“It’s not our fault you’re still a baby Jude,” Jax laughs while reaching down ruffling his hair.
At that moment, another guy walks into the room. He pulls his cell phone away from his ear and ends a call and looks around the room. He must have heard the conversation because he says, “Don’t worry about it Jude, I’m not taking off. No way I’m going to have any part in that. If my sister found out I agreed to go along with her fiancé to a strip club the night before his wedding she’d chop my dick off. I think I’ll sit this one out.”
Everyone laughs along with his conclusion and Rhett’s got to admit Erin can be a little scary at times. She’s intense and focused. He’d definitely not want to be on the receiving end of her fiery anger that’s for sure.
Jax claps his hands and gets everyone’s focus again. “Well c’mon then. Let’s get going. We’re losing daylight.”
Chapter Seven
Maria
The thin piece of fabric draped over her mirror flutters as the air kicks on and floats down from the ceiling vent. Maria got tired of constantly looking at her own reflection when she was applying her makeup, so one day she threw an old scarf over it. The only time she takes it down or moves it is when she’s fixing her hair or makeup. But then it goes right back up again. By most people’s standards, she knows she’s considered pretty. With her Puerto Rican background, she’s never had to step foot in a tanning salon to fake and bake or get a spray tan. Her long dark hair and even darker eyes help mask what she’s really feeling inside.
If there’s one thing she’s gotten good at over the years, it’s been hiding her true emotions. It definitely helps that she’s able to shut herself down completely the minute her fingers touch the pole. Because if she couldn’t, it would slowly eat away at her soul until the person she saw in the mirror was a complete stranger. As it is, she can barely look at herself. Hence the scarf.
For now, it’s a means to an end. Which is the only reason why she continues to come back day after day. From the moment she understood the horrors of a shitty life, she vowed to be as far away from this as she could. She promised to break the cycle and not be like her mother. Yet here she stands as she coats on another thick layer of mascara. Wiping away at her bare lips, she removes any stray foundation before applying her lipstick. If there’s one thing she can guarantee before stepping foot onto that stage is the flawlessness of her makeup and it’s staying power. She applies her pouty pink lipstick, the color rightfully named bombshell, because it makes her feel more like she’s somebody famous and she can pretend even for five minutes that she’s playing a role. She just an actress.
With another layer of glitter gloss, she quickly does a once over of her appearance. The sultry virginal look always gets the tips flowing onto the stage when she’s up there. Over the years, she’s perfected it and she doesn’t even have to try anymore. She just has to remind herself that for the five minutes she’s on that stage, she’s a star. Everyone is here to see her, she is the main attraction after all. The stage lights make it impossible to see the audience and she’s able to tuck everything to the back of her mind. Pretend that she’s not removing articles of clothing and her dignity right along with each piece that falls to the floor.
She slides on more coconut oil to her already moisturized skin. The lights hit just right to make it appear as if she’s glowing on that stage. Maria is a perfectionist and she needs to look good every time she steps foot up there. Each night she works, she’s that much closer to freedom and that’s what she has to keep telling herself. It’s a means to an end. Nothing more.
Her hair is perfectly teased, her liner completely smudge-proof, and her skin glows effortlessly. But she can’t help the sadness shining through her eyes. It hurt like hell to walk away from Rhett today. She would have given him her phone number in a heartbeat, but then what? Maybe he’d call her and they’d hook up while he’s in town but then nothing. He would fly back home to Texas and take her heart right along with him. Because there’s no way he would actually ask her to go home with him. And it’s not like she could do that anyway. Leave behind her responsibilities and run away from it all with a night in shining armor. Or in Rhett’s case, cowboy hat.
It’s too much to think that she’d actually have the perfect prince walk into her life and take her away from it all. That kind of thing is a fantasy and only happens on TV land or in romance novels. No, real life is ugly and heartbreaking. She watches as one tear slides out of her eye and down her cheek. And she lets it fall. Drip away with all of the what-ifs of her miserable life. But she forces it to stop there. One guy, one tear, and nothing more. She can’t let her feel anything else. Because if she lets the dam break wide open, she doesn’t want to know what would be left behind. Just a shell of the girl she once was.
Because the moment she walks out that door, she becomes her onstage persona. And she refuses to let that molded exterior crack. It might seem silly but the competition to be the top girl here is fierce and these girls would do anything to get to the top. So, to them, she’s as cold as ice and that’s how it will always be. She’s only ever let one person see the real her. And she refuses to contemplate why of all people, she released the real her, today with a stranger. It could mean something but she won’t go there. It’s already in the past and she needs to move forward with the present and her future. And the only way that can happen is by getting back up on that stage.
She takes a small deep breath like she does every night before going out on the stage and then she shuts everything off. If she were to go out there feeling everything, there’s no way she could continue doing it every single night. Instead, she forces herself to feel nothing and go through her routine like it’s nothing more than that. Just a dance. Just a routine. Because that’s the only way she could keep going on day in and out.
The song ends with the previous girls' performance alerting her that she’s up next. Maria has been doing this for two years now but something about the idea of stepping foot on stage always gets her heart racing right before she’s about to go on. It’s exciting and yet it’s not at the same time. She loves the idea of being on stage with all eyes on her, just minus the whole taking her clothes off part. If it were a burlesque show, that would be something different entirely. She went to one of those one night and was completely mesmerized. There’s a huge difference between what those women do and what she does. And all she wants is to be more like them and less like herself. But she can’t. There’s a debt to be paid. (or something)
She’s done this a million times before and tonight isn’t anything different. She closes her eyes as the lights go out and Sasha walks by. She doesn’t actually know her real name, like the rest of the girls. That’s part of her persona of staying in character. She doesn’t know them and they don’t know her outside of the walls of this building. And that’s the way she likes to keep it.
She takes another deep breath and walks through the curtain.
Here goes nothing.
She swipes her hand across her brow attempting to remove the excessive pool of sweat that has collected. The lights are bright tonight. Brighter than they ever have been and she can’t see anything or anyone in front of her. But after the day she had? Maybe it’s just putting everything into perspective and she’s finally noticing her surroundings. A familiar song turns on and she can’t stop the motions of her body as it falls into her routine. She’s the only one out of all the girls who doesn’t dance to a traditional song. There’s a lot of old-school rock and hip-hop songs, but Maria had to stick to her roots with her favorite genre: pop-punk. It helps her to get lost in the music and forget everything around her.
It’s a little unnerving, not being able to see who is watching her, but Maria continues on with her dance and tries to stay in the moment. She still has a job to do after all and her tips are the only money she gets to keep for herself. But if she lets herself think along that train of thought she’ll just make herself go crazy. Nope, not going to happen.
“Maria?”
Her eyes pop open and she almost loses her mask. She slightly shakes her head but forces herself to work the head movement into the routine, because she cannot mess this up. She takes a small deep breath but continues on flawlessly. As if that small little hiccup didn’t even happen. Fortunately, Charles isn’t here tonight or else that would have made things even worse. As her song comes to a close she bows her head and starts to gather up everything she just took off and the pile of tips.
What is he doing here? And what the hell is she supposed to say to him now?
Chapter Eight
Rhett
Rhett has never been the kind of guy to casually step foot into a strip club. The whole idea behind them has never held an interest in him and he would have been fine with keeping it that way. But he’s also not going to be the only guy to not take part in the bachelor party. What do guys even get out of seeing random girls they don’t even know take their clothes off? Especially sitting in the same room with fifty other guys. How is that any different from watching porn in a room full of people? Is that really a turn on for them? Not like that has ever held his interest either. The only thing that has ever turned him on is being with a woman. Privately and without an audience.
But since this is Jax’s bachelor party, he’s along for the ride. It’s pretty cliché that they’re even here right now, but he’s not going to ruin the night for the other guys. They’re just blowing off some steam and having a little fun. They’ve all been running around the country on tour and I’m sure they haven’t had much time to do much else this summer. So, he’ll let them have their night. Instead, he’ll just sit back and wait for the guys to get bored so they can move onto whatever is next on the list of things to do. It’s not like you can spend all night in a strip club, right?
The room is dark except for the main stage that is completely lit up. There are women walking around in lingerie delivering drinks to tables and fighting off wandering hands from every man they pass. Most of them giggle and sidestep out of their reach, but some of them aren’t so good at hiding their distaste. It makes Rhett wonder why some of these women are even here. If they don’t want to be, is this truly their only option?
The entire room goes dark and a man's voice comes over an intercom system or whatever it is that they use. “Alright boys, it’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for. The angel that was sent from heaven to rescue us all. Get your money out and get yourself to the main stage for Angel.”
Everyone around them starts hooting and hollering. Rhett can’t help but feel bad for the girl. All of these guys are just here to watch her take her clothes off and obviously the club plays into that as much as they can. As his eyes look from one guy to the next, it becomes blatantly clear why women refer to men as dogs. They all might as well have their tongues hanging out of their mouth from all the panting and drooling they’re doing. Honestly, the whole thing makes him sick and he doesn’t want to spend one more minute of his time here.
He stands up from where they’re sitting and leans down to Jax, “Hey buddy, I think I’m going to leave. I know you’re all having fun and I don’t want to ruin that. So, I’m just going to head back the hotel.”
“What? Seriously? But we just got here and we haven’t even touched the pitcher of beer yet.”
He starts to shake his head but the music turns on and his focus automatically goes to the stage. The song is completely out of place and it makes him wonder if the girls get to choose their own music. It’s not something he would ever listen to, but it makes him curious about the girl behind the song either way. What he’s not prepared for is the little spitfire that walks out onto that stage like she owns it. Her chest rises and falls with each breath she takes and then she owns that stage. Every single eye in the room is on her and he can’t control the feeling of wanting to rip every single man’s eyes out including his friends.
“Maria?” He asks out loud and her eyes lock onto his own.
She shakes her head and continues into her routine as if what is happening right now isn’t even happening. Why didn’t she tell him that this is what she does? He slinks down to the chair he just got up from but he refuses to look up at the stage. He feels completely defeated and he doesn’t know why but it feels even more invasive to see her like this. The woman up on that stage is someone named Angel, that’s not the Maria he met on the plane and he doesn’t want to know this other side of her. No, that would just ruin the image that was left in his mind at the airport when they parted ways.
The guys around them cheer and he sees money thrown onto the stage through his periphery. They did say she’s the main attraction, so he’s not the least bit surprised but it doesn’t change the fact that this whole situation still feels weird to him.
“Dude what are you doing? You’re missing it.”
He shakes his head but refuses to answer Jax’s question. He doesn’t even know how to explain that he spent an entire plane ride with the woman up on stage. That and she shut him down when he wanted something more from her. Not that she even gave him the chance to ask if she wanted more.
He clenches his fists down at his sides and refuses to let his anger get the most of him. His immediate instincts are to jump up onto that stage and drag her ass right out the door, but what right does he have to do that? They barely know each other and he has zero claims to her. But fuck if he isn’t pissed off at seeing her up there with all of these men around him leering at her.
The small puddle of condensation gathering underneath his untouched mug of beer continues to grow with each drop sliding down the glass. He zones in on the mess on the table and attempts to drown out the noise around him. The room erupts in noise as the boys show their approval for whatever she’s doing on stage. Boys because in his mind men shouldn’t feel the need to pay to watch a woman take her clothes off. He brings his hands up and tightly grips the table as his knuckles turn white. His jaw clenches and it’s taking all of his power to sit there and do nothing. His nostrils flare and his breathing comes out heavier as another round of enjoyment goes up around him.
As the lights go down, he doesn’t even wait. He jumps up from his seat and ignores the guys at the table and heads straight for the door on the left side of the stage. He doesn’t even care if backstage is off limits. He’s seeing red and the only thing that will help clear his head is getting back to where Maria is at and finding out what the fuck she is doing in a place like this. If he has to drag her back to Texas with him to prevent her from stepping foot on that stage or one like it ever again, that’s precisely what he’ll do.
Chapter Nine
Maria
As the lights go down, Maria quickly gathers up the singles, and her clothing. The last thing she wants is to be on this stage any longer and something about darkness always brings her emotions out. Like it suddenly becomes real and reminds her exactly what she was just doing on that stage, especially now that her stomach is doing somersaults after seeing Rhett. She keeps herself in check long enough to flee from the stage and lock herself in the dressing room. Her clothes and money tumble from her hands onto the vanity in front of her and she crumbles to the floor. She can’t stay back here all night, she knows that. But for now, she needs to take a breather and pull herself together.
Her hands shake as she tries to pull herself together but she can’t seem to calm her racing heart. Never in a million years did she think he would be able to find her. The whole thing is a little too reminiscent of Casablanca although Rhett walking into a strip club in Las Vegas is less romantic than Ilsa walking into Rick’s Café. Thinking about one of her favorite movies helps calm her down slightly but she still can’t ignore the intensity of her feelings when she saw him out in the audience. She felt the same strong pull to him that she felt earlier today. Now that he’s here it’s a lot harder to push those feelings away.
Maria forces herself up from the floor and pulls the scarf down from the mirror in front of her. She barely reco
gnizes her own reflection. The woman staring back at her has a face caked with makeup, but underneath that is insecurity and regret. And that has never been who she is. Even from a young age, Maria was always the most confident girl in her class and never had issues being in her own skin. Now? She can’t say those things about herself at all. She’s becoming this person who she doesn’t like and the further she gets away from the real her, she wonders if she’ll ever be able to make it back again.
The door squeaks open behind her and her entire back stiffens. There is any number of people who could be walking through that door right now, but her gut tells her exactly who’s walking toward her at this moment in time. She throws her scarf back over her mirror just in time to watch as he makes his way back to her corner of the room. She knew there was a possibility he would try to come back here but she didn’t really think about whether or not that would actually happen. They’re pretty strict about now allowing anyone besides club employees into the dressing room or backstage but he snuck by somehow.
He pauses just as he reaches the entrance to the room and clears his throat behind her. She knows he’s there. He knows she knows it too and yet he’s allowing her to make the decision right now. If she ignores him he’ll probably walk away and back out of her life. For good this time. But if she turns around and walks toward him…there are too many endless possibilities of how her life could change by not turning him away a second time. She knew it was a mistake this afternoon and she’s not willing to make the same mistake twice.
Rescuing Maria Page 4
