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ChapterOne
MANDY
“Are you seriously sitting there with a rose in your hands, Mandy?” Ginger, my boss and now friend sat down to ask me. “Are you that lonely since your roommate left?”
I stared over at the redhead with the most amazing clear green eyes I’ve ever seen. She wasn’t much older than me, but she’d accomplished far more than I had so far. She owned the Red Rose Club, the place where I earned my living as an exotic dancer. As she stared back at me without blinking, I crossed my arms over my chest and looked away.
“I’m bored out of my mind. It’s not like I need the money, but some company would be nice.” I twirled the red rose I still held between the fingers of my left hand while I looked around the club. None of the clients even slightly interested me.
“Are you thinking about getting another roommate?” Ginger leaned forward, her gaze less probing now and more on the curious side.
I put the rose down and gave her my full attention. “No, not really. I own the place and can afford the taxes on my own, it’s just evil coming home to an empty house.”
“Then get yourself a pet, girl. Don’t go looking for a man to fill that void, most of the time, all we end up with is a broken heart when we take chances like that.” Ginger said, in her usual cynical way. Ginger had started off as a dancer, but she had a head for numbers and was naturally good at handling and running a business. “It’s much better any day of the week to be lonely than have a broken heart.”
I sometimes forgot that Ginger was a few months older than me, not decades. She had an old soul and sometimes, the things she said sounded like they were coming out of a 40-year-old mouth. Right now was one of those times.
“I know, Ginger, I just need to do something with myself, and no, a pet isn’t something I’m thinking of. I don’t have time for things like walking dogs and taking cats to the vet for every furball they get caught in the stomachs, or whatever it is that makes them hack like that.” I shuddered, thinking of my friend Heather’s cat. That thing was always hacking something up.
“Maybe you can help out with this charity auction we’re doing then? If you don’t want to participate, you can help me organize it, at least.”
“I’ll think about joining in the auction, and you know I’m down to help with anything you need me to do.” I smiled at her with warmth, hoping it reached across the table to her.
To some of the girls here, Ginger was a bitch with an ice-cold heart, but they were the ones that brought that on themselves. Ginger is as good as gold to me, and that wasn’t because I kissed her ass, it was because I treated her with respect. She always gave what she got, kind of like me.
“Good, just let me know.” She started to stand up, but she leaned over instead, a wickedly dirty grin on her face. “Oh, by the way? Your favorite person just walked in. Better put that rose away, baby.”
“No, please tell me it’s not…,” but yeah, it was.
Brian Harris.
Fucking great.
“Damn,” I muttered but heard her chuckle as she walked away. I stood up quickly, hoping to escape out of the back door to the club before he saw me.
It wasn’t that the guy was gross or anything, far from it really. It was his attitude that killed me. He always treated me as though I were dirt on the bottom of his motorcycle boots. The man was hot as hell, I’ll give him that. He had dark brown hair that you just wanted to get your fingers into and tug while you rode those full lips of his. And while you rode that delightful mouth, you’d look straight into the darkest green eyes I’ve ever seen.
If only he wasn’t a world-class jerk that always managed to get under my skin.
I scurried away from him, hoping to hand in my rose to the bartender to throw away, but I somehow managed to bump into a wall instead. I groaned inwardly, because I knew there was only one man that smelled that good while wearing a black leather coat. Fuck.
“Evening, princess. Off already?” The princess part was clearly not a term of endearment, since he snarled it. “I guess nobody wanted to try your wares, huh? How sad. Never mind.”
“Fuck you, Brian,” I whispered heatedly and walked away.
Yes, fuck you, Brian, and fuck how hot you are, and how mean you always are to me, I thought as I stalked away, my left middle finger up in the air behind me. But I still heard the way he chuckled, amused and satisfied that he’d got the better of me.
He always did though.
I drove home after changing into jeans and a hoodie, but I didn’t go straight up to my floor. I sat in the car, eating a burger from a late-night drive-thru, stabbing quickly cooling fries into my mouth.
The truth is, I miss Lacy terribly, far more than I thought she would. We’d grown up virtually as sisters, we’d even lived together for years since I’d inherited my parents’ apartment when they passed away when I was eighteen. But now she was off on an island out in the Pacific, getting her freak on with a man that I had to admit was super-hot. He was some kind of associate of Ginger’s, part of the Russian mob around here, and he’d fallen for my BFF like a rock when he saw her. I couldn’t blame him, she was stunning, beautiful, smart, and funny.
And I missed all of that about her.
I pulled up my messenger app on my phone and sent her a sad face emoji along with the words ‘I miss you’, added to them. I wouldn’t normally interrupt her time of fun in the sun with such a lame comment, but I did miss. I missed her so much it hurt. I missed her so much that Ginger’s suggestion might just end up a reality.
I needed some company, and the charity auction was probably what I needed to get my mind off of my absent BFF and back on my own life. Sighing deeply, I balled up the trash in the paper bag and got out of the car. I hoped I didn’t forget to turn the heating up when I left earlier that evening. Lacy would have turned it up for me when she came home from work, but she was gone. A blast of cold when I opened the door gave me one more reason to miss the girl.
