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I took one last look at my phone to see if Olly had answered my text. He hadn’t. “Let’s go,” I told Lucas.
We stepped forward, Lucas slightly ahead of me, and the bouncer looked us up and down with a frown.
“No couples allowed. Performers through the back.”
I stepped around Lucas, coming to his side so I could explain to the bouncer why we needed to go in. Both of us.
But the mountain of a man stopped me with a hand. “No couples allowed,” he repeated, before returning to his position and parting the curtain. “The lady can go in.” He pointed to Lucas. “You, out. Or through the back.”
“No,” Lucas refused. I took another step forward, and a warning left Lucas in a growl. “Rosie, please.”
I was ready to let go of his hand, to tell him that it was okay, when the curtain opened. Then, I heard my name.
“Rosie,” my brother, mylittlebrother, said.
And he was… shirtless. Covered in what looked like… oil. And glitter.
I threw myself at him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders. “Are you okay? Please, tell me you’re okay.”
Olly’s eyes darted around.
“I’m okay,” he croaked. “But we should really go, now.”
I released him, clasped my hands around his cheeks, andinspected his face. God, when had he turned into the man in front of me? “What the hell is going on, Olly?”
The bouncer spoke before Olly could respond. “Graham, you know the rules. No hanging out in the entrance. Performers through the goddamn back. You’ve got five seconds.”
“Olly—”
My brother shook his head and ushered us away from the club. “Let’s go, Rosie. I’ll tell you everything but not here, okay?”
Lucas’s hand grazed the small of my back. “I called an Uber the moment Olly got out that door. It’ll be here in a few minutes,” he said as he came up behind us and led us away from the entrance to the club.
He took his coat off and threw it in my arms. “Put it on your brother.”
“Who’s this?” Olly asked.
I looked at my brother just in time to see him take in Lucas’s suit. Then, glancing at me and inspecting my attire. He came to a stop. “Oh God, you were on a date.”
I picked up my pace, pulling him after me, the answer to that question too complicated for me to elaborate. “And now I’m here. I’m so glad you called, Olly.”
Just as Lucas was nodding, I heard heavy steps behind us. I turned around—we all did—and took in the man that had just exited the club and was now looking our way.
“Jimmy,” Olly muttered. “Fuck.”
“Well, well,” Jimmy drawled. “Olly, if you were going to invite your pretty sister to watch a show, you should have given me a heads-up.” He looked me up and down with a sneer. “I would have cleaned up.”
I recognized him as the man who had picked up my brother outside Penn Station weeks ago.
Both my brother and Lucas moved forward, partly in front of me.
But I managed to make eye contact with Jimmy. I knew a bully when I saw one.
“Not even a hello?” He clicked his tongue. “That’s not very friendly, now, is it?”
Lucas, who I noticed now had been inching toward Jimmy, came to a stop a few feet in front of Olly and me.
I watched the muscles in his back straighten, his shoulders somehow expanding. “Don’t talk to her,” Lucas said in a hard voice I’d never heard from him. “Don’t even look her way. You have something to say to her, or Olly, you go through me.”
