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I run through possible excuses. “How ’bout we say we were with your ‘cousin,’ Mason? I heard he was feeling down and needed cheering up. We stayed in and binged on musicals.”
Mason is Chase’s live-in boyfriend, but if my father knew that Chase was gay, he’d fire him.
“You don’t like musicals,” Chase points out. “You only listen to alternative and punk rock.”
“My dad doesn’t know that.”
Between running his crime ring and sleeping around on my mother, my father doesn’t take the time to get to know me much, yet he expects me to do what he wants like I’m one of his loyal goons.
After squaring away my alibi with Chase, I go to my room to pick out my outfit. I want something sexy but not too desperate looking. I don’t want to look like Carmen, another Club de Sade member who would love to steal my Dom from me.
“That’s right, he’s mine,” I tell an imaginary Carmen as I pull on a pair of ripped jeans with large cutouts showing my thighs.
I put on a short leather jacket over my cropped tee. Showing off my midriff doesn’t go with the winter weather, though it actually hit sixty degrees today in San Francisco. To complete my outfit, I don platform leather motorcycle boots with high heels. I keep my hair simple, tying it back in a ponytail, and add hoop earrings.
Satisfied with my look, I meet up with Chase and hop in my car. While he drives, I look at my phone to see no call or text from Jack still. Should I have reminded him that I’ll be at the Club de Sade? I start texting but then I remember that he still hasn’t answered my question about the cat, so I text:
Did you get my text about the cat?
I get a text, but it’s not from Jack. It’s Kenton asking me about going out tonight. Again. I had already told him I was planning on staying in. I text him back that I’m helping Chase with something but that he and our friends should go out without me.
Not wanting to deal with Kenton—he already showed up unannounced at my house yesterday to ask me why I was blowing him off—I put down my phone. It dings.
I growl. It’s probably Kenton texting me that I’m a bitch. Because I’m not swooning over him like a “good Irish girl” should. Because I believe that my dad’s idea to cement relations with his dad by marrying me off to Kenton is bullshit. The mob needs to come into current century.
My cellphone dings again. I glance at it with no intention of picking it up when I see that the text isn’t from Kenton. It’s from Jack.
Cat’s with me.
My pulse quickens. He’s not ghosting me. That’s a good sign. I lick my bottom lip as I consider how to respond. I type:
Cool. Going to Club de Sade.
Short and simple. That way he can’t read too much into it. I wait anxiously to see if he responds.
He doesn’t.
I can’t tell if he’s read my text or not. There’s something quirky about the way his phone is set up. A random set of digits shows up instead of a phone number, so I can’t call him. Should I text him asking if he’ll be there? Or should I pretend like I don’t care?
A text comes in:
Have fun.
My shoulders sag. I purse my lips and make a raspberry sound.
“What’s the matter?” Chase inquires.
“Doesn’t seem like Jack will be at the club tonight,” I reply, putting down my phone in disappointment.
“Sorry about that. He was fucking hot. But you always find someone to play with.”
Yeah, but I have little interest in playing with anyone if they aren’t Jack. I don’t even feel like going to the club now. Leaning my head back, I toy with the idea of telling Chase to turn the car around. But if I misread Jack and he’s done with me, I need to move on. Best way to move on is hooking up with someone else at the club.
So I let Chase drive to the area south of Market that used to be an industrial district before it was gentrified. The Club de Sade is in one of the warehouses that wasn’t converted into condos.
Recognizing me and Chase, the bouncer lets us in. I decide I’ll look for Aleisha first to vent my sorrows to before I consider playing with anyone. But as I step into the area where members can sit at tables to watch the action, my breath stops.
It’shim.
