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CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
*Chaz “Cash” - Treasurer*
Ialmost lose my fucking dinner when another girl is called up instead of Lace. Zane and I are up on our feet in a heartbeat. But her new friend, Remi, comes walking toward us, holding her hands out. “Down boys. She had to swap. Something, um, came up.”
She clearly is lost on the fact that we are gonna need more details than that. Her dark brown eyes flick between us. Zane is surprisingly losing patience faster than I am, and he starts walking toward the tent anyway.
“Wait! Goddamn. Take a chill pill,” she insists.
Zane doubles back, and dropping her voice, she explains with a sigh: “Some bitch bleached the bottoms of her suit. She has to improvise.”
Oh, God, the fucking rage. I hate catty bitches. With a passion. Plus, if anyone deserves to be a catty bitch, only Lace does. Instead, sometimes, she is way too nice. Way too forgiving.
Zane places a firm hand on my shoulder and forces me back into my chair.
“K. Thanks,” he spits out, taking his own seat again.
The two of us wait on pins and needles for Lace to show up on stage. Every time a different girl comes out, both of our gazes drift to Remi, looking for any sense of unease coming from her body language.
Of fucking course, Kris calls Lace dead last. Longest fucking pageant lineup of our lives, especially with the buzz of anticipatory tension floating around. Everyone and their cousin knows about what went down here last night. People are extra watchfu—
Holy. Shit. My eyes sharpen on the fucking goddess on stage.
Zane grips my shoulder again, and he squeezes it so hard I fear it might come out of joint or he’ll break a finger. “I-is she bare?”
I blink. Again. And again. Then I squint my eyes and lean forward slightly as though that might help me believe what we’re seeing. Our assumptions are verified when Remi, who is sitting front and center, turns her head around slowly, and her wide eyes meet ours.
I immediately sling my attention to the crowd in search of security or the law. Then my eyes drift to the judges. Brodi somehow catches the tension, and his eyes dart to our table, but then he just looks at me with utter confusion. They are further back than we are, so they must not be able to tell that she used a thick and smooth coating of dark-brown makeup to draw — paint? — on her suit bottoms, made possible by the complete hair removal Coty funded ages ago. It looks good. Damn good. Probably a little too damn good for everyone in the first few rows, if ya catch my drift. The stage is raised, so with certain movements — which are evident that she tries to avoid — you can see a peek of lips; otherwise, she did a killer job.
I stand up abruptly and holler out, “Yeaaaaahhhh, that’s my girl!!!”
Zane and Remi shoot to their feet, too, and help me create a combined cheer loud enough to get the rest of the crowd going. If they were judging on noise level alone, Lace would win, hands down.
She will win anyway, because none of those women up there stand a chance. Not with the way she shines.
“Okay!” Kris hollers. “Shit! Calm your tits and bits.” Everyone settles down, and Kris continues. “Now that we have seen all our amazing contestants, the judges are asking for all of them to return to the stage. From there, we will call forward the top three who will be competing tomorrow in the final round.”
All the rest of the girls file out, walking past Lace to take their spots. As much as I want to keep watching her, my focus falls on each of them instead, looking for a tell, any fucking tell that hints toward which of these hoes did that to my girl. What will be done about it, I have no ideas yet. I know Lace has this shit handled. She always has shit handled. I would never expect anything less. But somehow, whoever is to blame will be taught a lesson in manners.
Sure enough, this leggy blonde who looks about as plastic as a milk carton looks at Lace in passing instead of waving at the crowd. With her face turned away, I am unable to catch her expression or whether or not her mouth moves to speak, but how Lace slightly tenses is all the proof I need.
My focus drifts to Remi to see how she appears to feel about the situation, and the chick is practically vibrating to get on stage and fuck that hoe up — change her makeup a bit.
Instead, she casually stands, leaves the audience, walks toward the contestant tent, and ducks inside.
After fumbling to get my phone out, with impressive speed, I pull up Crow, who just so happens to be doing Kal a favor and keeping an eye on the streets right now, and shoot him a quick text to let him know that his woman is about to lay someone out. He responds immediately
:Crow: Let her. She needs to get some shit out anyway.
I flash Zane the correspondence before shoving my phone back into my pocket. We both shrug and return our attention to the stage just in time for Lace to be called up to join two other girls in the spotlight.
The girl who so idiotically gave herself away is gestured off the stage along with the rest of the contestants who didn’t make it this far.
“Congratulations, ladies! The three of you have made it to the finals! Everyone give them a big round of applause. We will see you back here tomorrow for the talent round.”
Just as Lace and the other two girls are walking off stage, Remi leaves the tent shaking out her wrist, grinning like she is living in high cotton.
She gives Zane and me a thumbs up, but then follows that with the jab of her thumb over her shoulder as if to say, “Batter up. I gotta get the hell out of here.”
Whether she knows it or not, Remi just earned herself the respect of Hell for Leather and anyone who associates with us.
