I picked at my PB&J. “No, I meant sit next to me. You might not want to sit next to me.”
“Why not?”
“I’m persona non grata.”
“That’s an odd name, Persona Non Grata.”
I rolled my eyes, but a smile tugged at my lips. It had been a while since someone had joked with me. “I’m serious. It’s social suicide to sit near me.”
He shrugged. “I’m not too worried about that kind of stuff.” Probably because he was easily an eleven on a scale of one to ten. The girls at Diavolo would eat him up. Sitting next to me didn’t change how attractive he was.
I cocked my head to the side, taking in his laidback demeanor. “Why me?”
“You had this table to yourself. I figured I’d rather introduce myself to one person than a table with ten people, whose names I’d forget as soon as they said them.”
I took in the schedule he’d thrown on his food tray. “So, you’re new here?”
“Transferred from SoCal.”
I nodded at his head. “That explains the hair.”
“The hair?” He ran a hand through the golden-blond strands.
“Long. Sun-kissed. Classic surfer guy.”
He tsked. “That’s a stereotype, and I actually don’t sur—”
I shrieked, pushing my chair back as water met my hair, dripped down my face, and soaked my white t-shirt. Lacy stood a few inches from me, an empty water bottle in her hand. I covered my chest with my arm, hoping no one could see through my thin shirt.
My eyes jerked to Ranie’s, locking on his from across the cafeteria with laser precision. He may have dropped me as a friend, but he hadn’t condoned bullying. If he saw it, he usually spoke up. It was the only good part of my life these days.
But when I looked at him, he took in my soaked face for a split second before focusing on Brody. I waited for him to say something. Anything. He didn’t. Instead, he turned to Niccolaio and whispered something in his ear. Niccolaio replied, and the two of them began a heated conversation, ignoring my turmoil entirely.
The whispers started soon after. Someone gathered the courage to laugh. Then another person. And another. And another. Pretty soon, the entire cafeteria was laughing at me. Brody shrugged his sweater off and handed it to me. I slipped the soft cotton hoodie over my wet shirt, thankful that at least someone was on my side. He’d probably realize soon that friendship with me wasn't worth ostracizing himself at Diavolo, but until then, I’d take any help I could get.
Across the room, Ranie’s eyes caught mine, lingering on the jacket. He stood up, determination consuming his posture, but Niccolaio tugged him back down. They exchanged rushed words, and Ranie’s brows furrowed deeply before he settled properly in his seat. I returned my attention to Brody, feeling foolish. Ranie wasn’t the hero. He was the villain.
I sat through the entire lunch, soaked and shivering, my pride not allowing me to run and hide. Someone came up to me and made a joke about my wet hair. It was as if, by not defending me, Ranie’s unspoken ban against bullying me in front of him had been lifted. Brody snapped back at him, and for a moment, I felt protected again.
When the bell rang for fifth period, I held my head high as I passed Ranie with Brody flanking my left side. My hands fisted, doing all they could to hide their trembling. I didn’t know what I expected from Ranie. An apology? An explanation? Some sort of acknowledgment of how dreadful my life had gotten? Was that too much to ask after nine years of being everything to one another?
Instead, his eyes lingered once again on the way Brody’s hoodie dwarfed my skinny frame before looking at Brody and turning away. Niccolaio gave me a sympathetic look, but I knew he’d always be on Ranie’s side.
My heart dropped, and the hope I’d been preserving since Ranie and I stopped being friends bolted. After The Cafeteria Incident, the bullying grew, transforming into a monster even Diavolo’s strict teachers couldn’t control.
At least I had Brody.
But it was supposed to be Ranie.
* * *
Let today be the day
you stop being haunted by
the ghost of yesterday.
Steve Maraboli
* * *
The Present, where nothing’s changed.
I slid a club soda to one of the strippers, who’d spilled brandy on her lingerie.
Fred ran to us from across the room, his white hair flapping in his haste, and pushed her back into the dressing room. “No, no. Not in that!”
She looked down at her lingerie, a skimpy pink-and-black balconette and panty set. “What’s wrong with this?”
“You look a buck twenty in it.” Typical Fred. Never one to mince words or, I don’t know, act like a civilized human being.
She crossed her arms, every bit righteous in her indignation. “I do weigh a hundred and twenty pounds.”
“Well, I don’t want you looking like you do. Not in my club.” He turned to me. “What are you doing back here? Out! Out!”
I grabbed my serving tray, rolled my eyes, and headed to my section. Fred owned The Down & Dirty, but he was past his prime and likely to retire soon. Word around the strip club was he was in talks to sell the place, and there was currently a bidding war between two bigwigs. In a town where there was a surplus of high-end escorts and deficit of strippers, he’d probably net a pretty penny.
Paula, known at The Down & Dirty as Honey Cocker, brushed past me. She was a waitress, like me. Unlike me, working here wasn’t her last resort. She lived for The Down & Dirty. Came to work with a genuine smile every day.
I grabbed her arm. “Fred’s in a mood. You might want to steer clear.”
She scrunched her nose. “Gosh, couldn’t he retire already?”
I shrugged. Was Fred a horrible boss? Yes. But knowing my luck, his replacement would only be worse. Paula reached out and adjusted my sheer, pastel-blue baby doll negligee. It matched the color of my eyes, pumps, and the wig hiding my dirty blonde hair.
“Oh, my God.” Paula twisted my body until I faced the VIP lounge. “He’s perfection. I call dibs.”
My blood ran cold.
Surely, I was hallucinating.
It had been seven years, but his hair was the same—a clean gentleman’s cut. At a couple inches over six feet, he stood out with those same sharp cheekbones and a defined jawline. And while I couldn’t see his eyes from this distance, I knew they were four-leaf-clover green.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered.
He couldn’t hear me, of course, but it was instinct to want to talk to him. The seven years that had passed since we’d last seen each other hadn’t changed that. Nor had those four years of pure high school Hell.
“What?” Paula skimmed me for a split second before returning her gaze to him.
“Nothing.”
But this was anything but nothing. Ranieri Andretti was here. My first love. My high school tormentor. My biggest betrayal. I sucked in a breath and scrambled backward, forcing myself to keep cool as I headed for the break room to find Fred.
In the background, I faintly heard Paula calling after me, but I ignored her.
“What are you doing here?” Fred grabbed my elbow and steered me to an empty corner of the break room.
I shoved his hand off of me. “I have to go.”
“What?”
“Stomach flu.”
“I don’t care. Do you know how important this night is for me?” He rubbed the back of his neck and swore. “I’m about to close the sale of a lifetime, and I need you serving drinks in VIP.”
“What?” I backed away from him. “I-I… But that’s not my section.”
“You’re my best waitress.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You have a college degree.”
“I dropped out.”
“And then you went to community college.”
“I dropped out after a semester there, too.” I crossed my arms. This conversation was like a movie reel of my failure
s.
“He requested you.”
“Who requested me?”
“One of my buyers.”
Oh, gosh. Was there any chance that wasn’t Ranie?
I bit my lower lip. “I don’t believe you.”
Fred held up his phone, a text dated two minutes ago displayed on the screen.
Ranie couldn’t have known that was me. Even if we hadn’t seen each other in seven years, the wig and layers upon layers of dramatic makeup made me nearly unrecognizable, and I’d been so far away.
My stomach actually felt queasy this time. “I really don’t feel well.”
“It won’t be long.”
Nausea clouded my brain. “Seriously, I’m going to throw up.”
“Hold it in.”
Bile raised to the top of my throat. I swallowed, trying my hardest to push it back down. “I can’t, Fred!”
“Do this, then you can go.”
“No—”
He pushed me out of the break room before I could protest.
I debated my options. I really needed this job. Dad’s store was losing money by the second, but no matter how much time passed, no matter how much debt piled on, he couldn’t part with it.
He was like Leo in The Titanic—he could have held onto the edge of Rose’s ship debris and stayed afloat, but he chose to sink with the ship. Probably thought it was noble, too. I was convinced a piece of Dad thought that, if he sold the shop, Mom wouldn’t be able to find him in case she ever decided to come back.
It had been fifteen years since she left us, and I wasn’t holding my breath that she’d return, but Dad still was. I didn’t have it in my heart to confront him. Even if it meant I had to drop out of college to work and help pay rent for myself, Dad, and a store I hated with every fiber of my being.
Truth was, I had no other option than to ignore my nerves, temper the bile rising up my body, and deal with my reality. I tucked my serving tray behind the bar and made my way to the VIP table, dragging my footsteps and hoping the hair and makeup were enough to quell my identity.
Up close, Ranie was more devastating than I had remembered. Thick, dark hair, blacker than the dimmest night. Full lips, a shade of red seductive enough to make blood envious. Vibrant green eyes, so vivid, it looked like a forest of evergreens had been trapped in his irises. How could a man I loathed, a man I no longer had claim to nor understood, still elicit a reaction from me?
I averted my eyes from Ranie, who still hadn’t turned to face me, and addressed the rest of his party of five. “W-would you gentlemen like anything to drink?”
“Hey, darling.” The one on the far right kept his voice low, so I had to come closer to hear. A classic trick in the book. Working at The Down & Dirty, I’d seen it all. “What’ve you got for me?”
I took in his suit. It was fitted well, but the top pattern was slightly mismatched from the bottom. Probably something off the rack, from two separate brands with nearly identical patterns he’d thought no one would notice were different.
But he’d taken painstaking care to keep it ironed flat and passable as bespoke, which meant he liked to keep up appearances of wealth. My bet was he’d go for something flashy, something ostentatious that spoke of money, and with the impending deal, I knew Fred was picking up the tab.
“Lagavulin single malt. We have a 37-year-old in the back.”
He faltered a moment, pausing to glance Ranie’s way. Made sense. It was a three-thousand-dollar bottle, marked up at the club for north of six grand. Not something you ordered without the boss’ approval. And I had no doubt Ranie was the boss.
I forced myself not to look Ranie’s way. “On the house, of course.”
Mister Mismatched Suit nodded his approval, and I tried to suppress my smirk. Fred would have a fit if he knew I’d pushed one of the priciest bottles he offered on a House tab, but fuck Fred. The smile slipped past my lips, and when I glanced to my right, Ranie was staring at me, his head cocked slightly to the side and his brows furrowed like he couldn’t quite place me.
I froze, unsure of what to do. What I should have done was played it casual and continued as if nothing was awry. Instead, I panicked, pivoted, and nearly sprinted my way back to the bar, where I entered in two bottles of the Lagavulin, wincing at the cost—more than a year’s tuition at Duke after my scholarship. Not that it mattered, being a college dropout and all. Plus, this was Miami Beach, where the median annual income was higher than two million dollars per household. Twelve thousand dollars. Pennies. They wouldn’t know the difference.
Skimming the club for Fred, I spotted him talking to some regulars, so I ducked into the break room and hid. When she passed me, I grabbed Paula’s hand.
I gave her my best I’m-not-doing-anything-wrong smile. “Do me a favor?”
Wariness lined her petite features. She knew me so well. “Depends. What do you want?”
“Take over the VIP section for me?”
Her eyes nearly bulged out of her head before she remembered to play it cool, and I’d bet you anything that money signs were running through her head. “I keep the tips?”
Told you.
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “Sure.”
“They order yet?”
“Bottle service. Two Lagavulin bottles.”
She paused. “You think they’ll tip twenty percent?”
Fuck. Maybe. Ranie was rich, and he had enough manners to tip large, even on comped bottles. If he did the standard twenty percent, that was twenty-four hundred dollars I was missing out on. Enough to pay rents, utilities, and part of Dad's store's lease for the month. I should suck it up and face my demon, but…
“It’s on the house.” I was convincing myself skipping out on this was a good idea when I should have focused on convincing her.
But being around Ranie never failed to turn me into a mess. As a kid, it had been thanks to feelings I hadn't been old enough to understand. As an adult, I realized just how truly screwed I was.
Ranie was magnetic. People exhausted themselves at the gym, in classrooms, and at work, trying to be what Ranie naturally was—intelligent, wealthy, strong, and alluring. It wasn’t fair that he got to be all four, but I knew firsthand just how unfair life was.
Paula laughed and snuck a glance at Fred. “Fred’s gonna hate you.”
I shrugged. “He already does, but he won’t fire me.” I had my fair share of regulars, and that meant steady money. Greed always won in the end.
“Wait… Is this Hottie McHottie’s table?”
“Yup.”
She eyed me like I was crazy, shrugged, and left for the Lagavulin. Maybe I should have left, too. That would have been the sane thing to do. Instead, I peeked out the side of the break room, needing to catch sight of Ranie, even if from afar.
He looked every bit as good as he used to, if not better. His wardrobe had matured since I last saw him. He’d gone from designer jeans and soft Henley t-shirts to a perfectly tailored, handmade suit.
The Down & Dirty catered to a wealthy crowd. I’d seen expensive suits before, but it had been a while since I had seen a cut so nice. The waitresses and strippers flocked to the best-dressed patrons in the bar, but I knew better.
The amount of money someone was willing to part with for themselves and the amount of money they were willing to part with for others were two entirely different things. Which was why I was never blinded by the flashy clothes. Everything I needed to know about a man, I could see in his eyes. From the emotions they held.
Entitled eyes were the worst—mostly frat boys and flashy upper-middle class men, who felt they deserved the service without the service fee. Sympathy eyes gave a fair amount of money. Some men came in, saw a waitress in a strip club, and tipped well out of pity. Pride had been out of the equation for so long, I no longer felt dirty from pity tips.
Cold, aloof eyes were another lottery ticket. Those guys were my favorite. The ninety-nine point nine-nine percenter, who had no concept of the value of the dollar.
For all he knew, a gallon of milk cost a Benjamin, maybe two, and the hundreds he shoved my way were easily forgotten chump change. These guys weren’t always the flashiest, but there were subtle signs of wealth.
Subtle signs that Ranie shared right now.
A fitted black suit, plain but tailored, made from understated yet expensive fabric few could afford. Dark, handcrafted Italian leather shoes. A crisp dress shirt. No tie. Top two buttons undone. And a distinctly unapproachable, unaffected aura, as if it didn’t matter who he impressed, because none of us little people mattered.
As Paula made her way to him, he ordered without glancing at the menu. Another thing rich people did. Who needed a menu when price didn’t matter, and you had people vying to accommodate your every desire?
Meanwhile, I stood, quivering in my baby doll negligee—it was too short, and I was too tall. At five-feet and eight-inches tall, my heels put me nearly at six feet. I stood out in the crowd, even among Miami Beach’s finest strippers.
I’d been told that I’d aged well, my face remarkably wrinkle-free. Then again, I was only twenty-five—almost twenty-six. But that was ancient in stripper years—at least here, where the average stripper’s age would give a social worker a heart attack.
I was skinny, but only because I couldn’t afford much food. Small chested, thanks to my mother, her mother, and her mother’s mother, who liked to pass down their genes. And underneath the wig, layers of foundation, false lashes, and a stupid amount of eyeshadow, I was usually the blonde, blue-eyed girl that preferred living life bare-faced and natural. Not because I was pretty enough for the whole #NoMakeUp and #NoFilter movement. I just didn’t have the time or money for make-up. My bank balance was lower than my credit card debt, and I was already barely making ends meet.
That was my life.
That was how time had treated me.
Clearly, time loved Ranie more than he loved me. The last time I'd seen him, at eighteen years old, I'd thought he was a man. I’d been wrong. Since then, he had filled out his frame. Lean muscles sculpted his body into an enviable, hormone-inducing machine. He was still undoubtedly wealthy, though I'd never expected that to chang—
Ranieri Andretti: A Second-Chance, Enemies-to-Lovers Mafia Romance Novella (The Five Syndicates Book 3) Page 2
