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“And if you’re smart, you can meet some important people. People who might be able to help you.”
“Like you.”
Gid burst out laughing. “Fuck yeah, like me. Or like Eric, even though he’s being a jackass tonight.” He nodded toward the table where Auggie had witnessed the earlier disagreement. One of the men was dark-haired with zaddy vibes. He was talking to a blond guy who looked like a walking advertisement for CrossFit. Whatever disagreement had happened earlier, the two men seemed past it. “Eric’s the kind of friend you want even if he is an ungrateful turd sometimes. And Jace—well, you want to know about dangerous? Trust me, you don’t want to get on Jace’s bad side.”
Eric, Auggie thought. Jace. Ingra. Gid. He had a good eye for faces, and he studied the men for another moment. As though sensing the attention, the blond man—Jace, Auggie guessed—raised his head and glanced over. His eyes flicked past Auggie to Gid, and his expression darkened before he lowered his head and said something to the other man—Eric.
“What do you think, Gus?” Gid laughed again. “Glad you met your buddy Gid?”
Auggie nodded.
“Let’s get you a girl, how about that? You seen any of them you like?” Gid fumbled a fat leather wallet out of his pocket and tossed it on the table. “You ever had a lap dance? God, I bet you’re just going to squirt the first time you get a cooze rubbing on you. What about Celeste, you like her?”
The woman with the glow-in-the-dark mouth smiled vacantly down at the stage as she did another twirl.
“I heard—” Auggie stopped. He wet his lips, and then, like he was bracing himself, dashed off some more of the beer. “I heard you can do other stuff here. I heard they’ve got other stuff you can do.” He let a beat pass and blurted, “With a girl.”
The music changed. “Cherry Pie.” A drunken whoop went up from a big, bearded man near the stage. Auggie wondered if they’d plucked the playlist from the internet, if that’s how they did this. There couldn’t be somebody DJing this shit.
Gid’s bleary gaze sharpened. “What kind of thing?”
Auggie didn’t have to feign nervousness. He squirmed in his seat. His phone buzzed again, and he wrapped his hands around the half-empty glass of beer, flexed his fingers, wrapped them tight once more. “I don’t know.” He looked down at the table. “That’s just what somebody said.” He weighed the risk and then said, “My friend, Shaniyah told me that.”
But if Gid recognized the name, it didn’t show on his face. “Oh yeah? What’d they say?”
Auggie shook his head.
“Go on,” Gid said.
“That if you want to…do something,” Auggie said. “Something different.” He raised his eyes and went for challenging—only a heartbeat, but direct. “There are girls other places, you know. I didn’t have to come here if I just wanted a girl.”
Gid stared for another moment. Then he sagged back, laughing. “You want to cork her from behind or something? Christ, kid, you’ve got no idea the kind of shit you can do. You got no idea.”
Auggie looked down again, but he gave a stubborn shake of his head. He could feel the ice buckling beneath his feet; one wrong step, and the whole thing would fall apart.
“Oh yeah?” Gid chuckled. “You know what you want, huh? You get on the internet, and you watch a little porn, and you know what puts the ram in your rod. Kid, you don’t know shit. Come back in ten years. Come back when you’ve made it past second base, Christ’s sake.” It looked like Gid might have stopped there, but his face was flushed, his eyes beer bright, and that energy Auggie had sensed, that need to soothe his own ego, spurred him on. “You know the right people, have the cash—wild doesn’t even begin to describe it. Last weekend, we had the back room, this pretty little thing, you wouldn’t believe the sounds—” He cut off, staring at Auggie, and the color drained from his face. Music pounded. A woman was screaming to make herself heard, saying something about chicken wings. But through the din, a silence ballooned between Auggie and Gid. Weaving slightly, Gid pushed himself back from the table and mumbled, “Not really your scene, kid.”
Auggie nodded. He tried to think nothing. He imagined emptiness and tried to let it fill his face.
“Gotta hit the head.” Gid worked a few bills out from his wallet, dropped them on the table, and gave Auggie another wide-eyed look. Then he lurched away from the table.
Auggie counted to five in his head. Then he turned, making the movement as casual as he could. Down the hallway that led to the restrooms, Gid was talking to a brown-skinned man who might have been Auggie’s height. Young, Auggie thought. But old eyes. A ridge of scar tissue marked his neck. Gid was saying something in a low voice, shoulders hunched, wiping his hands on his pants.
Auggie slid out of the chair and started toward the door.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Theo raise his head and cast a glance over at him. Auggie jerked a nod, and Theo dropped off his stool. When Auggie glanced back, the short man with the scar stood at the mouth of the hallway, watching Auggie. Their eyes met. Then the man started after him.
Auggie walked faster. Not quite a run, not yet, but he kept his head down and moved. He passed through the curtained vestibule, nodding at the bouncer as he went. A wall of damp Midwestern heat met him, with the smell of trampled clover and puke and hot engines. He still wasn’t running, but the gravel sounded like slush under his footsteps. He couldn’t leave Theo. Maybe circle around, maybe the back entrance. The sound of the gravel was so loud Auggie couldn’t hear anything else. He worked his phone out of his pocket, saw the series of unread messages from Theo, tapped one to open the thread. Tried to tap. His hands were shaking, and he missed.
A hand caught his arm.
Auggie spun around, bringing up a fist.
“It’s me!” Theo released him. “Auggie, what—”
Auggie pushed Theo aside to get a look back at the club. For a moment, in the darkness, he couldn’t see anything. And then he saw the outline: someone standing in a pocket of shadow, watching them.
“Get in the car.”
