“You look like you just lost your best friend,” Fox said.
“I think I just might have,” I murmured, wandering towards the dressing room.
“Hey, have you seen Daine?” he asked.
“Nope,” I muttered, turning back. “Hey, how’d the new kid do? Finn?”
“Pretty green, man, to tell you the truth. But the customers didn’t seem to care. I hope you checked his ID.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, nodding and walking down the hall, lost in my thoughts.
My phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out, pausing when I saw it was Tonya, a girl I’d met last week and promptly spent the night. She’d sent me a text.
‘I’m lonely. Come over?’
Attached was a picture of her very shapely boobs, pressed together with her arm, her pink nipples protruding suggestively towards the camera. Before tonight, I’d have replied with a smiley face, left her guessing, then showed up at her door with a pocket full of condoms and a hard dick. Instead, I turned off the phone and slipped into my pocket.
I reached up, touching my smiling lips, the feel of Harley’s kiss still lingering.
CHAPTER 13
FINN
“Hey!”
Lost in slumber, the voice didn’t immediately wake me up.
“Hey, asshole!”
That did it.
I opened my eyes, instantly blinded by the sun.
“What the hell?” I groaned, when I felt something poke my leg. Blinking rapidly, my eyes finally focused on the disheveled old man in front of me. Wrinkled and bent over, he was stabbing me with a long, crooked stick. “Stop it!”
“That’s my bench!”
“Your’s?” I asked, looking around the park. The sun was barely rising in the distance, and the park was still as deserted as it was when I finally stopped wandering aimlessly around downtown and decided to sleep on the bench last night.
“Yes, I arrive here every morning at five forty-five and I sit here for exactly one hour, fifty-three minutes and twenty-seven seconds,” he muttered.
“What?” I asked, shaking my head. His smell was overwhelming, a mixture of old man and piss.
“Every day,” he nodded, his eyes a bright blue orb in a dirty, weathered face. “And then, I head over to to the San Julian park and I stay there, on the third bench to the right of the fountain. I sit there for two hours, one minute and five seconds, before heading over to the Spring Street park, where I sit on the bench next to the playground, for exactly —.”
“— I got it!” I shouted, clutching my aching head.
He stepped back, politely nodding as he waited.
“Fine, whatever,” I gathered my back pack and gave up the bench. With a gleeful smile, he sat down and began emptying the contents of a paper bag onto the bench. I waited a moment, watching, as he pulled out three rocks, a plastic bag full of sunflower seeds, a ball point pen and one dirty black sock. He placed the rocks on the seat next to him in a row, opened up the bag of seeds and flung them into the grass in front of the bench. He clicked open the pen and began drawing on his palm, all the while humming joyfully and leaving the sock lying next to him.
“Have a nice day, sir,” I mumbled, walking away and making my way out of the park. The streets were fairly deserted as this early hour, and I wandered up and down them for at least an hour, the rays of sun peeking through the tops of the skyscrapers. I’d made my way downtown late last night after my shift at Tomcats, alone and homeless, but feeling on top of the world.
Going on that stage last night had changed something in me. Nerves and panic threatened to take me down until the very last minute, and Daine being an ass to me didn’t help. But once I heard the thunderous applause and saw all those women with their friendly smiles and welcoming cheers, I was hooked.
I came alive, loving the lights, the music, the attention…
Not to mention the cash.
I hadn’t made enough that I was comfortable getting another hotel room just yet but when I stumbled upon a diner turning on their ‘open’ sign this morning, I strode in and ordered the biggest breakfast on the menu and took my time eating it while I contemplated my next move.
I was working again tonight. And tomorrow. If they gave me a shift every day, then by the end of the week I could get a room somewhere and be able to feed myself. Once I’d saved enough in a couple of weeks, I just might be able to find a more permanent place.
A place to call home.
What a concept, I thought.
Most of my life, I figured I’d always call Bixby home, but now I wasn’t sure I’d ever go back there. Now that Mama was dead, there was nothing left for me there anymore. I’d spent the last three years of my life taking care of her, watching her die right before my eyes, and that town was dripping in those memories. Memories I’d just as soon forget.
Los Angeles was everything Bixby wasn’t.
Sophisticated. Scenic. Beautiful.
Bixby was just a sad, flat town with nothing to do but go fishin’ at the river or go to Friday night high-school football games. There was nothing sophisticated or beautiful about it.
And now, it was nothing but a town full of bad memories.
Whatever my future holds, it’s here in L.A. — I’m sure of it.
I finished up my breakfast and spent the rest of the day being a tourist downtown. Little Tokyo was bustling with activity and I must have spent at least a few hours wandering in and out of the tiny shops and sampling exotic foods from the street vendors. Later, I took a bus to the history museum and lost myself in the exhibits for the better part of the afternoon.
By the time I left, I was exhausted from walking and I desperately needed a shower. I’d spotted a couple in the back of the dressing rooms at Tomcats and I headed over early, hoping I could get there before anyone else did to take advantage of them without anyone noticing.
The place was quiet when I arrived, a far cry from the chaos and celebrations of last night. Luckily, the front door was open and I strolled right in, nodding at the cleaning crew that was busy at work.
The dressing room was empty, too, but just as messy as it was last night.
“I guess neatness isn’t a concept they subscribe to,” I mumbled, slowly strolling past the open lockers. Each dancer was assigned their own locker. Our names were written in chalk on top of each one. But there were no doors on any of them, offering an intimate look at their contents.
Blaze’s looked like it belonged to a high school kid; practically wall papered with centerfolds of every shape, size and color. Hanging from a hook was a black leather vest and a white g-string. A thick, wooden hairbrush sat on a shelf next to a jar of moisturizer.
Fox’s was full of vitamins of all kinds and littered with half-empty bottles of water and energy drinks. A bottle of deodorant and a picture of an old lady that looked exactly like him sat on the shelf.
Daine’s was confusing. Eye drops. Condoms. Empty red bull cans and crumbled up In-n-Out bags. But it was the picture taped to the inside that threw me. It looked like it was torn from a dirty magazine, an advertisement for Calvin Klein cologne, with some random male model lying naked in a bed. I looked closer, but I didn’t recognize the model as anyone famous, and I couldn’t figure out why Daine would have a picture of him.
It must be a friend of his, I thought.
I took a step closer, drawn to the contents of the locker that allowed me to know him just a little bit better. A small wooden box sat off to the side of the shelf, the lid firmly closed, begging me to open it.
Gingerly, I raised the lid, peering inside.
Jewelry.
Gold, silver, even some diamond earrings. Whether it was real or not, I didn’t know. It was flashy, that’s for sure. Bracelets and necklaces, a few cuff links. I picked one of them up — a square, gold and diamond cuff link — and held it up to the light. It shimmered as I turned it in the light and I couldn’t help but smile.
This was Daine’s, I thought….
/> A lump formed in my throat and Mama’s face flashed in my head.
What would she say if she could see me now?
“What the hell, kid!” Daine screamed, appearing out of nowhere. He’d snuck up on me. He pointed to the cuff link in my hand, anger washing over his face. “Are you fucking stealing from me?”
“What!” I cried. “No! Not at all! I was just — I was just —.”
“Just what?” he shouted, snatching the link from my palm and leaning in close to my face. “Look, kid! I don’t know where you came from or what your story is, but I’m fucking watching you, do you understand? And you’d best not fuck with me, if you want to keep your job. You don’t know who you’re messing with.”
“Daine Ryan,” I muttered, looking away.
“What?”
“Daine Ryan, you’re Daine Ryan, the famous featured artist at L.A’s trendiest new ladies club.”
He paused, cocking his head.
“Yeah, well,” he said, turning away. “Just stay out of my shit, you understand?”
“Sure, sorry,” I muttered, walking quickly out of the room, cursing myself the whole way to the showers. Every interaction I’d had with Daine so far had gone horribly wrong. And each one had left me reeling, left my fingers trembling, my heart racing. If I was going to get anywhere at all, I had to keep my shit together.
I couldn’t let him see me sweat.
And so far, that’s all he’d seen.
I wanted him to see me as a self-assured, confident man — the same way that I saw him.
I left the shower with a plan to be more like him.
Hell, I wanted to be just like him.
CHAPTER 14
DAINE
I watched the kid walk off with an annoyed growl. There’s no easier way to get on my shit list than going through my stuff. Yesterday was bad enough, now he was in my jewelry? The little twat better watch himself.
Yeah, maybe I was a little harsh on him. Clearly, he’s out of his league here, and he knows it. But he needed to learn how things worked, and fast.
I didn’t have time to babysit anyone, and as soon as Blaze walked in the dressing room, I made sure he knew it.
“Blaze, that kid you hired? You need to fill him in. Yesterday, he was trying to wear my costumes and today, I found him rifling through my shit.”
“He’s new, he’ll get the hang of it.”
“Well, I don’t like him. He’s young and inexperienced and a bit of a smart-ass.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, with a dismissive wave. “Listen, I want to ask you a question, but you can’t tell Richie and Tillie that I asked you this.”
“What?”
“You know how there’s a rule that we aren’t supposed to date the customers?’
“Yeah?”
“How solid do you think that is?’
“Solid?” I asked. “What do you mean? We all came up with the rules together.”
“I know we did,” he said, nodding.
“Dude, you can get pussy anywhere, why are you tripping on this? Don’t fish from your own porch, or whatever that saying is. We made that rule for a reason.”
“Yeah, well, maybe it’s easy for you to do because you’re gay. But it’s not so easy for me.”
“What happened?”
“I just…I just met someone. I want to ask her out.”
“On a date?” I asked, my voice rising an octave. Blaze didn’t date. Blaze fucked. “A real date?”
“Yeah, man, it’s not the first time.”
“First I can remember. So, what’s so special about this girl?”
“She’s just…real, man. She’s confident and funny…and sexy as hell.”
“Sounds like you’ve got it bad.”
“I do.”
“Well, if you asking me for permission to break the rules, I’m not giving it.”
“What should I do?”
“You should follow the fucking rules, just like everyone else has to around here.”
“Dude…”
“Fine, look. You have two options, as far as I see it. Go behind Richie and Tillie’s back and don’t tell them. If it gets serious later, then you can decide if you want to mention it or not. Chances are, it’ll fade out as fast as it caught fire.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” he shrugged.
“I know you, Blaze,” I said. “I know you very well.”
“Sometimes, people surprise you. Hell, this whole thing surprises me, too. I don’t know what it is, but I just want to see where it goes.”
“Sounds like you already made up your mind,” I said.
“You’re right, thanks man,” he said. “And remember —.”
“— yeah, yeah, my lips are sealed, brother.”
“Thanks, Daine,” he said, hugging me. “You’re a real friend.”
“You won’t say that when I’m whipping up on the new boy for stealing my shit.”
“He’s not a thief,” he said. “Give him a chance. He seems like a good kid. We were all in his place once.”
“Young, dumb and stupid?”
“Exactly,” he said. “Don’t be so hard on him.”
“I’ll try,” I said. “Keep me posted on the girl.”
“She’s a woman.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. A MILF?”
“Something like that,” he winked.
“Good luck, brother,” I replied. “I heard those older women can be real tigers in the sack. Not that I’d know…”
“You don’t know what you’re missing, Daine,” he said.
“I’m not missing a thing,” I replied, laughing.
“Whatever,” he said. “Leaves more for me. Hey, don’t you have a birthday coming up?”
“Shit, don’t remind me,” I said. “I’ll be thirty-seven, dude!"
“It’s this weekend, right?”
“Yeah, Friday.”
“Let’s have a party! We’ve been meaning to have another one since opening night. We can do it at home, invite some friends, it’ll be a blast.”
“I’m never one to turn down a party, Blaze, you know that.”
“Great!” He said. “I’ll get with Tillie and plan everything, don’t worry about a thing. Just show up.”
“If you say so,” I said, shaking my head. “Getting older isn’t the celebration it used to be.”
“It should be,” Blaze said. “Considering the alternative.”
“It is better than dead.”
He walked out with a smile and I sat down in front of my locker, taking in my surroundings. I’d been damned lucky to end up here. Life had been good to me. I worked hard and I played hard. I had good friends. A wonderful job.
And as far as I was concerned, I couldn’t ask for more than that.
Was that cause for celebration?
Why not?
I may not possess the youthful swagger I once held, but I was hanging in there. I still had it.
CHAPTER 15
BLAZE
Hundreds of women have welcomed me into their beds. Pleasing a woman comes naturally to me. Making a woman smile is something I’m an expert at.
Asking a woman out on a proper date?
Turns out, I wasn’t so great at that at all.
As soon as Harley’s phone starting ringing, I hung up.
With sweating palms and a gut tied in knots, I redialed, gasping for breath before I heard her soft voice in my ear, the same one I’d been imagining for hours.
“Hello?” she answered.
“Harley, hello.”
“Who’s calling?”
Oh, right. Who am I?
“This is um…Blaze.”
Silence. Had she forgotten me already?
“…from Tomcats?” I offered.
“Oh, Blaze!” she exclaimed. “Of course. I didn’t expect you’d call.”
“Right. I know I said I’m not supposed to break the rules.”
“But here you are.”
“Yes.”
“So why did you? Break the rules…”
My fingers trembled as I held the phone to my ear. I hated doing this over the phone, because my biggest asset — the ability to read a woman — was diminished when I couldn’t look in her eyes. I thought of Harley’s eyes, of the possibility of seeing them again, and took a deep breath.
“I’ve never been the dating type, Harley,” I explained. “So, I’m not so great at this. However, if you’d be so inclined, I’d love to take you to dinner sometime.”
“Well, Blaze, for someone who’s not the dating type, that was a very nice proposal.”
“Was it nice enough for you to say yes?”
Her laughter bubbled across the phone line and I smiled, holding my breath as I waited for her answer.
“Yes, darling, I’ll go out with you,” she said. My heart soared. Even though she’d slipped me her number, I still expected her to turn me down, or not even answer the phone at all.
“Are you free tomorrow night? I can pick you up at seven.”
“That sounds delightful. I’ll text you my address.”
“I look forward to it,” I said, wishing I could crawl through the phone and kiss her again. Instead, we hung up and I was left enduring the torture of waiting for something I wanted very badly.
Patience was never one of my virtues.
Tomorrow night couldn’t come fast enough.
CHAPTER 16
HARLEY
He showed up with a bouquet of white lilies and a bottle of pink wine with a turquoise label and French writing on it. I raised a brow and suppressed a laugh. I’d not had rosé in years, sticking to a strict diet of dry red wine and whiskey for years. Sparkling pink drinks were things I’d outgrown ages ago, but I refrained from mentioning it. He looked so uncomfortable standing in my doorway, in a sharply tailored suit that was a far cry from the g-string and tank he’d worn while he made me dinner the other night. I preferred the nudity.
My estate has a way of making even the most cultured people uncomfortable. It’s stately. A huge manor with wide Corinthian columns that intimidate visitors before they’ve even walked past the massive pots of red bougainvillea and rung the doorbell.
TOMCATS [BOOK TWO] Page 4
