“This is absolutely, colossally, one thousand percent fucking ridiculous. I don’t club, Mav. I’m not a dancey kind of girl.”
“Yet, you’re the reigning champ—”
“In the privacy of my own damn home!”
Her shoes thumped to the floor as though she kicked them off. “I have a kid. What would Violet and Amber think of this? Huh?”
Amber would probably think it was badass. Violet might be mortified, slightly. “I think it’d take more than this to ruin their respect of you. You’re a good role model.”
More mumbles of profanity sounded as she dressed. I stared at the cheap and dented wood panel of the door in front of me.
“And why me?” She wasn’t done. “It’s your fault my purse was stolen. If you hadn’t gone all sex-god on me and taunted me about being scared of jumping your bones, this wouldn’t have even happened!”
I grimaced. It was my fault. And here she was, fixing the mess. I’d make it up to her, somehow. There was no way I’d regret that kiss. Hell, I’d just wanted a kiss—I hadn’t fast-forwarded to considering a quickie on the sidewalk. And she was just as much at fault, really. She’d kissed back. She was the one who let go of the stupid bag… Quit being petty.
I scowled at myself. “Look, ignorance is bliss, right?”
She was quiet and then huffed. “Yeah, so? Okay, come zip me up.”
I turned to her and schooled myself not to groan or stagger. Shiny black coated her like a second skin, a layer I’d love to peel right the hell back off.
I cleared my throat. “You did stupid shit in college, right?”
She glowered at me, holding her dress up. I took over and gripped the zipper. “Who didn’t?”
“Well, this is no different. Some stupid little adventure that you wouldn’t tell your kid about anyway.” At least not until she was older.
I swallowed hard and held my breath as I tugged the metal up the links from the top of her ass to her shoulder blades. Holy hot damn almighty…
“No. There’s a big difference,” she said, almost breathy.
Was she getting nervous of having to go on a stage, or turned on by me touching her skin? I brushed the backs of my knuckles on her nape as I moved back.
She trembled but closed her eyes, like she fought the shudder. “Back in college, I had liquid courage to light the way for stupidity.”
On that note…
I hurried to the dressing table and picked up a bottle of unopened bourbon I’d spotted when I’d looked at her in the mirror.
I twisted the cap off and took a swig. Then I handed it to her. “Problem solved.”
Seven
Carly
Da-yum.
I’d never worn a tighter dress. Even the corset-like thing I’d been coerced into wearing for my wedding allowed me to breathe. Yet this fabric… I smoothed my hand down the sequined material. It moved with me. Kind of.
With an attempt to suck in a deeper breath, I tore my stare from my reflection in the mirror. That kind of curvy vixen in a sultry dress. Mav was almost out the door already so I hustled after him, following that tight ass in well-worn jeans.
I ignored the burns in my body. The flare of a blush that hadn’t receded since Mav stalked up to me, his dark eyes drinking me in. The scorching inferno of alcohol snaking down my throat from a couple of sips of the bourbon. And the slowly incinerating warmth of lust building in my core.
Would I ever forget the gentle tenderness in his touch? Would I ever be able to hear a zipper fasten without hot flashes and searing memories of Mav doing mine up?
In what alternate universe had we landed for him to even be touching me to begin with? I frowned at how much more he’d had his hands—and lips—on me before we’d come here. How much I forgot my self-imposed rules the further we were from Orlando and our routine lives.
We weren’t here for fun. I needed that ring back. We both did, this stupid uprising of lust be damned.
“How do we even know this is going to work?” I asked, logic finally coming back like a shy kid raising her hand to speak in class.
As we rushed out of the room, Mav said, “I’ll stand at Lula and Tito’s door and make sure he doesn’t run out.”
Nettie spotted me in the hallway and started shimmying then grinding to the air. “Cup-cake! You look ravishing.”
I tried to smile. Wasn’t as hard as I thought it’d be. That bourbon sure worked fast. I pulled off a little curtsy.
“Now, remember, Lula’s the only bitch who’s gonna be in the spotlight out there.” She took my elbow and linked her arm with mine, guiding me toward another hallway. “But if anyone were to ask me, you look hella hotter than that old broad.”
Howling with laughter at herself, she directed me further toward the stage area, the music droning harder and louder the closer we came to the frenzy of hassled performers and makeup assistants.
I glanced back at Mav as he was hidden around the people between us.
“Oh, don’t worry. Your fine-looking arm candy will be all right waiting back there. You just follow these other ladies here”—she dragged me into a line of dancers waiting to enter the stage—“smile, and shake that tushy to the beat.” She smacked my ass hard enough to propel me into the back of dancer ahead of me in line.
Applause faded for the number just ending, and nerves started to creep back in.
Bourbon. Oh, alcohol? Reinforcements, please!
I wasn’t petrified of speaking or performing in public. But on the spot like this? In a flapper dress and only a teeny bit of booze in my belly?
Too fast.
Too sober.
Too…just how the hell did I get here? From Richard’s office kitchen to waiting for a cue at a drag dance show?
That asshole of a cupcake! It all circled back to that damn dessert and that damn ring—
“Break a leg!” a dancer in a bright-pink fifties dress hollered as others exited the stage, sweaty-faced and panting for air.
My heart racing, I swallowed hard, fell into step with the others around me, and just went with it.
Blinding bright lights almost had me stumbling on the stage—or maybe it’s these shoes—but I smiled and used my misstep as something that could have been a move. Music came on so loud I couldn’t even think anymore. Beats vibrated through the floor and as I glanced at the other backups, I got the gist of it.
Okay.
And I danced as though Mav was out there in the audience instead of hidden backstage.
I should have taken another shot of the bourbon.
It was over before I had a chance to get into it, which was perfectly fine. One, I had no business being a second-string dancer for a drag queen I’d only met a handful of minutes ago. And, two, I was only doing this to get my purse back. It was too stupid to even be ironic.
That’s what you get for kissing him. For letting him get under your skin.
Mav and his goddamn sexy, sinful smirks that promised so much more was due to come. Chemistry? He thought we were supposed to give in and crash together, naked in a bed?
Got news for you, Mav. I flunked Chem. Both in school and in the relationship course of life.
As I “shook my tushy” and pranced off the stage, I traded my smile for a blank face of don’t fuck with me. Violet called it my do you really think that’s wise? expression. I didn’t name it. It was simply the way my face fell into place when I was surrounded with BS.
Halfway down the steps to the slim hallway where the performers were getting ready for the next number of the show, I stopped abruptly, pissing off the person right on my tail, and removed the borrowed shoes. They were way too big, like waddling in clunky clogs. Then I hustled to find Mav.
He was so tall and big that it wasn’t hard to locate him past others between us. Just like he’d promised, he was standing sentinel at the door Tito had run away to and hid in.
As soon as he caught sight of me, his shoulders slacked a little and his lips parted as he exhaled har
d and long. “How did it go?”
I did jazz hands as I came near. “Fabulously.”
He peered past me and frowned. “Lula’s not here yet, so I guess we wait a sec for her to show up and let Tito out.”
I propped my shoulder against the cinderblock wall and giggled. Jesus, was I tired or what? “You make it sound like she’s letting a dog out to pee.”
Although his lips turned into the start of a smile, he furrowed his brow. “Are you drunk?”
“After two sips?” I rolled my eyes.
“Sips? A sip isn’t supposed to take more than a second or two.”
“I’m not drunk, dammit.”
Still, he frowned at me.
I flipped him off when he didn’t comment further. Let’s see you dole out an impromptu roaring twenties backup on the whim and be a cool cucumber afterward.
“Gee, I should have known. You’re a mean drunk.”
First of all, I wasn’t drunk, or a drunk of any kind. Too much sugar in wine made it one of the last things to go from my former diet. Since moving to Florida, I rarely drank. You won’t catch me in a lie and hear me say I didn’t miss it, but it was one of the many things I’d chucked into the quitting cold turkey file.
“I’m fine.”
Not according to him, as he said, “You’re not a large woman, Carly…”
“Now that’s such a sweet compliment.”
He grunted. “It wouldn’t take much for you to get drunk and—”
“Who made you my dad?”
A deep laugh barked behind us. “I’d sure let him be my daddy for the night.” Lula winked at Mav as she strode toward the closed dressing room door, Nettie at her side. “He’s a sexy sonofabitch.”
“He’s right here.” Mav jabbed a finger at his chest. “Don’t talk over me.”
“Oooh.” Nettie pouted kissy lips at him. “Got a temper too. You sure got your hands full with this one, cupcake.”
“Thanks for filling in,” Lula said to me. “And now your end of the deal.” She pulled a key out from several on a spirally plastic bracelet on her wrist and went to the door. “Tito!” After she unlocked the door and whipped it open, she yelled. “Get your skinny, scrawny ass out here now!”
As soon as the doorway was clear, the thief shot out and ran down the hall. Mav chased the lanky redhead and caught him before he’d even had a chance to get ten feet away.
“Let me go!” he yelled while Mav held the back of his shirt so tight that his muscle-less chest was nearly visible through the fabric.
“Give me my purse,” I said, marching up to him. It was right there, my turquoise bag flagging from his hand.
“Kiss my ass, you ugly whor—”
I punched him.
Had to have gotten his cheek pretty good because that was a damned hard bone that stopped my knuckles. For as wimpy as he appeared to be, his face was still freaking solid.
“Ow…” I winced but wasted no time snatching my purse back. I cradled my bag and rooted around in the side pocket. Yep. The ring was there. Thank—
“Fuck!” Tito yelled and clutched his face while Mav still held him.
The crowd cleared out around us as though they feared getting hit, and I whimpered silently—I hoped—and rubbed my wounded hand.
“Lula!” Tito cried, “She hit me!”
“That’s what you get for calling her a whore,” Nettie scolded.
Just for name-calling? Stealing is okay?
“Carly!”
I raised my brows at Mav’s yell. His mouth remained open and his eyes nearly bugged out. “You punched him!”
“No. Really?” I strapped my purse over my shoulder.
Mav released the guy and stepped between us. “Why?”
Tito began wailing and rocking back and forth, bemoaning his eyeball being pulverized to mashed goo and anticipating having to get a pirate patch from the life-altering assault. Fool was awfully poetic about his pain.
He was a pickpocket on the streets of New York, yet this much of a baby about being punched by a petite, small-handed woman? I shook my head at Tito’s hysterics.
I narrowed my eyes at Mav, who still gaped at me. “Why? He stole my damn bag!” People murmured around us and someone called out for security.
Mav grunted and mouthed something to himself, words I’d probably punch him for saying out loud.
“We don’t have any witnesses of him doing that.” His arms swept out as he gestured to the packed hallway of performers and crew. “But we’ve got plenty of you hitting him!”
True, but still… “Oh, come on. My word against his.”
He glared at me and took my arm.
I wrenched free from him. “I don’t need to be led around.”
“If we don’t get out of here now, someone can accuse you of assault. While intoxicated.”
“I’m. Not. Drunk.” Buzzed maybe, a little, but not wasted. His high-handedness was sure waking me up to an angry sobriety though.
He tried to take my arm again and set his lips in a tight line while his nostrils flared. “But you have drunk an alcoholic beverage tonight.”
“Look at you all proper and grammatically correct. Is Count Grayson rubbing off on you?”
“—punched me!”
We both turned in unison to the end of Tito’s newest anguished holler. He’d told the security officer—no, no, that was a cop’s uniform…
“What’s going on?” The officer stepped toward us. “You harassing him?”
“He stole my purse!” I insisted.
The African American officer deadpanned at me. “Of course. He stole your purse that is in your hands.”
“No, no, before—”
“Have you been drinking?” the cop asked Mav, who pushed me behind him.
He held his hand out, as though calming down the situation. “Not much—”
“She punched me!” Tito yelled again, cowering against the wall and openly showing us his already swelling skin, his eye nearly shut.
Well, dang, woman. I’d really gotten him.
A security officer spoke to another performer further down the hall, and he pointed at Mav.
The cop smirked. “She punched you?” He snorted and gestured at me.
And what the hell does that mean? I set my uninjured hand to my hip.
Tito stopped bitching for a second and set his glare on Mav. Pointed at him. “Uh, he punched me.”
That little liar—
“Come with me,” the officer said as he reached for Mav.
He stepped back, almost onto my foot. “Officer, I haven’t—”
“I said come with me.” The cop glowered at him and then groused, “I come here as backup for a sex op sting and now I’m playing fucking bouncer. I said come on.” He reached again for Mav, who let the officer prod him away from me. He jerked away from the cop’s reach though.
“You wanna add resisting arrest too?”
I finally found my voice, no easy feat with my heart thundering to escape in my throat. “A— Arrest! Just like that?” The cop and security guard hadn’t even seen what happened. If they had, I’d be the one getting hauled away.
“Go back to the hotel, Carly,” Mav yelled as he was dragged down the hallway.
“But he didn’t— I punched—”
“Carly!” Mav warned again.
As Mav was taken one direction down the hallway, more people and security officers stormed in from the other.
I was still so stunned at the rapid turn of events that I couldn’t compute what was going on. I got my purse and Richard’s ring back. Tito’s apparently a big, lying baby. Mav was arrested for…assault? That he didn’t even do? And what kind of an op?
Orders were yelled all around me in the bowels of the dressing room area. Security men seeking out dancers. Cops crawling through the space for suspects related, apparently, to some sex trade sting. Makeup artists fought with each other, one demanding to know who took her eight-gauge eyeliner from the table.
Good God. I needed to get out of there, but my clothes were in the room across the way—
“Come on, cupcake. We should ditch this place.”
Nettie. She’d stalked over to me like a giant through the clamor of law enforcement—both the real guys and the wannabes the theater must employ. I followed her lead as she took us through a confusing maze of sharp corners and more hallways until we came out at a fire escape.
Cool night air chilled me in the alley we’d stepped out to, but the cold helped clear my confusion.
“What…”
“They do that sometimes,” Nettie said as she smoothed her palm down her hair. “Sex trade folks come to the show, thinking, hey, here’s a bunch of dudes dressing like women and dancing. Maybe they’ll wanna be shipped to Timbuktu as a kink slave.”
She’d said it as though implying the nerve!
“Wait up, dollface,” another burly voice said as a pair of performers exited the rear door of the club. Afros and bell-bottoms on these two. Up to the seventies already? Must be some sort of drag-through-the-decades special. In other circumstances, I bet they put on a hell of a program.
“I doubt we’ll even get to do our number now.” The disco dancer crossed her arms and slouched. “Lula’s trying to talk the owner out of closing for the night. Them po-pos are s-warming in there.”
And one had Mav. He’d been wrongly arrested on my account. Which was an account he’d gotten me into in the first place. Or, no… It was my fault too. No one told me I had to kiss him. Nothing forced me to get so damn ga-ga that I’d loosen my hold on my purse and let the entire world fade as we slipped into a kiss bubble—
Enough.
“I gotta go find him.”
Nettie extracted a vape device from a purse she must have grabbed before rescuing me. “Nah. He’s a big boy. He’ll be okay. They prolly wouldn’t let him out tonight anyway.” With a heaving chest rise, she sucked in her hit. On the exhale, gray mist curled around her as she said, “Just pick him up in the morning.”
Next To Me Page 6