He put his hand out to stop me from saying anything further while shaking his head from side to side. “Don’t. Just don’t go there, Ash. No name-calling. She’s out. That’s it. End of.”
Yeah, right. Not for me.
“Fine, have it your way, but if I see her out and about, I’m calling her a whore to her face.” I leaned back against the edge of the desk, kicking my feet out in front of me.
“This is exactly why I didn’t tell you.”
“Well, no shit. I would have told you to get a fucking backbone and kick that bitch to the curb.”
He stepped close, too close. “Be careful what you say, Asher. I know what went down in your little suburban compound this week. Remember, no one keeps secrets from me, and I’m friendly with Penny too. Do you blame Nat for turning her back on your slimy ass? Come on, really? It’s one thing to not be committed, but to sleep with her friend? In a three-way, no less. It says asshole all over it.”
I stood up straight and stared down my bouncer and long-time friend, but he was right. I was an idiot. More than an idiot.
Not knowing how to admit defeat, I said, “Look, I know it was wrong, that’s why I need to locate Beck. Call in a favor for me, okay? If I get her some back child support or some shit, maybe she’ll at least forgive me.”
Mike stepped up to me, puffing out his chest, showing off the couple of inches he had on me, and said, “If Nat wanted this Beck jerk in her life, she’d have come to me herself. She didn’t. I think you’re making a mistake. You’re opening up a can of worms that should stay closed, Ash.”
I sat back on the desk and rubbed my forehead. “Listen, I’m not in the mood to be told what to do. I want to get this Beck dude. If you won’t help, I’ll do it myself.”
Mike sighed and shook his head. “Then you’re on your own, buddy. I’m not messing with these girls’ lives, especially Natalie. She’s a good mom, and she made her choices because that’s her right. Remember that, Asher.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. Just walked out the door.
Don’t Stay Out After Dusk
Asher
DUSK TURNED into dawn, except my nightmare didn’t come to an end with sunrise and the dawn of a new day. Sunday.
While roaming the club, Carson, of all people, wanted to have a heart-to-heart with me. He’d seen me pining for Natalie and wanted to lend his help. Dude probably had ulterior motives for getting in good with me, but I couldn’t put him off.
He’d also let me in on a little secret he’d heard from Petey. Natalie was skipping town the next day.
Carson and I stood huddled together against the bar in the corner, whispering to each other like lovers, but it was the only way I could get any information.
I leaned against the ledge, needing the bar to hold my weight, my eyes squeezed shut as Carson explained. “I didn’t want to be the one to tell you—shit—you hardly know me, but I think I know how you feel. I would want to know if my girl was getting ready to skip town.”
I blew out a sigh. “Why are you helping me, man? I haven’t always been in your corner, you know?”
Then Carson told me a little about his life, how his mom ran out on him when he was a kid. He’d been chasing tail for years, never wanted to settle down, and thought he didn’t deserve a forever with anyone. It rang a bell. In fact, he sounded pretty much like a carbon copy of me.
I DIDN’T want to think too much on the concept of forever—I was a man, after all. Yet I didn’t want to lose Natalie, so when the night came to an end, I went to her place. This time I didn’t threaten I was coming or give her a clue of what my plan was because I didn’t know myself. Instead I acted on pure instinct and hopped on my bike after Sienna left after work with Carson.
The cool air pushed back at me as I headed toward a place I’d never been welcome. A shiver ran through me. Not sure whether it was the nighttime desert air chilling me or the thought of Natalie rejecting me, I talked myself through the ride.
I’m doing the smart thing.
She’ll listen to me.
I didn’t know what other choice I had. It had been become painfully clear I cared for the woman more than a childhood friend, deeper than just a lover, harder than anyone else in my life. Even Sienna. And I needed to put it all on the line. Fast.
Needing more speed, I cranked the throttle and the bike lurched forward. I felt a sense of urgency I’d never experienced before.
Of course, I knew Natalie’s address—I was her boss—but this was the first time I’d seen her neighborhood. It was a far cry from the ridiculously ostentatious tree-lined street in the middle of the fucking dry desert where I lived, but it wasn’t ghetto. It was a safe and secure little development of fourplexes with small coupes parked around the lot. Probably students and mostly singles lived inside the medium-sized buildings.
I slowed as I went over a speed bump before spotting Natalie’s little red car. Christ, I’d been in the lot at the club the day she drove up in it for the first time, so proud of her purchase, beaming that she’d bought something safe for her son. Obviously, she was making better coin at my joint than the Leop, and had finally been able to get herself a nice ride.
I remembered clear as day thinking to myself that she’d never leave the Tunnel now after a taste of what she could make.
Now as my bike idled behind her car, I kicked down the stand and cut the engine, then looked up at the small structure in front of me, scoping out which one was 4B where Natalie lived.
The chills came back, and I knew without a doubt why. It was because she was leaving, running away from the Tunnel—and me.
It didn’t come as a surprise when I knocked on the door that Natalie slipped out into the cool night wearing leggings and a tank, wrapped in a sweater, surprised as shit to see me. She walked outside and shut the door behind her all the way but for an inch and stood directly in front of it, clearly guarding what was behind it. I wanted to go inside and talk, hold her, run my hand up and down her back, be together at her place. But she’d never allow it.
Her lips pressed tightly together, she said just above a whisper, “Asher, what are you doing here? I told you this is not a good idea. Go!”
“Natalie, I can’t go. I know you’re leaving, and I don’t understand why. Can’t we just talk?” I asked as I stood there like a class-A idiot.
“No. No talking. It’s too painful, and you hurt me. But worst of all, I allowed it to happen.” Crossing her arms over her chest, she didn’t back down from her post at the door, but she also didn’t move to go back inside. I knew I had to be quick and do something fast to convince her not to retreat.
My throat was closing at the thought of her shutting me out for good. I couldn’t let her go back through that little crack in the door because I would never get her back out. Once that door was shut, I knew it would be locked, and she might as well throw away the key. Yet all I could muster up was, “Please.”
“Please what, Asher? Please let’s talk? Please don’t be upset that you slept with Penny, along with another girl in the same bed we just slept in a week ago? Please, you didn’t mean to beg me to sleep at your place last week and pretend it meant something?”
Natalie was still only speaking slightly above a whisper, but it felt like she was shouting directly in my ear. My whole head throbbed, and my chest was tight with nerves and some weird form of anxiety I’d never experienced before.
After a brief pause, she lowered her voice a little more to deliver the final blow. “How about, please get the hell away from me!”
This was my last chance, and it was slipping away from me like the heat in the desert on a winter’s night. If I didn’t do something quick, Natalie would be gone just like my mom, except she wouldn’t leave her kid behind. The beautiful brunette with crystal-green eyes would slip away, taking her son with her, and I would never see her again. Like my mom never wanted to be found, Natalie would do the same, and where would that leave me?
I reached out and touched he
r hand, trying to wrap it in my own, but she pulled away. I leaned in close and whispered, “Let me come in, Natalie. I’ll be quiet, and we can talk. I want to apologize. I know it’s not gonna be easy, but I want to make this all up to you.”
“You’re not coming in,” she spat out. “Not now, not ever. I told you—I don’t want anyone near my boy. He’s got a big life in front of him, and I’m not going to let anything pull him down.”
I was smart enough not to argue with her. This had been a rule of hers since day one, and now wasn’t the time to break it. I’d hoped she would eventually lift the ban on me meeting her son. I had only seen him once, when out of curiosity I’d tailed Natalie to school pickup. There had been a rare rainstorm in Vegas that day, and the kid was all rain-slickered up as Natalie hurried him into her car. I didn’t get to see much of the kid, and had found myself strangely disappointed.
Sighing, I gave in and asked, “I understand. How about we just go sit over there on the step and talk things over? I won’t make any trouble, I promise. I just have to say my piece.”
I don’t know why, but she acquiesced, and we moved toward the small staircase and settled in on the top step, our thighs grazing as we sat next to each other. Natalie wrapped herself tight in her sweater and placed a neutral expression on her face, even though I knew she was anything but.
With the palm of my hand, I turned her cheek to face me, the pale moonlight shining down on us, dawn only a few hours away like a clock ticking loudly in the background, rushing me to make amends fast.
“Nat, I’m sorry. I know I fucked up, but you said long ago no strings. Yes, this isn’t what you bargained for, but still…you didn’t want all of me. I don’t know—shit—it was wrong, okay? Wrong. There are no excuses. Penny was a bad idea, but she shares some preferences with me, and I guess by now you know that one of those is I’m partial to groups. I always have been.”
The woman in front of me looked deflated and defeated with her head tilted down, her shoulders slumped, cradling herself in her own sweater.
She didn’t reply, so I went on. “I guess you may think there’s something wrong with me. Probably is. But other than being with you, I find it impossible to get charged up unless it’s a threesome. Did you hear me? You alone are enough for me. Enough in my office, more than enough in my bedroom, with you I only need one woman. When I’m with you, rough or slow, all I need is to see your beautiful smile, and I’m fucking hard. It’s never been like that with anyone else, little doll.”
At the sound of my old nickname for her, she lifted her eyes, now glassy with tears, and shook her head, signaling she couldn’t take any more. I paid it no mind.
“I’d give it all up in a heartbeat, Nat. I see that now. I don’t want to lose the one woman in my life who is enough for me—even though I could never be man enough for you. I want you. All of you with me. Tell me what to do.” I leaned closer and ran my nose along her cheekbone, breathing in her pure scent, filling my soul with her, infusing my blood with something better than oxygen.
She remained silent. So did I.
Finally, the one person I’d come to realize meant everything to me—although a day, or maybe fifty days too late—broke the spell. “I don’t know what to tell you, Asher. It’s pretty much all my fault. Yeah, I said no strings, but what I should have said was simply no. No to anything between us beyond you being my boss. I never did a good job at keeping my emotional boundaries up with the whole no-strings thing, and now our relationship damaged beyond repair. There’s nothing you can do. I knew you slept around. I was hip to your proclivities. I’m not stupid, even though I’m only a stripper.”
At that, I interrupted her. “Stop. Don’t ever say that. You’re way more than just a stripper. Shit, that sounds so cliché, but please stop,” I begged.
We sat there talking, going around and around in circles. She was enough, she wasn’t just a stripper, and I was an ass. We beat the same topics into the ground until they were dust and there was nothing left to say.
She stopped me with her hand on my leg. I looked down at her small palm resting flat on my thigh, and I got a fucking boner. Yes, the man who liked to surround himself with multiple women, who got off on several mouths and sets of hands in bed with him, had a full-fledged erection from one woman’s hand resting on his leg.
I shifted a little to somewhat attempt to hide what was happening, and sadly, Natalie took it as a hint to stop touching me.
No, I wanted to scream. Instead I pulled her in for a hug, and she again misinterpreted my actions as meaning good-bye.
She stood. At this point, the moon was waning, the sun about to burst over the horizon, and I began to dread what I would look like in the orange glow of daylight. Not really how I looked, but I feared in the light of day I’d be seen for the traitorous asshole I was.
I wanted to hide in the shadows of the night, to make amends wrapped in the warm glow of the moon and stars against a background of mystery and suspense. Forgiveness seemed so much more attainable in the shadows, and now brightness was chasing me away, bringing me back to reality where I was meant to live a life without the unconditional love of a woman.
Wasn’t that what my mom taught me?
I was in a mental fight with the sun when I heard Natalie speak.
“This is it, Ash. I’m leaving. I know you came here to try and stop me, but you can’t. You can’t always be my protector, boss, friend, and sometimes lover. It’s all too much. Together—separate—it doesn’t matter. It’s too consuming. You’re both my salve and my kryptonite, and I have to get out on my own.”
I wanted to roar, but remembered the sleeping kid behind her slightly ajar door. Bracing myself against the railing and the rising pain in my chest, I felt my heart clenching. I squeezed my eyes shut in an attempt to block the tidal wave of emotion from flooding out, and then I remembered my pride.
So I stood up, kissed her on the cheek, and walked away. The sun was coming, and I wouldn’t be exposed in the light of day. I’d laid my heart on the line. And I’d be damned before I stood with the hot desert rays beaming, burning down on me, and begged.
Only looking back once or twice, watching the woman I so desperately wanted slip back into her apartment, I jumped on my bike and sped the fuck out of there.
I DROVE for an hour or two or three; I didn’t really know. Leaving Natalie had left me numb, unable to take responsibility for the role I had played in walking away. Did I just make that choice? It was what she wanted. Right?
Tearing down my street on my bike, I dismissed the unnerving feeling running down my spine. Basically dismissing Natalie’s feelings and mine, I had run away. Sped away from it all because it was too much to face. I couldn’t admit to myself or anyone else what I had ruined, decimated, and destroyed. Basically I had just walked away from the only woman I’d ever cared about other than Sienna. I had grown up thinking of one like a sister, with my feelings later growing into much more than just friends, and the other had truly become my sister.
Now I needed to get my head right. Desperately.
I couldn’t go to Mike. He was being a class-A jerk, and I didn’t want to bother Sienna on her day off. She always took Monday to rest and enjoy some alone time. I knew she often dwelled on the past and reconciled her new life as being the best choice, and she needed that weekly affirmation.
But today I needed the only family I knew, my sister, someone who would make sense of all that I had turned to shit.
I pulled down the drive and didn’t bother to put the bike in the garage, instead leaving it sitting outside. Normally I was more protective of my bike, but nothing seemed to matter at the moment. Walking over to Sienna’s door, fighting the urge to have a drink, I saw it was open a bit. Sighing, feeling a brief lightness at the thought that help was on the other side of that door, I realized the woman who I needed to comfort me must have heard me come roaring down the driveway and was ready—
Except as I made my way to the door and gave a soft knoc
k, pushing it open, my fucking heart dropped out of my chest and what was left of it fully cracked. The place was a mess. There was a broken vase and a used syringe on the floor. Sienna’s Adult Entertainer of the Year award lay in the corner on the floor, out of place, and it was eerily quiet.
I screamed, “Sienna! Lila! Sienna?” to no one. Someone took my family, my business partner, my freaking headliner at the club, the closest person I had to a blood relative. My Sie.
I screamed again before running out the door, winding my way to my backyard and roaring the entire way, knowing no one was going to answer.
Flipping open my phone, I first called Mike, then left a half-hysterical, half-accusatory message for Carson. Then I stood in my kitchen, wanting nothing more than to break everything in sight, frustrated over the opposite directions I was being pulled in.
Finally, I came to the difficult decision that I had to concentrate on finding Sienna rather than chase Natalie. After all, I’d already pushed her away, and it seemed to be what she wanted.
The Game of Life
Natalie
Miami, three months later
I WAS whipping through the grocery store, tossing cereal and other junk in my cart while my mind oddly kept returning to Sienna. I didn’t really miss her, we were never that close, but I did hope she was okay and safe. Maybe it was because I had first learned about her being kidnapped and taken all the way across the country by a crazy stalker while in the checkout line when I first moved. There had been a little article on it in one of the trashy rags I liked to flip through while waiting for them to ring up my groceries.
The article had been vague about the details other than some guy who ran a porn studio, mostly filled with underage actors, stole Sienna to be his star. I didn’t know anything more than she had been rescued, and I was too stubborn to reach out to any of the old gang to ask.
I didn’t care that much. Did I?
So I’d gone about my new life in Miami, trying not to dwell on the past, Sienna, my old friends, my mom, and definitely not Asher. My life was basically the same as before—I worked Sunday through Wednesday, taking Thursday off before going back for the big money on Friday and Saturday. Quinn went to school, had made a few friends, and seemed happy.
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