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“Let’s get you out of here,” Vanessa says.
The doors to the changing room open and everyone swarms me. I hear a mix of “Are you okay” and “Let’s take her home”. Vanessa is barking orders at the other girls and I know I’ve ruined my spot for tonight.
But I don’t care. This pain is too much to worry about anything else right now.
Until I see Geani smirking at me with her arms crossed in front of her chest while she leans up against the doorframe.
“I’ll finish her set,” she offers, completely satisfied that I’ve failed again.
“Fine,” Vanessa says without hesitation. Her focus is on me and I’m grateful, but I hate that my enemy gets to finish my show. This wasmyshow.MINE.
The look on Megan’s face says she wants to argue, but her attention is also on me. Leeah and Amanda glare at Geani, but she disappears through the doors and I hear the music jolt back to life. The crowd is clapping and hollering, and I’m instantly pissed off.
“I’ll be fine,” I say, trying to get up. But again, I scream in pain as another round of lighting fires through my insides. It feels like someone is stabbing me in the stomach and ribs over and over again. I’ve never felt pain like this before.
“Let’s just get you home,” Vanessa says. She waves one of the escorts over to help gather my things and carry me to the car.
“I’ll go home with her,” Leeah offers, reaching for my arm.
“No,” I say. “You stay.” I take a sharp, short breath. “Finish your show.” Another sharp, short breath. “Don’t let that bitch,” sharp short breath, “ruin what we started. Make it amazing.”
I push out the inspirational ending to my sentence before the escort picks me up off the floor and carries me out of the changing room. The last thing I see is Megan’s worried eyes shifting from me to the ringing cell phone that’s in her hands.
“You’re such a bitch!” Nick yells at me as I storm down the hallway. I’m back in my house, but all of my clothes from this lifetime are scattered everywhere. Gold thongs, gemstone body suits, garters, makeup… “I can’t believe you’d wish your life away like that. I can’t believe you’d want to be that far away from your family! I hope you’re making bank shaking your slutty pussy at strange men. I hope the line of cocaine was worth losing your marriage over!” Nick spits at my feet as his eyes grow darker and darker.
“But-”
“Shut your whore mouth!” he screams at me. I’ve never seen him so angry before. “You’re a mother, Dee! You are supposed to be setting an example!” He swings his arms around the house, gesturing toward the outfits and piles of makeup. “Is this what you want Jenna and Laura to become? Whores?”
“They’re smart women!” I argue, standing up for my friends. “And this is only temporary until I can figure out how to get back to you!”
“You can’t come back to me, Dee. Not after this. I saw what you did with them. I saw the way they took you in their arms and fucked you raw. You loved every second of it!”
“Because we haven’t had sex in months, Nick! You don’t look at me! You don’t touch me! You don’t talk to me! You leave me at home all day, every day waiting for you to return from work! Waiting for you to come back to your family!”
“Here we fucking go again!”
“You’re damn right!” I shout.
“I work so you don’t have to!” he yells. “But go ahead. Shake your ass on stage for a few dollar bills. It’s not like you made bank on this last show. You crumbled, Dee. And you know why you crumbled? Do you know why you had those sharp pains?”
I want to ask him what he means by that, but our voices are almost inaudible. Once again, we’re screaming at each other. And once again, I see tiny ears coming around the corner.
“Spencer…”
I jolt awake at the sound of pounding on my front door. When I look around, I realize I’m not back home with Nick and the kids. I’m still living this life that I haven’t quite figured out yet.
Another round of knocking bangs on the door and I swing my legs over the side of the bed.
I hardly remember getting home. I know that Vanessa brought me here in her car, but I don’t remember getting changed out of my pink dress into my sweatpants and tank top. I don’t remember climbing into my bed and falling asleep.
My ribs are sore as I walk out of my bedroom, down the hall, across the living room, and toward the front door.
When I turn the knob and pull, Tommy is standing on the other side with a pissed off look on his pale face. He still doesn’t look healthy, but the fury in his eyes has me frozen in place.
Fuck.
“What the hell happened back there?” he asks, storming past me and coming right inside without an invitation. He looks around as though he’s disgusted with our living situation. What does he expect? We’re only home long enough to sleep and then we’re right back at the club. “You were working your shit up there. Men were grabbing bigger bills than we’ve seen in there for a while, Trin. What the actual fuck.”
