by Nicky James
When I’d left him Friday, he wasn’t clear in the head. At some point, he’d obviously taken something to get high. That in itself concerned me even more.
Soren’s words echoed in my brain.
“Please don’t tell your brother.”
“Donny can’t know I told you anything.”
I washed a hand over my face and leaned back in my chair, clicking the pen, listening to it echo throughout the empty office.
I barely knew Soren, but in the few times we’d spent in each other’s company, my attraction and interest hadn’t waned in the slightest. Even when I’d learned what went on when those security doors closed behind him. Even when he’d gotten high and tried to force himself on me. In fact, after the previous weekend and having my eyes opened wider than I’d asked, a bone-deep concern for his safety kept me awake at night.
The terror in his eyes when I’d told him I was leaving without accepting his offer gave me chills.
What kind of club is this Donny guy running?
Not any more clear-headed, I tossed the pen down on an open folder beside me.
With a jiggle of the mouse, the screen lit up again. I squinted from the assault. I’d been sitting in the semi-dark for longer than I thought. Hitting save on my open document, I then closed everything down and checked the time in the bottom righthand corner. Eight-thirty.
It was Friday night, and I still hadn’t decided how to proceed. Time was running out.
I shut down my laptop and retrieved the discarded pen. Clicking it one last time, to retract the tip, I re-placed it in the pen holder—ink end down, like all the rest. I returned the few loose pages I’d been referencing to their folder and slid it into its designated section of the file drawer to my left.
With a final scan of the desk’s surface, I clicked off the lamp, collected my shoulder bag, and draped my light jacket over my arm. The weather had been up and down recently. The evenings were beginning to cool off, so I always came prepared.
I ordered take-out on my way home, since I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I normally didn’t like to indulge in quick meals for a few reasons. Mainly, I enjoyed cooking and had grown up learning all the skills I needed from my mother and secondly, I only had a short list of places I trusted who wouldn’t try and kill me with food poisoning.
At home, I portioned out what I wanted on a plate and refrigerated the leftovers, marking the date on the outside of the containers. I ate quietly at the dining room table while I mulled over my evening. When finished, I cleaned up my dishes and wiped down the table and counters.
After, I hopped in a quick shower—lathering and washing myself in the correct order—before shaving. I snatched a towel and wrapped it around my waist before stepping out and unlatching the shower head to rinse any stray hairs and suds down the drain. From the corner of the shower stall, I retrieved the bottle of Lysol disinfecting spray and gave the entire enclosure a quick spritz.
I dried thoroughly and hung my towel on its designated hook. Later, when it dried, I’d transfer it to the laundry basket. Using the same towel twice was on my extensive list of things I just didn’t do. After dressing in a clean-pressed pair of dark denims and a red polo shirt, I worked a nickel-sized blob of gel through my dark hair and styled it so it sat precisely how I liked.
Using tweezers, I cleaned up the stray hairs standing askew in my eyebrows, then found a nice bottle of cologne and gave myself a few spritzes.
The entire time I got ready to go out, Soren’s words from the previous weekend played on repeat.
“Should have come earlier.”
There had been no sarcasm or sass behind them. What I’d seen instead was far worse. There was desperation, a pleading look that radiated into my core and ached in my chest. He’d been doing as he was bid, but it wasn’t what he wanted.
Those haunted blue eyes had stayed with me all week, and although I didn’t know the long-term answer to my predicament, I knew I was not going to be too late again. That man wasn’t going to disappear behind those doors with anyone but me. I would grit my teeth and sit in a cesspool of germs if it meant keeping him out of the hands of the filth who’d stood beside him Saturday night.
Under the sink, I found a container of disinfecting wipes and pulled two sheets from within. I used them to clean up the counters and taps before tossing them in the garbage. I washed my hands and deemed myself ready to go.
I shut off the bathroom light and did a quick scan of the living room and kitchen to ensure everything was as it should be. My routine check included confirming the stove was off, the counters were free of clutter and not in need of a wipe down, the magazines were aligned under the coffee table into three distinctive piles, the coaster caddy and remotes were exactly as I liked them positioned—in a line but not touching—and the garbage in the kitchen wasn’t more than half-full. If it exceeded the halfway mark, I needed to empty it.
That night, the nagging voice inside my head made me check the stove twice and it annoyed me. Some days I thought Alessio was right; I was getting worse.
I couldn’t even remember a time when I could just walk out the door without a thousand what-ifs running through my brain. It was borderline debilitating.
Some days, I was more in control and could talk myself out of the unnecessary need to obsess over every tiny detail. But, when my brain was overwhelmed with other things—like Soren and the goings on at a certain nightclub—I automatically fell back on the rigidity of my compulsion.
It was nearing ten-thirty when I entered the nightclub. The music was loud and although the influx of bodies was thick, I knew it would only get worse as the hours ticked by. Reactively stiffening, making myself as small as I could, I moved around gathered groupings of people to the main bar.
The previous weekend, I’d connected with that Donny guy on Friday night and he’d ensured Soren was my server and I had everything I needed. As much as I hated to admit it, Donny’s excessive attention to my needs only made my suspicions about Alessio escalate.
I was a nobody to that Donny character, yet I seemed to have earned royal treatment.
Finding an opening at the bar, I caught the bartender’s eye and requested a whisky and Coke. My apprehension over the entire situation grew, and I wanted to placate it before it got the better of me. Beer wouldn’t cut it.
As I waited for my order, I scanned the room in search of a familiar blond head but didn’t see him. I tried not to let his absence bother me. The place was huge, he could easily have been on the second level.
Instead of Soren, I did find Donny. The instant my gaze zoned in on him where he spoke with a few men at a distant table, my spine stiffened.
Whoever he was, I didn’t like him. The visceral reactions Soren had when he spoke of Donny had my guard up.
Donny finished speaking to the other men just as the bartender delivered my drink. He squared his broad shoulders and scanned his bar. When he found me watching him, a smile spread to his lips. It wasn’t a friendly smile, more like one a person may give when they were about to conduct business with a potential client. I didn’t like it, but I returned it nonetheless.
He crossed toward me, stopping twice to acknowledge someone he knew before he came within earshot. He snapped a finger to the young man serving drinks and turned to me, leaning against the bar itself.
“Remy Moretti. And how are you this fine evening?”
I matched his hard stare and drank deeply from my glass. There was no where to put it down, so I held it and copied his lean, all too aware of keeping exposed flesh from coming in contact with questionable surfaces. “Been a long week. Thought a few drinks were in order. How are you?”
“Doing well.” Donny accepted his drink from the bartender. “Just keeping the boys in line, ensuring everything runs smoothly. You know how it is. It’s good to see you again. I take it your visit here last Friday was to your liking?” He lifted a dark eyebrow as he sipped his gin and tonic.
My skin bristled, but I pursed my
lips and held my tongue against a vicious retort. He’d just shone a blazing light onto my suspicions and if I’d thought for one minute Alessio was right and that maybe I’d misunderstood Soren, there was the affirmation I needed.
Through gritted teeth, I decided to play along, since the last thing I wanted was to make him suspicious. “Very much so. I was only disappointed Saturday didn’t work out quite as well.”
I held his even stare before he broke my gaze and nonchalantly turned to scan the busy floor.
“Unfortunate. Perhaps you will have better luck this evening.”
I studied him while he wasn’t looking. He knew I was Alessio’s brother. He knew Alessio was a cop, yet he didn’t seem concerned in the least that I knew what happened in back. When I didn’t think my opinion of Alessio could get any lower, it plummeted. Of course Donny didn’t care, he had Alessio in his pocket.
“Come,” he said, turning back. “I will set you up at your own table and find you a personal server. Any special requests this evening?”
I swallowed the bile lining my throat and smiled appreciatively. “I’m not a man who likes change.” It was as honest a statement as I could make and it didn’t raise questions. Donny directed me to a table in a similar area as before. It was close to the stage where two men were midway through their set.
“Soren is upstairs, but I’ll have him relocate.”
With a pat on the shoulder, which caused every muscle in my back and neck to tense, Donny walked into the crowd toward the open staircase at the other end of the room.
I sat awkwardly, examining the table and the wet rings left behind from beer bottles and glasses—ones that hadn’t been cleaned up from past customers—and decided to hold my drink instead. My nerves twitched and no matter how much I convinced myself to ignore that inner voice telling me how vile and disgusting everything was around me, I couldn’t.
As I waited, my gaze roamed from the groupings of men, drinking, talking, dancing and milling about, to the stage and the dancers moving their bodies in time with the loud beat of the music. They were good, but they weren’t nearly as entertaining to watch as Soren.
“So, Sierra Nevada isn’t good enough for you anymore?”
I jerked my head around to Soren who had snuck up unnoticed. He had taken a stance with a hand on a jutted-out hip and was swinging a wet cloth around in circles on the end of a finger.
A smile filled my face. “Just keeping you on your toes.”
He returned my smile briefly before, almost nervously, averting his gaze to the table. “Maybe you aren’t a cop, but a health inspector is still a possibility, so I brought you this.” He dropped the cloth on the surface and gave it a good scrub. The strong scent of bleach hit my nose and sent a pulse to my brain which instinctively helped my muscles to unclench slightly.
I really was getting worse.
Once the table was clean, Soren nodded to my glass. “Come on, you can do it. Put the glass down. Have faith in the bleach. Those big bad boogie-germs are dead now.”
My cheeks tightened as I fought off a chuckle. I maintained the most serious face I could muster and quirked a brow at his sass. “What, no coaster?”
Soren slapped his forehead. “The coaster! My God, how could I forget the coaster.”
When he laughed, I couldn’t contain my own and joined him. He shook his head and snagged the cloth from the table. “How the hell do you manage everyday life in the outside world, man. You are too much.” He nodded to the half-finished drink I still held. “What are you having tonight, I’ll bring you another.”
“Whisky and Coke.”
As he moved back toward the bar, I couldn’t help but watch. He wore silver shorts that only barely covered the round globes of his ass. The silver buckles on his black boots matched them perfectly. His hair was swept to the side as I’d always seen it, and his body glistened with a faint shimmer. When he’d stood close to me, the hint of berries or some other sweet fruity essence encircled him like a cloud. His eyes were bright that evening, not the ones that had haunted my nights the previous week and I was glad to see him appear happy.
When he returned a short time later, with a new drink and a coaster, he sat across from me and relaxed back looking grateful to get off his feet for a few minutes. He dissected me with his blue-eyed gaze and I let him. As he examined me, I watched him carefully as well, looking for any signs that his mental state was off as it had been the other night. He seemed clearheaded.
After a few minutes, he diverted his gaze to the surrounding crowd and spoke, almost as though he couldn’t voice what he had to say, as he looked me in the eyes.
“I didn’t think you’d come back.”
It wasn’t a question, but even so it was said in a way that seemed to demand an answer or explanation. And I didn’t know what to say, so I said the only thing I knew was truth.
“You’ve been on my mind all week.”
His gaze darted back, a hint of nerves showing for the first time before they flashed to the other end of the bar. The silence expanded until it was so taut between us my muscles ached.
“Do you dance tonight? I enjoy watching you.”
I berated myself the minute the words passed my lips for sounding like a disgusting creep, but before I could apologize, he turned back with a beaming smile. “Yup. I’m on last set. It’s the highlight of this job, really. I love dancing.”
The tone of his voice rose as he spoke, giving voice to his true nature and how intimately and passionately he enjoyed that aspect of his job. The weird feeling I’d had over my statement evaporated and instead I took it as an opening for conversation.
“You’re good at it, a natural. Have you always loved to dance?”
He laughed. “Yeah, for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, I’d dress up and dance in front of the mirror. Always wanted to take lessons, but my father wouldn’t hear of it. Boys don’t dance.”
For the next couple of hours, Soren spent as much time at my table as he could, while jumping up to help other servers if needed and ensuring I had a constant supply of drink in front of me. I nursed each one for as long as possible, afraid of it going to my head and causing me to say anything I’d regret.
When the time came for him to take the stage, I watched all that love and energy wash over him. His body was one with the music and every thrust of his hips or swaying movement of his arms or head matched the beat and drew me in further. I’d never been so enthralled by any man dancing on a stage before like I was Soren. He retracted into himself and his eyes closed as he connected with the music. It felt like glimpsing something personal I wasn’t supposed to see, but I enjoyed it immensely.
When his set finished, he made a stop at the bar and downed a glass of water the bartender held ready. There was a split second where he seemed to freeze as something caught his eye in the other direction. I followed his gaze and saw Donny. Soren’s shoulder’s stiffened ever so slightly. Within a second, he spun and returned to the table. His gait slowed and the apprehension that had been absent all evening was back with a vengeance.
I forced my anger toward Donny away and found a neutral expression so Soren wouldn’t see my hostility rage. I knew what had just transpired and the change in Soren told me exactly how he felt about it.
Once he returned, he didn’t sit. His smile was fake and his blue eyes had gone hard, dimming their sparkle. Because of the knowledge I already held, he didn’t bullshit me or try and play it off like it was a retreat for private drinks. His blunt response came as a surprise.
“This is the part where I’m supposed to ask you if you’d like to join me in back again. Except I already know your answer, so I guess that means we’ll be parting ways. Sammy at the bar will help you take care of the tab when you are ready, Donny is going to want me to—”
I rose in front of him, cutting him off. “Take me to the backroom, Soren.”
His remaining words ground to a jumbled halt as he looked up, face contorted in confusion. T
he confusion didn’t remain, it quickly morphed, unmasked, from surprise, to hurt, to defeat.
In the brief seconds he took to analyse my response, I watched the progress we’d made drain off him like rain water into a gutter. That wasn’t the place for explanations, and he’d just need to have a poor opinion of me for a short while longer.
“Oh,” he said. The single word was full of so much dejection it broke my heart.
He quickly pulled back his composure and went to take my hand before reconsidering. The man was already familiar enough with my quirks, he probably assumed I wouldn’t be able to handle touching him. He was wrong.
As was always the case, my issues seemed to come with limits, and Soren was one who broke through them and defied my every rule. Before he could walk away, I snagged his hand making him flinch.
It was warm and sweaty, small when encased in my own, and soft. He reverted to his look of confusion and only when I encouraged him to lead the way did he shuffle around and walk to where I knew was the secured doorway.
Once alone in the same room with the private bar as before, Soren became awkward. He refused to meet my eyes and busied himself making a strong drink behind the bar which he then promptly drank without pause. “Can I get you a drink?” he asked without looking up.
I crossed the room, a deep foreboding clenching around my stomach. “I only work here Fridays and Saturdays.” Was that the kind of shit that went on here every Friday and Saturday night?
“No, thank you.”
Soren passively nodded and poured himself another. He didn’t drink it, but set it on the bar before rounding back into the room. He didn’t stop in front of me, but scooted around.
“I just need to use the bathroom, I’ll be back.” With his head down, he flew toward the doorway we’d gone through the other night.
“Soren, stop.” In three strides, I crossed to him and turned him back to me with a gentle hand on his bare shoulder. I could guess what he’d planned. It was exactly how it had gone down last time, and I’d be dammed if I was going to be the reason he ran away to get high, because he thought I’d agreed to more when I went back there with him.
