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ONE
Reid eyed the glass in his hand. He swirled the amber liquid. This was his sixth or seventh. He wouldn’t be the only drunk loser stumbling toward a foggy San Francisco dawn. But he was probably the only one who was on his way to making his first billion before he turned thirty.
Whatever the count, the scowling hostess knew by now to keep ’em coming.
Was it a month or longer this had been his routine? Drink till he was a swallow off face-planting the sticky table of the booth he’d made his new home. It felt like years since he’d had an ordinary life; no, not ordinary, there was nothing ordinary about his life, except that it was gone.
That was shit ordinary.
He’d never gotten drunk on bourbon until the night his life came to a dead stop, and then getting drunk and staying that way seemed like the only decent hack left in the world, even though it made him a miserable bastard.
Right now, all he cared about was the contents of this glass hitting his throat and seeing Lux on stage.
He’d already seen her first spot. She’d been dressed as a sexy schoolgirl in a short pleated tartan skirt, a white sleeveless shirt tied under her breasts and her hair in pigtails. She’d be dressed differently for her second spot. Didn’t matter what she came out as, harem girl or bikini babe, she was mesmerizing, regardless of how much or how little she wore, the height of her heels or the style of her hair.
She was his own personal electric shock every time she appeared. More dangerous to his continued health and wellbeing than the cheap swill he was drinking.
None of the other dancers affected him like Lux did. It’s not that they weren’t as athletic, as graceful or as fuck hot as Lux, it was just that they didn’t send him like she did.
Lux sent him to places he’d never been and never wanted to come back from while he watched her for five eight-minute sets, six nights a week.
On Sunday, Lux, and Reid’s liver, rested.
He was worse than miserable, he was a pathetic excuse for a human being, hiding out in the last place anyone from his old life would ever look for him.
Like he cared.
He downed the bourbon and watched while Missy finished her set. Missy was a tiny slip of a girl who danced barefoot and always wore a bright colored bikini. She had short curly hair and a come-get-me smile that made men leave their booth seats for a place nearer the stage. This bar didn’t allow contact between the dancers and the drunks, definitely no touching, but he’d seen Missy leave with another regular, so that rule was wide enough to power a space shuttle through.
Lux never smiled, never played to the audience like the other girls did. It was as if no one in the room existed for her. The only thing that got her attention was the spinning pole and the beat of the music she worked to. For all he knew, she went with men whose eyeballs had dried out, whose tongues flapped from watching her too, but he liked to think she was just using this place for a workout, to play dress-ups, and getting paid for it.
But then he’d always been a big dreamer and look where that had gotten him.
Lucky’s Nightclub.
Nowhere. With nothing to recommend himself. And no idea how to kick-start his life again.
TWO
She wore a new costume and there was always a chance that a new get-up could let her down, but Zarley was betting Lux’s ballerina bitch look was good to go.
Her pointe shoes did feel weird, years since she’d worn them and even then it was only for the fun of it, but she’d spend more time upside down with her feet in the air than she would teetering around on tiptoe. The satin shoes were red and perfectly complemented her black punk tutu with its ass-grazing torn net skirt and fitted satin bodice. The rest of her punk ballerina look consisted of a tight bun, a diamante tiara, eyes done like Natalie Portman in the Black Swan movie poster and bright red lips to match her shoes.
She rocked—but not if you were into less is more. Tonight Missy’s bikini was flesh colored. She might as well have gone out nude. In another bar they both could’ve stripped for bigger tips, but Lucky’s had a keep your bits covered and a no fraternizing rule, which made it virtually a family place in the unseemly world of gentlemen’s clubs.
Zarley could earn more in one of the high-end clubs that charged an admission fee and allowed dancers to earn cash for stripping, lap dances and selling alcohol, but none of them would let her be a punk-ass goth ballerina on stage, so for now, Lucky’s was her sweet spot.
Hidden in the wings at the side of the stage she gave the audience a quick once-over. When she was at the pole she’d forget they were there. She danced for herself first and if the men liked it, well and good. If not, there were plenty of other exotic dancers on shift at Lucky’s, and at dozens of bars more hardcore into the sex industry, for them to get fixated on.
Peering into the audience, she saw regulars, out-of-towners slumming it, a group of overexcited frat boys and, a sprinkling of single men and yes, he was there, again. Alone at the same booth at the back, an endlessly refilled glass of spirits in his hand, not a hint of any food ordered. A brooding mess of a man who exuded s
uch a toxic air of anger and disgust that, despite being a big tipper and a quiet drunk, none of the hostesses wanted to wait on his table.
Not that it meant anything to Zarley. If he didn’t have enough sense not to drink himself into a disease that was his problem. Cranky, moody assholes like him were only her problem if they tried to get too close, when she was offstage, and then not permanently blinding them with her pepper spray or unmanning them with her knee was an issue—but not much of one, and once they were cowering they were easy to get away from.
All she cared about was school and her paycheck, bigger than she’d make waiting tables or pulling beers, and not getting injured. Two, maybe three years and she’d have enough money to pay her student loans. That was a lot of dancing, a lot of days that ended in long nights, a lot of not having much else of a life outside of Lucky’s and college.
But that’s something she knew how to do. Focus. Exclude everything else that was a distraction. Keep trying till you broke something or it broke you.
And it would be worth every bruise, every sore muscle and strained ligament, every bleary-eyed dawn and solitary weekend at her books to have a fresh start.
Back booth dude was nothing except a pang of conscience. He was too young and too pretty, and his clothes were all wrong for courting the kind of trouble hanging out at a place like Lucky’s inspired. A liver disease was probably the least of it if he was taking drugs as well as drinking till he weaved, and on occasion the kitchen served up a fine side of salmonella that could probably end you. Any one of Lucky’s regulars would likely jump him for his watch and phone, and the longer he took to acknowledge Vi for waiting on him, the more Vi was inclined to spike his drink with something that would wedge his very fine backside on a cold porcelain seat for an uncomfortable length of time. He was so out of it when he left here, it was a wonder the cabbies who picked him up didn’t roll him.
He was a total disaster and she wished she’d never heard the others talking about him and searched him out in the first place. She didn’t need to see a car crash waiting to happen.
Hearing her music stopped her obsessing. Skylar Grey singing about needing a doctor. Now it was just the sound and the way it moved in her body and made her want to fly.
Once it’d been gymnastics that was her physical passion. On the parallel bars and the vault, when she tumbled across the mat, she really had been airborne, a powerful force with no respect for gravity and every inclination to manifest wings and never come down to earth.
But that was before.
Now the closest she could get to the sun was a nine-foot, competition standard one point seventy-five inch spinning chrome pole. So she took these moments selfishly. She didn’t look at the audience, she didn’t try to see through the glare of the stage lights to flirt with a bunch of losers and will them into tossing their grocery money and car payments at her feet. She went inside her body, into the rhythm and the melody and pitched herself against bone-deep disappointment, the ache of loneliness and appalling regret, and the laws of mechanical physics.
And she soared.
THREE
Every time Reid cleared his various electronic inboxes, Owen filled them up again. The only way to get rid of the guy was to let him bear witness to the depth of Reid’s fall. That’s why Reid ordered surf and turf with his bourbon and kept half an eye on Lucky’s door. He wanted to be good and mean by the time his former best friend showed his incredulous face.
He waited through Cinnamon and Lavinia, and Missy was on stage wearing an electric yellow bikini when Owen finally slid into Reid’s booth. Owen didn’t speak, but his smothered smirk could’ve provided sustenance to the starving it was so self-righteous. He put his hands on the sticky tabletop, then lifted them again as though he could feel germs invading through his fingertips. He scoped the place out then fixed on Missy, waving his germy hand toward the stage.
