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69
“I’m not sure if I’m scared of that lady or if she’s my new hero,” Lucy said as the bartender at Club CLE handed her two drinks. Club CLE was one of the newest and trendiest dance clubs in downtown Cleveland.
“Who… Grace?” Cara yelled in response as Lucy gave her one of the two vodka and cranberry cocktails she had just purchased from the bar. The music at the club was so loud that a normal level of conversation was simply not going to suffice.
“Yes, Grace! She’s kinda badass! Here’s to friendship!”
The two young women raised their glasses and took a sip.
“She is kinda badass, isn’t she?” Cara replied as she savored the sweet and tart taste of her favorite cocktail.
On the way to the club from Lola, Cara filled the void of the short drive by informing Lucy all about Grace’s quest to become an MMA fighter. Grace felt both flattered and slightly embarrassed by Cara’s description of her.
“Come on, let’s get out there!” Lucy exclaimed as she pulled Cara toward the packed dance floor.
Club CLE, like many of the new social spots in Cleveland, was located in a former industrial office building. The once thriving manufacturing and transportation hub boasted the nation’s fifth largest population by 1920 and was so important to those industries that men like John D. Rockefeller made it his home.
Those days were long gone, however, and Cleveland went from being one of the strongest cities in the country to the constant punchline in jokes by the end of the Twentieth Century.
Cleveland entrepreneurs, like in many other industrial ghost towns, began to repurpose old warehouses and office buildings into upscale apartment complexes, restaurants, and clubs.
The buildings themselves were built during a time period that focused more on quality materials and attention to detail, rather than to how fast the construction could be completed. That alone made renovating one of those old buildings far more appealing than the process of new construction to the developers.
A revitalization was underway in the city that was once famous for a burning river, and Club CLE was the latest addition to that trend. The building, located on East 4th Street, was one of five new restaurants and clubs to occupy the long-abandoned spaces on that street alone.
It took the developers almost a year to not only remodel the space into a nightclub, but also to bring the building’s antiquated infrastructure up to modern day code. Since its opening, however, the owners of Club CLE would probably say that it was worth the wait. There was typically a line out the door to get in despite the twenty dollar cover charge, which was about twice the going rate for a Cleveland nightclub.
The interior of the three-story building had been completely gutted. The only remnants of the upper two levels were the eight original structural beams that ran from floor to ceiling and overlooking balconies that had been constructed around the outer walls. These were to be used as VIP sections complete with bottle service and leather seating.
It was not uncommon to see local celebrities and professional athletes looking down at the dance floor from their private perches on the second and third floors of the club. To occupy one of the VIP balconies, one had to pre-purchase a minimum of $400 worth of alcohol, which didn’t last long at Club CLE. There were also rumors that a top Cleveland Browns draft pick had recently dropped over ten grand of his newfound wealth on one night in a Club CLE VIP balcony.
Cara and Lucy made the most of their reunion on the dance floor as they danced, laughed, and sang along when their favorite songs were played. Cara couldn’t stop repeating the same phrase over and over in her head as she danced with her best friend.
God, I missed this...
Her ex, Kenny, never could grasp that girls sometimes just liked to go dancing with their female friends. Cara was never positive if it was more his ignorance of the female gender or his own insecurities that would always lead to an argument when she and Lucy wanted to go dancing together.
The argument would always go the same way.
“How would you like it if I went drinking and dancing at a club without you?” Kenny would typically ask.
“Kenny, if you and your buddies wanted to go dancing without me one night, the way that I do when I go dancing without you, I would say go right ahead!” Cara would reply.
“What’s that supposed to mean? Like I do…?”
“It means that when we go dancing we are only dancing with each other, not other guys. I’m sorry, but I just can’t picture you and your guy friends dancing with only each other all night long…”
“Oh right, like no dudes come up and try to dance with you. I’m not an idiot, Cara!”
“Of course they do, but guess what Kenny? We make it very clear that we are not interested! Besides, you HATE dancing, Kenny!”
Exchanges like this were a big reason that Coop’s reaction when she told him about her plans for the evening made Cara do a double take. It had never occurred to her that a guy could ever be okay with it, and despite the fact he had a bodyguard accompanying her, Cara had a feeling that Cooper Madison was not the insecure type.
He has no reason to be…
The first few beats of “Yeah!” by Usher had just blasted through the speakers when Cara felt a set of unfamiliar hands grab her by the waist from behind, followed by the feeling of a sweaty body pressing up against her back.
Cara managed to push the unwelcomed hands away as she spun around to see who it was that felt entitled enough to invade her personal space. She soon realized that it was not a who, but rather a whom,as she looked at two unfamiliar men in their mid to late twenties.
