing, it was time to see what he could do for her. Letting the beat take her, she closed her eyes and started to move. Maybe some chemical help wouldn’t go astray. Carry her away into a dream state. Jaz would have something. Nothing too heavy, just enough to give her that lightness she craved.
Chapter 2
NOOK NEVER GOT AROUND to the DJ. There were drinks and dancing. On the floor, she ran into a girl she knew and they orbited around each other for a while, until Nook brought her back to the table Samie had claimed for them and she fell under Jaz’s silent but deadly spell. They disappeared for a while and Nook accepted her Bacardi Breezer, the top firmly in place. “Good man,” she said quietly.
Her body was amping and a sheen of sweat covered her skin. Who needed a gym membership when you had clubs like this?
“Hey,” a guy said and Nook turned to see the DJ she’d been admiring before. Now wasn’t that funny? He’d come over.
“Hey,” she said back. He turned his attention to Samie, probably to check out how unwelcome he was, but Samie didn’t cockblock her and she didn’t do it to him.
“Was that Jaz I saw before?”
“He’ll be back. Taking care of business,” Samie said, and stretched his hand out to introduce himself.
“Carter,” the guy said.
“Nook.” Her real name was Alicia, but Nook had been the name one of her mom’s boyfriends had given her and it had just stuck. She actually felt strange calling herself Alicia. It was so formal.
“There’s this party nearby. You want to come?” Carter said.
“Sorry bud, we’ve got this other party to go to. Downtown.”
This was the first Nook had heard about it, some party they were going to. Downtown, too, which wasn’t their typical scene.
“Nice,” Carter said non-commitally.
“Why don’t you come with?” Nook asked. The invitation didn’t seem to upset Samie.
Carter shrugged. “Got some people I’ve got to see,” he said and rose. Nook watched him go. Well, he didn’t try very hard, so she wasn’t that upset about seeing him go. A guy who walked away after the first try was normally not worth the effort.
“Downtown?”
“Yeah, there’s this party we’ve been invited to. We’ll go as soon as Jaz gets back. Guy owes us some money.” Taking a small plastic pouch out of his pocket, Samie lay a line out and snorted it with a rolled-up dollar bill. “Want some?”
“No, I don’t want to mix,” Nook said. She’d dropped some ecstasy before. Not mixing was one of her rules. Stupid things happened to girls when they mixed, and Samie, her guardian was headed towards being fucked up.
Taking the rolled-up dollar, Jaz appeared and leaned over to take his share, sitting back sharply and enjoying the rush. The girl he’d been with trailed behind. “God, I’d love some,” she said and Jaz handed the dollar bill over. She partook greedily, slowly wiping her nose after with her eyes closed.
“So we going to do this?” Jaz asked.
“Yeah,” Samie agreed. “Come on, let’s move.”
They got up from the table. As they walked to the door, Nook saw Carter giving them a hard stare. He didn’t like being turned down, another mark against him. Maybe he really was a psycho as people said. Good riddance. Pays not to get tangled up with guys like that. It was just a shame that good guys were so boring. You had to live a little, right?
Jacket in hand, they made their way outside. It was a little on the cool side. Tourists didn’t understand that you became very sensitive when you lived here. While it was plain hot to them, for locals, it got cool when the temperature dropped.
Samie let Jaz and the girl into the back of the car where they quickly got wrapped up in each other. The girl actually giggled and Nook rolled her eyes. Hearing the action behind her, she wondered if Carter would have been all that bad. The crazy ones were great in the sack, weren’t they? And she certainly didn’t want to end the night drunk and stoned, and thinking about Hendrix. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d drunk dialed him and made a complete dick of herself.
It wasn’t a thing of her not being over him, because she was—she just didn’t know why he’d dumped her. Getting dumped wasn’t really something she had a lot of experience with. She’d worked hard at cultivating her appearance of being out of reach and it had always worked in her favor. Even the mean girls at school had left her alone. Or maybe that was the twin perception that she’d rip out their extensions and lay them out. Could be that. That worked too. No one wanted a black eye.
Confusion claimed her as they pulled over against this one club that was well known as a bit of a meat market, because it wasn’t what they’d said, but it was only to let Jaz’s girl out, who turned coyly and blew a kiss before jogging awkwardly in her heels toward the club entrance. Then they took off again. Clearly, they’d promised the girl a ride on the way.
Streets passed and all sorts of nightlife was out there. They cruised toward the coast and the high rises of Bricknell and Downtown appeared on the horizon. Like she said, not an area they normally partied in. She’d wondered if she should get a job at one of the tourist clubs as they gave better tips, but they tended to hire stunning foreign girls, and they didn’t accept piercings, which was a problem. She was just that bit too local. Working at one of those clubs, she’d have to clean up—and take the chance of landing with a handsy boss. It had just been a move she’d put off because she was comfortable where she was. What the hell did she need money for anyway? She managed her rent. Life was good.
They entered Downtown with its soaring glass and chrome buildings. This was a world away from the neighborhood she knew. Jaz must have hooked them up with some partying rich kid.
Samie finally pulled over on a street surrounded by tall buildings, directly in front of an apartment building as opposed to the smooth-fronted office buildings. People in apartments liked having balconies. Looking up, Nook tried to guess how many floors. They could probably see all of Miami up there. “Nice, huh? Someday, I’ll have a place like this.”
Yeah, right, Nook thought. People like them didn’t end up in apartments like that, but what was the point of raining on his parade. If he wanted to believe so, what was the harm? Everyone had to have something to believe in. Although she didn’t necessarily. If you didn’t have stupid dreams, you rarely got disappointed. And there was nothing wrong with living for the moment.
The guard gave them an unimpressed look when they walked in, ready to see them off. “Fourteen oh five. Palmer Dorian,” Samie said arrogantly. The guard, a big Cuban guy, faced them down for a moment before slowly stepping aside. He wasn’t happy about it, but it wasn’t his job to turn away invited guests.
Nook had never heard of Palmer Dorian. Sounded pretentious. Who names their kid Palmer?
The elevator was all mirrors and they looked out of place. Her with her black skirt and tank top, tied in a little knot at her waist. The patched jacket which she carried everywhere, and the black canvas bag that carried all her stuff.
Jaz wore skinny jeans and a designer t-shirt. Samie wore black pants and a cammo jacket. They look amped, but that was probably the coke.
The hallway they arrived at was quiet and the carpet soft. There was artwork on the walls. Sleek chrome tables held flowers and Nook would bet her ass they were real too. This place probably spent more on flowers than she did in rent, by quite a bit. Definitely not the kind of place they usually hung out at.
“Who’s this Palmer dude?” she asked, wondering how the hell they’d ended up here. And how did a guy like this owe them money? Then again a guy like this could probably afford to pay a debt, so it wasn’t surprising
they were here. “This is a party, right?”
“Yeah. He’s just someone around.”
Not around where they hung out, she was pretty sure.
A knock at the door and a guy answered. “Hey,” he said and stood aside. Was this Palmer? No pounding music, more a light tinkling of something jazzy. “Come in.”
There were definitely people and Nook was seriously underdressed. These women wore slinky dresses in satin and silk, with a tasteful amount of leg and shoulders on show. Gorgeous girls. The guys were a mix. Some really well dressed, but they weren’t tourists.
There was a bar. Huh. Well, the booze would certainly be good, although most of the girls walked around with champagne. These weren’t just girls, they were gorgeous. Pros. These were pros and of the highest caliber. Nook’s sexiness factor fell massively—she had nothing on these girls. She wasn’t bad, but these girls had legs for days and had nothing better to do during the day than lay by the pool and tan them. They must have cost about two grand a piece for the night. “Fucking hell,” she muttered.
Graceful creatures floated around them. It felt a little like being on safari. “Where the fuck have you taken us?” she asked under her breath, but neither of the guys answered.
They moved forward and clearly toward a guy who was sitting in a leather chair wearing a blue suit that probably cost the same as the hookers. He had brown hair and was definitely a guy of the grown-up variety. Not old, but a guy who didn’t mess around. Gorgeous eyes, cut jaw. Not a skinny junkie kid, and too serious for some rich kid partying. This was a local, and not the kind she’d seen around.
If this guy owed Samie money, it meant there were drugs involved. This guy was where the supply came from.
Chapter 3
FROM HIS CHAIR, Palmer watched the people gathered at the party. These parties weren’t strictly for amusement—they were for keeping his people in line. It showed quite clearly that no one was a diva here and all were easily replaceable if they didn’t manage their shit. This business was often an isolated affair and his employees had the tendency to think they were kings of their districts. This was to show them they were company men.
