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"That's ..." I trail off as I think about what she's saying. I can say it different ways, but she's right. He's been keeping me from moving on. While it might not be because I'm pining away--as he would appear to wish--being afraid another man will cheat on me and hurt me might as well be the same thing. "Exactly what I'm doing." I slap my free hand against my forehead. The sound of my palm meeting flesh a loud snap in the room around us. "Stupid, stupid, stupid girl."
"Nah, Nik. You aren't stupid. I would have been more surprised if you had been able to move on without a little nudge. You aren't stupid because you're protecting your heart. That is never a stupid thing to do."
"I guess it's hard to want to open myself up, to be honest. I spent four years of my life with Seth, and I probably would still be stuck in a dead relationship if he hadn't cheated. When I find another man to try with again, how do I know he is going to be worth giving myself over to--worth losing myself in the process again?"
Her pixie face scrunches up. The freckles across her nose look like they're dancing as she twitches her nose at me in confusion. "You didn't lose yourself."
I nod, my face washed clean of emotion. "Yeah, I did. I didn't do anything for me for years before we split. It was all about what would make him happy. I spent so much time afraid he would leave if he wasn't happy that I didn't even realize I wanted him to leave."
"So learn from it! Open yourself up to the idea of moving on, but do it on your terms. Start tomorrow by living for Nikki and making sure no one doubts your happiness when they're on the outside looking in."
Long after Nate had come to pick up Ember's drunken self and I had punched my pillow to try to get comfortable, her words filter back through my mind. She's right. I'm in limbo, and I don't really want to be. I've lost something I loved by keeping myself from getting close to someone--the happiness I feel knowing I'm the reason someone else feels that way. I miss the connection I've deprived myself of. The chemistry between a man and woman. Companionship. What better way to prove to Seth that I'm serious about us never getting back together than to jump back in with both feet. No one says I can't sate my desire for some extra friendly friendship with some no-strings fun.
It's a win-win that even sober me would agree with.
I think ...
"FOR THE LAST TIME, LACEY, it's not gonna happen."
She pouts. Something I used to find adorable now makes me grind my teeth instantly. In the year since breaking up, I seem to have a laundry list full of things I used to like about her. Fuck me; I'm not even sure there's anything left about her that I still like.
"But Shane," she starts, but I hold my hand up to silence her, the beginnings of a migraine already clawing at my temples.
"No more of that 'but Shane' bullshit. You want to jump from licking pussy to riding dick because you can't decide which you like the most, that's cool, Lace, but you won't be doin' that shit with me. I'm not judging this new life of yours. I couldn't care less what type of genitals you want to poke around with. But you need to do it anywhere fucking else than right here."
"We love each other!" she whines. The pounding in my head continues to grow.
"You don't know what love is, Lacey. You don't fuck around on someone you claim to love. I would've given you the world a year ago, but you ruined that when you fucked around. Now you don't just not get my world; you don't get a single fucking piece of me."
Her chin quivers and she blinks rapidly. I know her well enough, though, and she isn't fooling me. When Lacey cries because she actually is upset, she is the ugliest crier I've ever seen. Messy, loud, and hysterical. But this Lacey uses that delicate image of a woman against my protective nature. The one who fakes whatever tears she can muster to get me to cave.
That right there is the kind of woman I never saw because I liked her pussy too much. I let her use me, but I'm not stupid enough to let her back in.
Seeing that her one measly tear isn't going to work, she switches gears, and it's so swift and obvious. I have no clue how I missed this before now. Her chin stops, her eyes still for a beat before fluttering slowly, and I'm sure, she means to be seductive. Her tense posture melts slightly as she walks around my desk with a sinful strut.
"Don't even, Lacey." She stops abruptly, and I can only imagine she's confused as fuck now that both of her go-to manipulations have failed her. "I've got too much shit to do tonight, and we're down two bartenders. The last thing I wanted to do even before all that shit landed on my plate was explain to you, again, that we're not ever going to be together again."
"You don't mean that," she hedges.
My neck cocks back a twitch, and I laugh out a frustrated breath. "Woman, are you dense? You fucked off on me and picked your lover of two months over the man you had been with for years. You decided you wanted to lick some cunt and be wild and free, babe, and that's what you can have. When all that you did came out, that was the day you became no one to me."
"Shane," she huskily murmurs, going back to wounded and tearful Lacey.
"Seriously, get the fuck out. I haven't banned you from Dirty yet, but don't mistake my kindness for weakness. When it comes to you, babe, there are no weaknesses because you. Are. Nothing."
She frowns, I think--I really can't fucking tell anymore now that she's a little too close to her Botox injector friend. I see the spark in her brown eyes the second she decides to, yet again, convince herself that nothing I just said happened.
Fucking hell, I want this bitch out of my life.
"I'm going to run because I know you're busy. I'll call you tomorrow, honey."
And it takes every ounce of self-control for me not to snap. I hold my body still, my face emotionless, and my words to myself. Lacey walks out of this office only because I've had years of practice at keeping myself in control. Inside my head, though, I've got that skinny giraffe neck of hers between my hands and I'm whipping her around like a ragdoll until she can't fucking slither her way into my fucking life anymore.
She's not going to go far. I know she's downstairs below my office within the club. She'll hide in the shadows, but she won't leave while I'm here. Watching from the outside to make sure no one moves in on me--a man she lost a year ago because she got busted fucking another person--another woman--in our bed.
What I need to do is blacklist her from Dirty Dog, the club I'm part owner of with my buddy Nate. I hadn't wanted to do that, but no matter how much bad-mouthing Lacey will do because of it, I can't have her pulling that shit again.
I walk from behind my desk and over to the edge of the room, toe-to-glass with the window that covers the whole back wall. My eyes roam over the room below. Bodies undulating to the music, laughter and yelled conversations hitting my mind like a phantom echo of what I know it sounds like down there in the thick of it. Each of the bars in the vast club are swamped with bodies, and it isn't even time for the dancing.
Business is damn good. Another reason I can't have my ex bringing drama and bullshit to stink up that good business.
With a deep sigh, I rock on my feet and study the room. Two years ago, I moved to Hope Town on a whim when Nate called to let me know of his plans to open a club in his hometown. At the time, I was just managing Dirty and hadn't become business partners with him yet, but I believed in this place just as much back then as I did today.
Dirty Dog is that club everyone buzzes about. Everyone. It doesn't matter if you live here in Georgia or in the middle of the Pacific on the Hawaiian Islands. We're all over the internet. Celebrity gossip magazines almost always have some celeb coming or going from here. And with our recent decision to add-on to the building and make Dirty even bigger--the talk of Dirty being "the place" to be doesn't appear to be slowing down anytime soon. Or ever, I hope. What I had been working my whole fucking life to find was a stable job doing something I love that put money in the bank and food on my table. I was completely in control of my life now. Nothing would change that.
Letting Lacey lead me around by my dick is the
last fucking thing I'm going to let happen. She must have had her brain sucked out of her pussy while she was getting to know her scissor sister because not one time did I let her call the shots when she had my cock.
Control.
As long as I keep it, I don't have to deal with bullshit like Lacey that I finally washed myself clean of.
Three nights later and I'm still short staffed, exhausted with Lacey's persistence, and so busy I've forgotten--again--to fill Nate in on what's happening with her showing up here. I figure, between the two of us, we can figure out how to detach her from me.
Nate took this shift working the bar, something the two of us rarely do but always alternate when they're shorthanded. If I'm being honest, though, I don't mind working the bar. And I know Nate doesn't either. My lips turn up when I see Nate jump on the bar and grind his hips in the woman's face in front of him. A laugh bursts from my mouth when that woman--his wife--shoves him away with a laugh lighting up her face. I'm happy he's found what he has with Ember. She's a damn good woman and the rare breed who doesn't mind what her man does for a living. Something I had thought--at one time--that I would have with Lacey. In my experience, when you're in a sex-driven industry and a relationship, it never ends without jealousy infecting things. Nate and Ember, though--they break the mold. He found his diamond in the rough. Sure, more women like Ember are probably out there, but I'm not willing to sift through all the other bullshit women on the way to find one of my own.
When I was stripping, I knew the chance of finding the 'it' girl was less than none. While Dirty isn't a strip club, all the men who work for us--and ourselves included--were once strippers. We used what we learned early on while stripping. Exploiting people's obsession with sex leads to immense profitability. We started with the base, the bar, and sprinkled in the rest. Damn good music, strong drinks, lines out the door every day from lights off to lights on, and ... our ability to dance.
