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She’s basically crumbling underneath me. Maybe nobody ever talked to her like this before. Maybe she just needed to be punched and pinned to the ground by another stripper.
Odd, since I’ve never actually been in a physical brawl before. I admire myself in this life. I’m kind of a badass.
Though Dorion definitely knocked me down a few pegs. Geani certainly got what she wanted when she set me up for that.
“Tell ya what,” I say, still sitting on her, but putting my hands on my thighs and looking up, unable to believe what I’m about to offer her. “How about we just work together?”
She stops crying and her brows furrow. “Yeah. Okay. Let’s just work together.” She mocks me, rolls her eyes and wipes away a tear.
“I mean it,” I say. I try to give her a look that tells her I’m not kidding.
Geani studies my face for a few seconds and then asks, “Why? Why would you help me?”
I have instant flashbacks to Nick as I look down at her and meet her gaze. “Because I know what it’s like to want to be a team. And I also know what it’s like to have that team constantly butting heads. Quite frankly, I’ve had about the shits of it. I’m done fighting people.”
“I want to be done fighting people,” Geani admits. Her voice is soft, like she’s almost embarrassed to admit that she wants to get along. Like she’s never had to tell anyone the truth before because she just deals with everything as it comes her way.
“So, you’ll take my offer?” I ask.
She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t nod. But most importantly, she doesn’t shake her head.
“I’ll take your silence as a ‘yes’,” I say as I stand and give her a second to breathe normally. Then, I offer her a hand and help her up off her back. My head hurts and her nose is still bloody, but apparently a good brawl is what every starting friendship needs.
I go to take a step and say something else to her, but my throat closes. I can’t breathe. My chest hurts. And I begin to stumble over my own two feet.
Geani looks scared and reaches for my arm to steady me, but I’m clawing at my own throat trying to get air into my lungs.
After a few more seconds of feeling like I’m going to die, my throat opens back up and I gasp for air, feeling it fill my lungs and burn as I take a few more deep breaths.
“What the fuck was that?” Geani asks. Her chest is rising and falling almost as hard as mine is. I actually scared her. My being in danger was scary for Geani.
“I don’t know,” I say, almost choking on my words. I take some more breaths and try to cough out the pain in my throat. “I’m fine.” I take another deep breath and push it back out, resting my hands on my hips and feeling the life flood back into my body. “That was weird.”
“I’d say,” she says. Then, once my breathing is back under control, Geani adds, “I’d hate for you to die right before you give me the okay to join you on stage.”
This makes me laugh. “Yeah. That would be a real shame.”
We walk over to her car and I help load her bags into the trunk.
“I’m guessing I’m giving you a ride home,” Geani says, raising a brow at me.
“It does appear to be that way,” I say, looking around at all the nobody in the parking lot with us.
“Where are your friends?” she asks.
I shrug. “They never came home. I was flooded with texts and phone calls telling me that I’m a shitty person and that I’m fired.”
I try not to get pissed off at Geani all over again. Considering it’s her fault that all this happened.
She swallows hard and doesn’t say anything else, most likely putting the puzzle pieces together and taking an internal blame for my demise.
Geani takes her keys from her pocket and offers me a smile. I smile back and we walk around the car to get inside. As I’m reaching for the handle, I feel the same pain in my throat, only this time, it’s spread through my entire body.
And I go crashing onto the pavement.
Chapter twenty
Wait... Wait... A Coma?
