I wanted to make something beautiful, and I wanted to give girls—ones who had no one and nothing—the chance to be part of it.
Eight years ago, all I had wanted was to be rescued, but in the end, I’d had to rescue myself. So now, I thought maybe it was worth being someone else’s hero for a while.
Steven went to the bathroom door. “You can have a bit of a lie-in tomorrow. I’ll tell the front desk to ring you at eight.”
Eight o’clock. Nice.
“Thanks,” I replied, turning to face him, “for everything, Steven. I couldn’t do this without you.”
“That’s why you pay me so much.” He winked, waved, and left.
I picked up the makeup remover and went about the process of removing all of Aucoin’s hard work.
If I covered up my bright blonde hair, no one would recognize me right now. I was freckled. My brows dark but eyelashes light. All the contouring and outlining… once you took that away, the person who was left was no prettier or uglier than anyone else.
I turned on the shower, waiting for the steam to fill the room before I stepped inside.
This shower was heaven. The water beat down on my tired muscles, soothing and relaxing the tense spots in my back and shoulders. I filled my hand with shampoo to wash the seven bottles of hairspray out of my hair and then scrubbed off the body makeup that covered all my flaws and the glue on my nipples.
Westin is across the street.
I shivered as I turned off the shower and stepped out to grab my towel. If I walked to the window, would I see him? That was a stupid idea. I was about a billion floors up, of course I wouldn’t be able to find him in the sea of people walking the strip at night.
But I felt like I could. As I walked to the window, I imagined the connection that I used to feel between myself and the boys. It had been a magnet, drawing me to them wherever they were.
I’d just had Westin thrown out of my hotel room. I refused to speak with Landry and Brant.
But I wanted to see him.
See them.
I walked to my phone, tucking my towel beneath my arms, and sat on the couch.
Landry: Brant is coming to Vegas.
I took a deep breath.
He’s here. I typed my response, thumbs pausing for a second before I went on. He’s surrounded by photographers. If you can, you should come get him.
Send.
The message swished into the ether innocently, instead of with the dramatic crash it should have made.
There.
As much as I wanted to go to him—and Aucoin’s image of me rushing into his arms was so very, very tempting—I wouldn’t.
I couldn’t.
I had a shred—a teensy, tiny shred—of dignity left. It wasn’t good and it wasn’t right, but hell, when a girl took her clothes off for money, dignity was a big thing.
I stripped, but I did it my way.
If I was going to interact at all with the boys, I had to do it in a way I could live with. So I made sure Westin wasn’t suffocated under a pile of paparazzo.
I snorted at my joke. Pile of paparazzo.
My phone chimed, and my stomach clenched.
Landry.
I went into settings real fast and made sure my read receipts were off before I opened the message.
Landry: We’re almost there. Where is he?
Across the street from the Bellagio. On the strip.
There. That was sufficient. And there was no reason for him to message me a—
Landry: The Bellagio is where you’re performing. Is it also where you’re staying?
Nice fucking try dude.
You can’t be serious. I typed and sent the response before I even realized what I was doing. “Shit,” I said aloud. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”
Landry: Can’t blame me for trying. And then he added a fucking winky-face emoji.
Nu-uh. No way. We were nowhere close to exchanging emojis. Friends did that.
My phone dinged again.
Brant: So Landry gets a response and I don’t?
It took me a second to realize I was smiling.
God. Why was it so easy to forget everything? I had to remember what they’d done. It was the only thing that would keep me safe.
Keep my heart safe.
I struggled with the desire to apologize to Brant. How did he even know? It wasn’t like the old days when we had group texts. I’d specifically texted Landry.
I doubled checked and yep, just Landry.
Which meant Brant was with Landry. Or Landry was driving and forwarding messages. I guessed that was a possibility.
Westin is sitting across the street from the Bellagio. That’s all.
My message was short and straight to the point.
Then I put the phone on silent. Sure, it was a chicken move, but cluck cluck.
I went to my bedroom, but instead of putting on my pajamas, I went to the closet. What I should have been doing right now was soaking in the tub, settling down, but instead, I was contemplating a move that definitely fell in the bad-fucking-idea column.
“Fuck it,” I muttered. Underwear, jeans, socks, t-shirt, hoodie. I put on my clothes, covered my hair with a hat, and looked at myself in the mirror. The baggy hoodie hid my shape, and without my makeup, no one would know who I was.
I wanted to see them.
Not talk to them. Not interact with them.
Just see them.
And I was going to let myself do that.
Thirty-Three
Josh
Landry: Are you here?
Me: Parking.
Landry: We see him.
Me: Don’t approach him before I do.
Thirty-Four
Josh
The wind was insane, and the Strip made a perfect tunnel for it to race through. My hair blew in my eyes, and I had to keep tucking it behind my ears, or tossing it to the side, as I hurried along the sidewalk.
I lifted my head. The bright lights of the Bellagio were visible now. Having had to park a million miles away, it had first appeared as just one bright spot among many.
It was loud here, louder than I was used to. Everything was turned up to ten: brighter. Noisier. Hotter. Faster. Bigger. Angrier.
Lan was lucky I was here. I should have been back in San Diego, hiding my punk-ass in my apartment. I wasn’t like Landry or Brant.
Or Westin.
I hadn’t gone looking for Betsy when she suddenly appeared like a rainbow after a storm. What would have been the point? She wouldn’t want to see me.
Or she shouldn’t. If I’d had a sister, and some guy did to her what I did to Betsy? I’d have told that girl loud and often to forget about his worthless ass.
Don’t see him.
Don’t talk to him.
Don’t think about him.
I wouldn’t have given a shit that the guy was sorry. Or thought about her every day. Or wished he’d been braver and older and had more money.
None of that would have changed my mind.
“He’s a dirt bag.” I’d have told that girl. “You’re better off without him.”
So, yeah. I didn’t go to see Betsy. But every single part of me wanted to. Instead, I’d sat in that stupid, bland apartment and stared at a picture of all of us and wished for things that could never be.
I stopped in front of the Bellagio, taking a minute to stare at the grand hotel. Betsy was somewhere inside there.
The wind blew, and a spray of water from the giant fountain showered me. Overheated from my run down the sidewalk, it cooled me off, and I let out a breath. Water erupted into the air, arching and curving. Music played, but I couldn’t make out the lyrics.
One center fountain shot a line of blue-tinted water into the air, and it held my attention for just a second. But I wasn’t here to stare at the sights. I was here to find Westin and stop him before he did something stupid.
As I turned, I froze. There, lit up a hundred feet in the air and twenty feet tall, was a light-cove
red marquis advertising Betsy.
God. She had been a beautiful girl, but as a woman? No one in this world could touch her.
Not yours. An angry voice inside me whispered the same line it always did. She wasn’t mine. Hadn’t been mine since I’d thrown her away and pretended not to get her voicemails and messages.
I spun away from her face, pushed my hair out of my eyes, and squinted into the crowd.
Landry hadn’t been joking. Photographers surrounded Westin. It spoke to just how bright and flashy Vegas was that I hadn’t noticed the constant camera flashes two lanes of traffic away.
Westin sat on the edge of a cement wall, smoking a cigarette, pretending like nothing was happening. People stopped every so often, blocking my view of him, but then they’d part and move on, and I’d catch a glimpse.
He had a look on his face, one I’d seen before, and one that made me think it didn’t matter what I did or said, he’d made a decision and nothing would change his mind.
There was a crosswalk a dozen feet away, and I started in that direction when a flash of blonde hair caught my eye. A slim hand, nails painted red, quickly tucked the strand behind an ear before the woman turned, her back to me.
I watched her walk away and turned back to Westin.
A blonde who was too blonde. It seemed like every time I saw a girl with blonde hair, I had to stop and make sure it wasn’t Betsy.
I glanced over my shoulder as I jammed my thumb against the walk button. The woman glanced back at the same time and our gazes locked.
Landry had said she didn’t look the same, and from the photos I’d seen and the picture on the marquis, I’d agreed.
But he was wrong.
Betsy looked exactly the same.
I started toward her. Her gaze searched wildly, like she needed to escape, and I broke into a run.
She stayed in one place, but shifted from side to side, watching me and then glancing toward Westin.
Everything Landry and Brant said, how she didn’t want to talk to them, and how she kicked them out of her dressing room—it had to be wrong. Because she wasn’t running.
“Betsy.” I stopped in front of her, studying her. I couldn’t help the quick peek at the marquis that made me break into a smile. That person was a stranger, but not this one in front of me. I could see the Betsy I knew in this woman.
Her eyes widened when I spoke. “Your hair.”
I laughed, raking a hand through the strands that went below my chin. “Do you like it?”
She might have shrugged, but it was hard to tell while she was wearing a giant sweatshirt. Lowering her lids, her gaze was shuttered, hiding anything I would have seen there. “I have to go.”
“Wait. Why?” I asked. “Westin’s right over there.” I started to point, but she grabbed my arm, pushing it toward the ground.
“Don’t!” she whisper-yelled. “Don’t bring any attention over here.” And then she left.
She turned on her heel and speed-walked toward the hotel.
I jogged after her. “Don’t go.”
“I shouldn’t have come out here.”
“Why not?” I asked. It suddenly seemed like the worst thing in the entire world to go another second without seeing her. No wonder Westin raced through the desert and planted himself across the street. Now that she was here, in front of me, I wouldn’t go another second without her.
Her blue eyes narrowed. “Because y’all are not my people anymore.”
Her words made mine stick in my throat.
“You’re not my friends. You’re not my boyfriends. You’re humans who inhabit the same planet as me.” She pulled her sleeves over her hands and crossed her arms. “Westin is fine right now, but it’s a hundred and ten degrees during the day. You might want to get him a hotel room.” Dismissing me, she stepped toward the hotel, but I stopped her.
“What?” she asked, eyeing my hand like I’d just wiped a booger on her arm. “What, Josh?”
“You’re still my person.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Shaking her head, she took another step away from me. “I was never your person. You don’t treat a dog like y’all treated me.”
Right.
Her reminder brought me up short and sucked all the air out of the world. Yeah. She was right. I couldn’t have treated anyone worse than I’d treated her.
“Goodbye, Josh,” she said, backing away. “And please take the other boys with you.”
Thirty-Five
Josh
Landry: I see him. What are you waiting for?
Delivered 2:15 am.
Thirty-Six
Betty
I rushed inside and back to my hotel room, breath billowing out of me. Landry. Brant. Westin.
Now Josh.
All of them here. All of them together. That meant they still talked to each other. Why was I the only one of the group who got left out?
I stripped the hoodie off and threw it on the bed.
Crap. My heart was pounding, and I was wound up tight. Sleep was out of the question.
So what did I do?
My phone dinged, and I looked at it.
Wonder Twin. My name for Steven appeared on the phone along with a message, and I relaxed somewhat. It was just a link.
I tapped it, watching as my phone loaded the page.
TMZ. Double crap.
Well, that was fast. Pictures of Westin outside along with, Breaking News! Betty’s Ex- Beau at the Bellagio!
It was a photo of Westin, smoking his cigarette, staring straight into the photographer’s lens.
He was just as intense as ever. And even in this grainy, slightly blurry shot, his blue eyes held all my attention. I could get lost in them.
Another message popped up on the screen. Wonder Twin: I know you’re awake. What do I tell People?
We’ll talk. I wrote him back and dropped the phone. In all the time I’d been gone, I’d never been able to find the boys. It wasn’t that I hadn’t looked. I’d gone to all the social media sites, hoping they were there. But nope.
I tried nicknames. First and middle names.
Nothing.
They were ghosts. Brant’s mom had a social media page for their business, but Brant’s face never appeared on it. Once, I thought I caught sight of his upper arm and elbow, but that was it.
Whereas, I had always been easy to find.
I lay back on the bed, knees up, and stared at the ceiling. A long time ago, I’d been in this same position. But instead of a faux-baroque cherub painting, I’d stared at the stained acoustic tiles of a one-bedroom one-bath apartment and listened to my neighbors have loud angry sex next door.
My hand drifted back to the mattress like it had a mind of its own, and picked up my phone.
Weak.
I turned it off, rolled over onto my side, and stared out the window until the sun came up.
For the next few days, everything seemed to go back to normal. I did my fluff interview with People. Steven kept the questions surface, and while I walked away with almost one hundred thousand dollars, the magazine walked away with only a little more than what the world already knew.
I did share a picture of me at seventeen though. Not with the boys. I wouldn’t do that to them. It was a picture I’d taken of me and Gram shucking corn out on the porch one night.
She’d wanted to take a selfie, and we’d made tons of faces, cracking up at the images of us with double chins. But it was the one I’d taken last, flaws exposed by the sunlight, that I loved the most.
Stars without Makeup! The picture was printed everywhere and soon Steven was fielding requests to do barefaced photo shoots.
I let him decide, he was the one who had the best instincts about what to hide and what to reveal.
My Vegas run went for one more week, and the girls and I were doing two shows a day. I had blisters upon blisters and what I thought was the start of athlete’s foot, but I pushed through.
Like I always did.
Th
e boys, I thought, were gone.
Photos of Westin leaving his spot, Josh next to him, were posted online, but I never saw more of Landry or Brant.
They’d listened to me.
First friggin’ time they did, but whatever.
It made me ashamed of myself that I was so wishy-washy. Go. Stay. Leave. Come back.
“Betty.”
I stared at my lap. Had they all gone back to San Diego? Did they live together there? Share an apartment? Was Wes in the Navy, too?
“Betty!”
I jumped, and the folder I had propped on my knees fell to the floor, head shots of male dancers fluttering all over the place.
“Sorry!” I got out of the chair to pick them up, but Steven beat me to it.
“Where are you today?” he asked.
“In my head,” I murmured, accepting the pile. We’d been interviewing dancers who’d made the first cut of auditions for Gordon’s role.
Belles of the Ball was mostly all girls, but there were a few numbers I did with a partner. No simulated onstage sex if dirty minds went there. The male dancers did lifts and supporting roles.
“Right.” I flipped through the pages again. Truth was, at this level, most of the dancers who auditioned were extremely professional. Gordon had been a bit of an outlier with his attitude and sense of entitlement.
A few of the male dancers had stood out though, and theirs were the headshots I chose from the pile.
“Hideo Baba. Rome Paoletti, and Louis Jenks. Top three.” I handed the photos to Steven. “What about you?”
He stared at me a moment longer than necessary before shuffling through the pile. “Um. Hideo Baba, yes. Rome Paoletti, sure. I don’t remember Louis Jenks. He must have been underwhelming.”
“Have them come in, learn a piece with the girls, and perform it. I’ll watch and then they’ll perform with me. We’ll review tape later.”
“Sounds good.” My manager put the photos in the file and closed it. “It’s been a quiet week.”
Boys and Burlesque Page 15