“I am only interested…” Jackie shouted. Amanda quickly shushed her.
“Okay! I am only interested in casual sex! I have no interest in pursuing anything more, with anyone, much less Scott sex-in-a-sleeping-bag Ferrell! All right?”
Jackie smirked. “Tell me you won’t see him again, then.”
Amanda crossed her arms. “No.”
“So you are getting serious about him.” Jackie shook her head. “This is the first guy you’ve seen since your divorce, Amanda. I’m not trying to get all in your business…”
“Sure you are,” Amanda said, without venom.
“Well, okay, yeah I am. But only because I’m worried about you.” And to her credit, Jackie really did look concerned.
Amanda sighed. “I’m still going to see him—and yeah, sleep with him—but it’s not exactly what you think.”
Jackie’s ears perked up, and Amanda bit her tongue. “You’re keeping another secret.”
“For now,” Amanda said. “It’s not that big a deal.”
Jackie might be writing an advice column, but she was too much the reporter not to smell blood in the water. “Can I ask questions? Could you maybe mime it?”
“No questions, no miming,” Amanda insisted, with a little laugh. Her cell phone rang. “Sorry,” she told Jackie. She didn’t recognize the number and wondered absently if it was Scott.
“Hello, is this Amanda?” A woman’s voice asked.
“Yes…this is Amanda.” Who is this?
“Oh, good,” the woman said. “This is Tina.”
“Tina…”
“From the Bettie Pages. The burlesque dance troupe.”
“Oh!” Amanda said, taking a step away from Jackie. “Right, right. How are you?”
“Shorthanded,” Tina said, with a desperate laugh. “Is there any way you could step in for me? I’ve got a huge gig coming up this weekend—you wouldn’t believe how high profile—and three of my dancers are down with the flu.”
“Dancing…” Amanda said, squirming slightly. That had been a ruse—a way to get in, find out more about the club. She looked at Jackie, who was listening intently. “Um…”
“I’ll wash your car. I’ll babysit your firstborn. I’m really in a jam here.”
Amanda thought about it. It had been fun—but the next day, it had seemed like a dream. Now the mere thought of it made her stomach knot unpleasantly. “Er, I think my dancing career is over.”
“I had to try,” Tina said, sighing. “If you reconsider it, will you at least give me a call?”
“All right,” Amanda promised, then signed off.
“Dancing career?” Jackie said, eyebrow raised.
“Long story.”
“I’ve got an hour for lunch.”
Amanda smiled. “It’s sort of part of the secret.”
“It’s not, like, a dangerous secret, right?” Jackie asked suddenly. “I mean, this guy’s not signing you up in some cult or something?”
Amanda shook her head, but her laugh sounded a little breathless—a little guilty, to her own ears. “Not a cult,” she said. More like a club.
“All right.” Jackie sounded unconvinced. “Do you think it’s worth it?”
Amanda contemplated the crust of her pizza. She’d danced nearly topless, spent almost a week out in the Mojave, and was having bed-breaking sex with her neighbor…whom she was blackmailing in order to get into The Player’s Club.
At least I’m not boring, right?
“Is it worth it?” she echoed. “I sure hope so.”
THIS TIME, THE CLUB MEETING didn’t take place at the warehouse or the basement across the street. It was in the back room of a sports bar, someplace loud and rowdy. It was only one in the morning—the bar was still going strong, meaning the crew was packed like sardines in the small location, fighting the noise of the crowds and the TVs.
George was doing beer funnels, and Lincoln looked unamused.
“Anything to report?” Lincoln asked, and Scott strained to hear him over the sounds of drunken cheering from the other side of the wall.
“I did the first challenge,” Scott said, forcing himself to be louder. “Now what?”
Finn hooted, giving him a thumbs-up, and the rest of the room made various noises of approval.
Lincoln nodded. “Now, on to your second challenge—”
“Wait a minute,” George interrupted, sneering at Scott. “Do we have proof that you went out there, camping, in the desert?”
Scott looked at Finn, who shrugged. Lincoln’s jaw clenched.
“I’ve got some pictures,” Scott replied. And I’ve got a girl who can verify exactly where I was.
Scott grinned at that thought. Apparently, George took the grin as a challenge.
“Had fun, huh?” George sounded distinctly derisive. “Jeez. Frickin’ nerd challenge…”
Finn held up his hands. “Hey, you know the rules of the Club, cuz,” he said quickly, cutting off any more of George’s diatribe. “We’ve always run it this way. Since the beginning.”
“When it was just Finn, Tucker, a few other guys…and me,” Lincoln added.
The fury and hatred in George’s eyes was quickly veiled…so quickly, Scott wondered if maybe he’d imagined it. George’s expression was now one of reluctant acceptance.
“So the guy went camping. Big deal,” George scoffed.
“The first of three big deals,” Lincoln segued gracefully. “Which means he’s on to the second challenge.”
“I’d like some clarification on that, actually,” Scott said. “I wasn’t really that clear on what a ‘huge party’ entailed, so I—”
“Oh, no,” George spoke up, stepping forward. “You’re not weaseling out of this one.”
“Just crash a party,” Lincoln said, crossing his arms. “You need to get ready for those bulls.”
“He didn’t say he’d crash just any party,” George protested. “He wanted to crash something epic.”
“Whatever.”
George’s eyes flashed with contempt, and he took a step toward Lincoln. Lincoln appeared casual, but Scott could tell his fists were balled, knuckles white.
George outweighed Lincoln by a good forty pounds or so, but it looked like fat. Scott would put money on Lincoln any day.
Finn quickly stepped in. “Cut it out, guys. Focus.”
Lincoln didn’t back down. Neither did George.
Finn looked at the ceiling. “George has a point. It has to be a challenge, Linc. If it’s easy—if it’s something he could do without breaking a sweat—what’s the point?”
Lincoln said nothing.
“Remember?” Finn said, and Scott could only hear him because he was standing so close. “When we started this. If it didn’t scare the crap out of us, why do it?”
Lincoln sighed heavily. Then, slowly, he took a step back.
“What did you have in mind, George?”
George preened. “There is this huge, off-the-chain party happening downtown in about a week. It’s been sold out for months, and only A-listers are allowed.”
“I suppose you’re going,” Lincoln said. He sounded bored.
“Hell, yeah,” George said, too intent on bragging to get Lincoln’s tone. “I paid ten large to get in.”
Tucker choked out a cough. “You paid ten thousand dollars to go to a party? What, does that come with a car?”
George ignored him. He looked at Scott.
“You crash that,” he said, with a note of challenge, “and you’ll have pulled off something. They’ve got bouncers that are ex-marines. Every invitation has a QR code that can’t be replicated—”
Tucker tsked.
“And you’ve got to be on the list. Anybody taking pictures is going to be thrown out. It’s for this insane magazine, completely depraved.”
Scott swallowed. “So I just need to get in, right?”
“No, you need to crash it, which means you need to hang out there. Just getting your ass kicked by the bouncer
doesn’t count.”
Scott checked with Lincoln. “Is that the challenge, then?”
Lincoln looked pissed. “Let’s put it at fifteen minutes,” he said.
“Thirty,” George countered.
Finn sighed again. “Split the difference at twenty-two and a half,” he said. “Now can we start talking Pamplona?”
After talking logistics—places they could stay, who was going to run with Scott, stuff of that nature—George got bored. He and his crew of five or so guys wandered out to join the last of the bar crowd before they closed the place down. As soon as the door shut behind him, Lincoln went straight to Finn.
“He’s getting worse,” he said.
Finn didn’t have to answer. Scott looked at the others.
“We’ve got to get rid of him,” Tucker announced, and Finn looked insulted.
“Hey. He’s my cousin.”
“He’s an ass,” Tucker said, and Scott saw Lincoln hide a lightning grin.
Finn crossed his arms. “The Club started because we wanted to hang out with people who wanted to change their lives. George was in early, near the beginning.”
Lincoln rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. Then at Scott, he said, “So. How are you going to get into this party? What can we do to help?”
“I can get you a QR code without blinking,” Tucker said.
“Really?”
Tucker smirked. “If I can break into Microsoft, I can get you a stupid party invitation.”
“If we help Scott too much,” Lincoln pointed out, “George is going to call foul. He’s already trying to edge Scott out.”
Finn had a troubled expression on his face.
“He knows Scott’s more like us,” Lincoln continued, “than like him. He wants to make this a big fraternity.”
“I know.”
“One day, it’s going to come down to a vote,” Lincoln stated. “And you know he’s already got five other guys to back him up. Just at a start.”
Finn grimaced. “Let me talk to him, okay?”
Finn left and Scott turned to Lincoln. “That reminds me. Can I invite, er, someone? To become a Player?”
Lincoln’s gaze was like a scalpel. “Did you tell anyone?”
“No! No,” Scott said quickly, thinking, She found out on her own. Technically, he wasn’t lying. “But I’d like to bring someone in.”
“You have to be a full Player,” Tucker said. “Which means you’ve got to complete your challenges.”
“Right,” Scott said. “So…you can hook me up with the QR code? With a fake invitation?”
“I can get you past security,” Tucker said.
“Too late for that,” Finn said, jogging up to them. “George figured that we’d try to help that way. So he’s making sure all the bouncers have your picture.”
“Damn it,” Lincoln growled.
“He’s just trying to keep it an honest challenge.” But even Finn didn’t sound as if he believed it.
“He’s trying to keep it an exclusive boys’ club that he gets to parade around as vice president of,” Lincoln shot back. “When we started this, we were in it to live, remember? Face down things we were too cowardly to do before…”
He paused, glancing at Scott.
“Well, before the Club,” he finished, causing Scott to wonder what before really meant. What had happened to prompt them to start the Club?
“If someone else helps with the challenges, that’s fine,” Lincoln continued. “This isn’t about proving you’ve got balls. It’s about admitting whether or not you really want to change your life!”
“I know that,” Finn said, surprisingly serious. “You think I don’t?”
The group dissolved into discussion, and Scott tuned out as reality set in.
He now had to crash some stupid, ten-grand-a-ticket party.
And he had absolutely no idea how he was going to do it.
7
SCOTT CLIMBED UP the fire escape to Amanda’s window. Sure, he could go through the door now—they knew each other, they were dating, stuff like that—but it was two in the morning. Besides, there was a certain sexy danger to it. He was pretty sure she liked the idea of him sneaking in like a burglar, sliding into bed with her.
She gets turned on because she thinks I’m some dangerous bad boy.
He gritted his teeth. He liked that, ordinarily. But tonight, he was tired, frustrated. Pissed. And he was fairly certain he was going to get booted from the Club.
How long is Amanda going to like you then?
He put it from his mind as he headed for Amanda’s bedroom.
She had her light on, a pair of glasses perched on her perky nose, her body swamped in a gray T-shirt that read Alcatraz Triathalon: Dig, Dive, Swim on it. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She was frowning, turning a page.
She looked like a very sexy librarian. He felt his tired body wake up, and he grinned.
“God, you look hot.”
She startled, dropping her book. “Oh! What time is it?” She glanced over at her alarm clock, then quickly took off her glasses. “Crap. I was… I mean…”
“I think I’m seeing a whole new side of you, Amanda,” he said, taking off his clothes and climbing next to her as she quickly released her hair from its band and pulled off her T-shirt.
“I meant to be more, you know, ready for you,” she said, huffy.
“What are you reading?” He picked it up, glanced at the cover. “The new Dresden Files,” he said appreciatively.
“Just killing time.” She quickly turned off the light, but not before he noticed a blush on her cheeks.
He kissed her shoulder, then kissed her neck. “You know, you’re sexier in a T-shirt and glasses than most women are in lingerie.”
She chuckled softly, then hugged him, hard. Suddenly, he felt twenty feet tall. She curled against him, kissing him, gently at first, then a bit more intently.
He sighed, holding her to him.
“You seem different tonight,” she said. “Something wrong?”
He grimaced. He should’ve hid that better. “Just a little speed bump.”
“The Club?” She leaned up. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” he said, trying to caress her back to her nestled place in his arm. “Just some challenge issues, that’s all.”
“The party?”
He shouldn’t have told her, he realized. The woman was like a terrier. “Yeah.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Do we really need to talk about it now?” he answered, trying to sound persuasive—but, to his own ears, sounding a little grumpy.
Smooth, real smooth.
She turned the light back on, then spun on him. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Do the ‘don’t worry, sunshine, let Sugar Daddy take care of business’ thing,” she shot back, crossing her arms. “It drives me absolutely nuts. My ex-husband used to do that all the time.”
She had an ex-husband? “Which would explain why he’s an ex, I guess,” he quipped, trying to roll with it.
“One thing of many, and let’s not change the subject.” She looked more sympathetic, and leaned her face on one hand, listening intently. “What’s going on?”
He sighed. Then he leaned back.
“They picked this party for me. Specifically, this jerk named George picked the party for me,” Scott explained. “I need to get into this huge, epic, ten-thousand-dollar-a-ticket party.”
She let out a low whistle. “Yikes.”
“Tell me about it.” He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms.
“Any ideas?”
She sounded so confident. As if she had no doubt whatsoever that he’d pull it off. That makes one of us.
“I’m still kicking things around,” he said. “I figure I could try to be a busboy, or something. I don’t know, maybe blend in with catering. I’m pretty sure I won’t pass as a bouncer. And I really, really don’t want to get arres
ted for breaking and entering to something like this.”
“Wow,” she said, and rested her head against his chest. Her hair felt like cool silk on his skin, and she smelled like jasmine and vanilla. The smell calmed him. “And if that doesn’t work?”
“Then I guess I’m not going to get in the Club.” The sentence caused him a pang.
“Well, that’s crap,” she said, and he grimaced at her, annoyed. “You’re not going to just give up, are you? You’re not that kind of man.”
He thought about it.
I’ve been living in the shadows of these big-ego, big adventure jerk-offs for all my life. I’m tired of being the nice guy that people tell their cool stories to. I want to be the guy that has the stories to tell.
“I don’t want to give up,” he said. “I’m not going to give up.”
Her expression was filled with approval—and admiration.
That was what he wanted. He wanted to be the guy that put that look on her face.
“What’s the party, anyway?”
“Some damned thing…what was it?” He closed his eyes. “Oh, right. The Debauchanalia.”
“The Debauch…” She said, then started laughing. “Small world.”
“You know it?”
“Strangely enough, yes. And I think I know a way to get you in.”
He sat up abruptly, and she squealed in protest as he almost knocked her off the bed. “Seriously?”
“Yes.” Her eyes twinkled. “Although, I have to warn you—you might not like how.”
“Whatever, I’ll take it,” he said, excited.
“Perfect.” She kissed him, slowly, and moved over him, covering his body with hers.
As he started the delicious slide toward oblivion, he heard her ask the question, “How are you at dancing?”
AMANDA WAS STILL GRINNING as they headed to the party.
“I’m not comfortable with this,” Scott muttered.
“Do you know of another way to get into this party?” Amanda replied, trying hard not to laugh. “Listen, this is perfect.”
“Yeah, but what if I have to…you know,” he said. Then he shook his hips spastically.
She giggled. “What? Have a seizure?”
“Now I know I’m not comfortable with this,” he said, turning and starting to walk away. She grabbed his arm.
The Player's Club: Scott Page 8
