At four in the afternoon, I finally got the message I’d been waiting for from Sarah.
Sry. Busy day today, just got your message now. What’re you up to tonight?
I sent her one back.
Hoping I can see you so I can make up for being a jerk last time.
Her response came quickly.
If that’s your version of being a jerk, you’re an incredibly sweet, attentive one. Want me to drop a key off?
I flipped one back to her.
Please.
A little later Sarah dropped off a key while I was working on a back piece and headed out for dinner with Lisa. It was good to see them spending time together again. I spent the next few hours shading the Celtic design I’d outlined earlier this month, content in the knowledge that I would get to spend the night with my girl, hopefully with no interruptions.
“You coming to Hayden’s tonight?” Jamie asked as we were closing up. He’d been working in a private room when she’d been by earlier. Sarah was still with Lisa, and apparently Tenley, based on her recent text, so I’d have time to get in a shower before she got home.
“I’m heading to Sarah’s.”
“I thought the girls were getting up to no good.”
“They’re doing dinner. Then she’s all mine.”
“Things okay with you two?” he asked, trying to be all casual and shit, but he wasn’t very successful.
I shrugged. “They are what they are.”
I could feel him watching me, maybe waiting for more, but I kept clicking away on the computer, checking the schedule for the coming week. We were booked solid as usual, with no cancellations and a waiting list a mile long.
“Lisa got a call from Candy this afternoon.”
“Candy called Lisa? Why?”
“I asked the same thing. I have to assume it’s because she thinks it’ll get back to you.”
“Probably. Fucking Candy. It’d be nice if she didn’t keep dragging Lisa into unnecessary drama, or using her to create more.”
“Agreed. It’ll be good when Sarah’s out of that place and Lisa doesn’t have any more ties.”
I could fully appreciate that. I knew it had to be hard for Jamie when crap like this came up, because it meant old memories surfacing, and none of them were good. “So what’s the gossip Candy’s dishing now?”
“Apparently she’s quitting The Sanctuary.”
“Yeah, right. What problem did she make for herself now?”
I’d believe that when I saw it. Candy had walked away from The Dollhouse once, after I broke it off with her. I figured it was her attempt at getting out of that business for good. She’d talked about going to beauty school, since she was good with makeup and hair, but the money couldn’t compare to what she made stripping, so she’d kept finding reasons to put it off.
Once that shithole closed down, she moved on to The Sanctuary. She was a pretty enough girl, but the drugs had always been an issue for her, and they were aging her quickly. I didn’t want to think about what her life would be like five years from now, when the stage wasn’t an option anymore.
“Lisa said there was an incident with one of the girls.”
Jamie pulled me out of my trip down memory lane.
“What kind of incident?”
“I don’t have all the details. Something happened with Destiny, and it doesn’t sound good, but that’s all I got.”
“The Destiny?” I nodded toward the storage room where Hayden was running an inventory check. He did it every night.
“That’s the one.”
“Shit. I wonder what went down.”
Destiny had worked at The Dollhouse too. She’d started as a shooter girl and worked her way to waitress. She’d been sweet, if not a little naïve. Hayden had taken a liking to her one night a few years back, thanks to a shitload of beer. He’d managed to get an invite back to her place, where he’d fucked her six ways to Sunday before going home in a cab. She’d thought there was more to it until she realized pretty much every chick in the club had been on that ride.
Hayden had been a legend, kind of like the horsemen of the apocalypse, but his weapon of choice had been his dick and his punishment a stellar array of orgasms, never to be forgotten.
That had changed when Tenley came along. Now she was the sole recipient of his orgasms. She didn’t seem to mind, though—about his past or the excessive orgasms—which was good for Hayden.
“Lisa was hoping to get more information from Sarah, but I thought maybe you’d already know.”
“I haven’t talked to Sarah since she stayed at my place night before last. Maybe it’s recent?” Like last night recent.
Jamie drummed the counter, leaving fingerprints on the glass surface. “Could be.”
“It could also be Candy blowing things out of proportion like she loves to do.”
“Lisa said she sounded pretty upset, but it’s possible.” He frowned. “I figured this would be something Sarah might tell you. I mean, you two are well beyond the fuck-buddy stage, right?”
I motioned between us. “If we’re getting ready to braid each other’s hair and sing “Kumbayah,” I’m out.”
Jamie and Hayden had been on me for a while about what was going on with Sarah, but it was difficult to answer when even I didn’t know.
“What’re we talking about?” Hayden asked.
I hadn’t heard him come out of the back room.
“Chris being a pussy.”
“Oh yeah?” Hayden was only half paying attention; his focus was on his phone. His brows came down low, and then his eyes popped wide. “What the—” He hit a couple of buttons and put his phone to his ear. “You want to tell me what’s going on over there, kitten?”
There was silence on his end for a few seconds, during which his eyebrows climbed his forehead.
“What time are you planning on coming home?... That’s not soon enough... No fucking way. I’ll drive over there and get you if I have to. I don’t care. It’s warm out; the hood of my car needs waxing.”
He looked over at us, maybe realizing he wasn’t alone. His grin was ridiculous.
“You bet your sweet ass, kitten. Just wait until you get home to see how serious I am.”
He hung up.
Jamie and I stared at him, waiting.
“Early birthday presents. Man, I always used to hate my birthday. But now I’m thinking it’s not so bad.” Hayden shoved his phone in his back pocket. “I’m not a hundred percent on what’s going on, but I think I’m going to like it based on the picture Tenley sent me.”
“Really? We couldn’t tell by the tent in your pants,” I said.
Hayden looked down.
He’d been bitchy the last couple of days, moaning about how Tenley had been out late a lot. Tee was Hayden’s security blanket. If she wasn’t around enough, he got cranky.
He flipped me the bird. “You coming out tonight?”
“I’m gonna have to pass. I’m spending the night at Sarah’s.”
“That’s good. About time you two figured your shit out.”
“Yup.” I didn’t disagree, even though it seemed like we were a long way from that. I considered what Jamie had said about Destiny, and wondered if Sarah and I were going to talk about it. Dee was one of the few girls Sarah actually had nice things to say about. She’d been the one to get her in at The Sanctuary.
Now I was worried there were things Sarah wasn’t telling me, and not just because of our crazy schedules. I needed to find a way around the walls we’d put up. And after all my resisting, I’d probably have to take some of mine down first. If there was something going on at The Sanctuary, I’d find out about it tonight.
* * *
I was drying off after my shower when I heard Sarah call my name from her living room. I hadn’t thought to bring extra clothes, but I was sure I had something clean in her closet.
I came out with a towel wrapped around my hips.
“How perfect is my timing?” Sarah hung h
er purse on the hook inside the door, almost missing, since her eyes were on my towel and not what she was doing.
I tucked it in tighter to keep it in place. “You have a good time with the girls?”
“It was fun. Tenley’s album is almost done.”
“Whatever pics she sent Hayden tonight pretty much pushed him over the edge.”
Sarah grinned. “Can’t say I’m surprised about that.”
I turned in the direction of her bedroom and my clothes, hoping I could get something on before she tried to take the towel off. With the way she was looking at me, it seemed like this was her turn not to be interested in talking, unless it included a lot of moaning on her part, interspersed with questions from me about how various things were feeling. I had to change her mind if we weren’t going to chase each other in circles forever.
I saw the irony in that, too. Just the other night I’d shut her out and used sex as a distraction from the things I didn’t want to deal with. And maybe that was the real problem—here we were, after all this time, still keeping the important shit tucked away in our respective dark places. Worse yet, she’d given me the opportunity, and I’d refused to take it. I was my own biggest problem.
Sarah grabbed the back of the towel. “Hey, where are you going?”
I held onto the ends to keep from losing it. “I thought I’d put on some clothes.”
She wrapped her arms around my waist and rested her cheek against my back. “Why would you want to do that?”
I closed my eyes, trying not to get caught up in the sudden affection. My frustration over the situation I’d created grated on me. I’d made it this way between us, especially recently, but now I was tired of keeping up all the walls. Yet I had no idea what to do to bring them down.
“I haven’t talked to you since the other night. I figured maybe we could do some of that, unless you’re looking to get down to fucking.” I didn’t mean to add that last part, especially with the bite it carried.
The hand moving down my stomach stilled. “Chris?” She ducked under my arm and came around in front of me. “Is everything okay? Did something happen with Ivy?”
I hadn’t heard from Ivy today, but for ten years I hadn’t heard from her at all, so it wasn’t like daily contact was expected.
“She’s fine, as far as I know.”
“What’s wrong, then?” She ran a hand up my chest, her warm palm coming to rest against the side of my neck.
“How was work last night?”
Her gaze shifted down. “It was okay.”
“Yeah? Business as usual?”
She traced the edge of the tattoo on my biceps. “It was the same for me as it is every night.”
I raised a brow. She was walking right into it.
“What about Destiny? How was her night?”
She froze, eyes widening in something that resembled fear. “What? I don’t—how—”
“Lisa talks to Jamie.”
Sarah’s defenses went up. “Well, you all work together, so that makes it a lot easier, doesn’t it? What did you want me to do, interrupt your tattoo session so I could tell you about stupid work drama? Like you don’t already have enough to deal with. You don’t need mine, too.”
“But you talked to Lisa about it today? And Tee?”
“Well, yeah, because I saw them.”
“So you can talk to them, but coming to me isn’t on the top of your list? Why didn’t you message me last night? Or this morning?” I didn’t need to be such an asshole, but my frustration had nowhere to go.
“What would’ve been the point? I’m seeing you now, and last night you still hadn’t answered my message from the morning. I don’t get why you’re being like... like—” She flailed, gesturing at my face, which I was sure showed my frustration. “This!”
“Because you’re keeping shit from me.”
“I’m keeping shit from you? Jesus, Chris, you win the gold medal for hypocrite right now. Weren’t you the one who decided fucking me was a better option than talking about what happened with Ivy on Sunday?”
“I didn’t think my family crap was stuff you should have to know about.” She was right about me being a hypocrite, but it was damn near impossible to open up, especially when doing that meant giving Sarah insight into all my flaws.
“Right. That would be you letting me in, wouldn’t it? And that’s not going to happen.” Sarah crossed her arms over her chest, her irritation clear. “I knew you’d be upset about Dee, because I sure am, and I figured this was a better conversation face to face. I didn’t want it to turn into some kind of argument. But it looks like we’re fighting anyway.”
“Seems that happens a lot when we talk. Maybe it would be better if we did less of that.”
She threw her hands in the air. “Well, we hardly do any of it now. Maybe it’s better if we stop all together.”
This was the Sarah I’d met at The Dollhouse all those months ago. She’d had her back up, spitting fire at me. I shouldn’t be egging her on, looking for a fight we didn’t need to have.
I dropped the towel. Sarah’s eyes dipped down and came right back up. I was hard. Really hard. Which was messed up because I was also pissed off. The two were not a good combination for thinking. I held my hands out, offering her the one thing I knew how to do well.
I smiled, but it was full of anger and a desperation I didn’t know how to control. “I agree. Fuck talking.”
She took a step toward me, looking like she wanted to slap me. I didn’t think she would. Sarah had never been the kind of woman to retaliate with violence.
She picked up the towel and thrust it at me. I didn’t move, didn’t speak, waiting for something—her rage, the end again—anything but this emotional limbo I couldn’t seem to get myself out of. Or maybe that wasn’t true. Maybe I knew exactly how to get myself out of this situation—but I wasn’t quite brave (or stupid) enough to put myself through that again. With Candy I’d been a lot younger, and maybe less jaded, but I’d still been wrong for thinking things could’ve been more than they were. Growing up I’d been shut out by my family over and over again as I looked for some kind of connection with them. I suppose lately I’d finally gotten that, but with a side of extra drama I didn’t want or need.
“Dee got pushed into hosting some kind of private party last night, and it didn’t go well,” Sarah said, her voice flat.
“What do you mean private party? And since when is Dee dancing?” I took the towel Sarah still held out for me and fixed it around my waist, my hard-on deflating fast.
“She only started a few weeks ago, maybe a month? It happened really fast. She was serving, and then Candy got herself into some trouble with Xander, and the next thing I know, Dee’s up on stage.”
“Fuck.” That was bad news I should’ve had already. “What’s the deal with the private party? Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
“Because I didn’t know it was happening until last night, and I’m not supposed to know at all. I don’t think anyone was. She said she was going to make a lot of money in a short period of time, which worries me a lot, and now she’s not answering my texts.”
There was only one kind of party in places like The Sanctuary. I’d once been to one in the private rooms at The Dollhouse, where lap dances turned into fucking for an extra few hundred bucks, or the right amount of blow. Damen had always had a surplus of that. It was the only way he could get anyone to fuck his ugly ass. I doubted Xander had that problem. He was a handsome, albeit slimy, motherfucker.
“What happened that made it not go well?”
She crossed over to the couch and took a seat, eyeing me warily. “Promise you’re not going to go off on me again?”
I dropped down on the other end of the couch. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. I just—”
“—thought I was lying to you?”
“I want you to talk to me, that’s all.”
“As long as you don’t get upset with me for telling you the tru
th.”
“Why would I get mad at you for being honest?”
She chewed her lip for a second before speaking. “So, there were these suits—they were sitting by left stage, at the edge of center. You know where I’m talking about?”
I tried to visualize the layout of the club. I’d only been in there twice, and my focus had always been on Sarah. I nodded, even though I wasn’t a hundred percent, so she’d continue.
“I was serving close to them, and one was a real asshole.”
“Did he touch you?”
The word no formed on her lips, but then she stopped, exhaled a sigh, and nodded. “He grabbed my wrist, nothing else. He was coked up or something and being a jerk. Xander handled it.”
That didn’t make me feel better at all. Xander was the worst of all of them.
“I promise, Chris, he kept his hands to himself after that.”
That these douchebags could get away with putting their hands on the girls at all was a real problem. The only time that had been permitted at The Dollhouse was after money had changed hands for services about to be rendered. Xander ran a much looser club, and the lax rules put the women at risk.
“Does that happen often?” I asked, trying to keep my voice calm.
“The private parties?”
“People putting their hands on you.”
“Security is usually good about making sure that kind of thing doesn’t happen.”
That wasn’t a real answer, which was a problem, but I wasn’t going to push her on it now. Not when she was finally talking.
“What happened after Xander dealt with the guy?”
“I went back to serving tables, and Dee finished her set. Everything was fine until Dee went to host her party, or whatever the hell you want to call it. She was gone for, like, maybe half an hour, and then something went down. Almost all of security went to manage the situation. Grant looked really upset, and he usually doesn’t have facial expressions, so I figured it had to be something with Dee.”
Fractures in Ink Page 16
