Jamie shook his head. He couldn’t stand to upset her more than he already had. “Bee, please…”
“I thought we’d agreed to help each other?” She buried her face in her trembling hands. “There’s no story if you signed a new contract. Shit, what am I supposed to tell my boss? I’m going to get fired. I should pack my bags tonight.”
“No, I’ll figure something out?—”
“Please don’t,” she interjected, the sound grating against her throat. “You’ve done enough. And you won’t even tell me why.”
He wanted to squeeze her hand and reassure her, but she bawled hers in tight fists on her lap. Fully and completely detached from him.
It broke him.
The SUV rolled to a stop in an alley leading to a VIP entrance, away from downtown Iris’s bustling main drag. Jamie stepped around to Brinton’s side, opened the door, and held out his hand.
She accepted it, but her eyes stayed glued to the asphalt.
“Brinton…”
But he didn’t finish. What else could he say? If he were her, he’d tell himself to fuck right on off. He’d blown his chance before he even told her how she made him feel, how he liked who he was when he was with her.
Was this for the best, before he could do irreparable harm?
“Well, you two have fun in there,” Michael said, as if he’d watched Mom and Dad fight over a missed parking spot.
“Thanks, Michael. I’ll call you soon,” Jamie answered.
He held open the club’s heavy back door. Once Brinton was safely inside, he beelined for a place, anywhere, where he couldn’t make this night worse.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
According to Sammi, at the Skylight, everybody belonged. The creaky barstools had lopsided cushions. Behind the dartboard, Polaroids captured years of Best Night Evers—sweaty and smiling faces, arms linked after more than a few rounds.
Sometimes, the draft beer was a little warm, but nobody complained because the bartenders never charged after the first one. Under the namesake skylight, throngs of women in tight jeans corkscrewed their hips as a seductive army. Their heeled boots tapped on battered hardwood to Alan Jackson’s “Chattahoochee.”
Brinton, however, wanted to crawl under a rock.
In a few breaths, Jamie had smothered every ounce of her glimmering optimism. He didn’t trust her. Therefore, telling his story was pointless, because he’d re-entered into a shitty deal with his father.
It was yet another lie he’d told. But why would he lie to her? Had she been wrong to trust him?
She decided right then: tonight would be her last in Iris. This article had drained more from her than she had to give.
Could she get a new job writing appointment reminder emails at Shay’s clinic? Brinton considered how many vagina euphemisms she’d have to memorize and sighed wistfully.
She needed a stiff drink. Were Long Island iced teas still cool?
The sting of a bare hand swatting her ass launched Brinton back into the present. Incensed, she spun around, instantly regretting not bringing her beloved combat boots.
Luckily, the homicidal rage behind her eyes cooled at the sight of Sammi. She was a honky-tonk angel in white denim shorts, a sleeveless black top cinched at her narrow waist, and cherry-red cowboy boots that matched her lipstick.
“Hey, sugar,” Sammi called out. Her high ponytail whipping in time with the Danielle Bradbery song blaring overhead. “You look as good as sweet tea in a drought. I bet it’s five seconds before somebody drags you onto the floor.”
They embraced tightly like old friends—Brinton had slowly warmed to the idea that they were—but her enthusiasm was short lived.
While the Skylight was a place for the Everyman, Brinton was a Black woman. As she surveyed the room, as far as she could tell, she was the only one present.
Bewildered eyes had casually clocked her as she walked through the club. There was a framed Confederate flag over the DJ booth, for God’s sake. Brinton’s smile flattened.
A fiery lash of panic hit her at once. Was she moments from being called a slur? Or worse, being physically hurt?
