Axl beat back the audible laughter, but now his entire body was shaking with it.
She shot him a harder look.
And kept talking.
“Sorry, just to say, even so, we’ve known each other for a while, and I have the code to his phone.”
Axl made a noise like he was strangling.
She smacked his shoulder and got water in both their faces.
He didn’t mind in the slightest.
“Yes, well, I don’t know what to say,” she kept going. “I’m sorry about that. I just liked you a lot and it hurt to break it off, so I didn’t take your calls because, well, it hurt.”
Axl quit laughing.
“Yes, I would have known that if I took your calls, but …I’m so sorry to say this, Flynn, I didn’t, and I moved on and now I’m with Axl and this thing I have with him is really going somewhere. So you were honest with me. And even if it hurt, it was a nice way for you to be. So now I have to be honest with you and say there isn’t really any chance of that.” Pause then, “Yes. It would have been good to know then.” Pause and finally, “Yes, you too. It was …it was good between us. And I’ll always remember that.”
Ouch.
“Yes, ’bye.” She beeped to disconnect and put her phone down.
“I don’t wanna hear it,” she said.
He didn’t care.
“Did he break up with them?” he asked.
She grabbed her margarita in an effort to look anywhere but at him.
But she answered, “No. Though he said he was prepared to.”
“I bet he was,” Axl murmured.
After taking a sip, she put her drink down and narrowed her eyes on him. “I’m glad you’re into me, but I’m not all that.”
“You so fucking are.”
“Well, as it’s good not having a boyfriend who thinks he’s awesome, it’s good you’ve got a girlfriend who isn’t up herself and thinks she’s all that.”
“Oh no,” he said, hooking his thumbs in her bikini pants and shifting her to float just beyond him so he could get them down her thighs. “That’s not good. I want you to know exactly how hot you are.”
“Axl—”
“Naked Jacuzzi sex, baby. Lose the top,” he ordered.
She kept her eyes narrowed on him.
Axl freed the bottoms from her feet and tossed them over the side where they made a wet slap.
He then pulled her back to straddle him, yanked down his trunks, and over the side they went.
And he waited.
Not long after, Hattie lost the top.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
In Her Corner
HATTIE
Thursday late morning, I walked into Smithie’s and the gang was almost all there.
I headed to where Lottie and Pepper were sitting on the front edge of the catwalk and Lottie greeted, “Yo,” while Pepper greeted, “Hey, Hatz.”
“Hey,” I returned. “Do you know what this is about?”
We’d been called in by Smithie for a full staff meeting.
The last full staff meeting had been to share with everyone we were moving to a Revue, though the dancers, including me, had known about it beforehand seeing as Smithie and Ian had talked to us about it to make sure we were onboard.
Having no idea what it was about, I didn’t think this meeting boded well and I was prepared to be seriously bummed about it if it wasn’t good news.
Because, so far, the week had been awesome.
Like, really awesome.
Starting with Monday night, when Axl came over to my place with Cleo after work and I got to give him the equal goodness he’d shown me when he cooked Tuscan chicken for me.
I didn’t cook him anything as fabulous as that as I didn’t have anything like that in my repertoire. But after he got in and got Cleo sorted, I sat him on a stool, gave him a glass of red, and then served up stuffed shells and garlic knots with a salad and tiramisu for dessert.
And he really liked it (especially the tiramisu, and I made mental note that Axl was an all-around coffee guy).
That night, he also brought over a bag full of stuff, and now he had sleep pants, boxer briefs, tees and socks in his drawer and there were some jeans, shirts and cargos hanging in my closet, as well as some running shoes on a shelf.
Now … See?
The week even started awesome.
We both fretted (well, Axl didn’t fret, but I could tell it was a concern) that Cleo wouldn’t take to her new circumstances. But the second she was let out of her carrier, she looked around, went right to my colorful beanbag, jumped on it, collapsed to a hip and started licking her foot.
So, the queen accepted her new dominion by immediately finding her throne.
All good.
It was back to life after that, and that was normal life with some (tentatively) fantastic twists.
It had been deemed safe for the women to do their thing without being protected, so I was able to get back into my studio and start working on the new piece I’d been wanting to dive into.
And when I did, I realized it was a mild form of torture to have to tamp down the need to create.
It was heaven being in the studio. Almost as good as choreographing a new song.
Okay.
No.
Maybe better.
And that was a point to ponder, though I wasn’t prepared to ponder it just then.
Onward with the awesomeness, Dad had surprised me when I went over on Tuesday because he’d discovered online grocery shopping with delivery.
And when I inspected what he got, I saw he didn’t buy a bunch of crap. Most of it was actually healthy.
He also told me I didn’t have to come over Wednesday, because he’d reconnected with his bud, Jim, and they were going out to some sports bar to have dinner and watch the game.
I remembered Jim. He was a nice guy. He and his wife had gotten divorced around the time Mom and Dad did.
And I was glad Dad was finding ways to get out of the house and be with people that weren’t me.
Dad also let me off the hook for that night, saying he was going to try some new recipe, which meant Axl and I could eat and hang before I had to go to work without me having to be anywhere it wasn’t really my choice to be.
And tomorrow night, Dad was going out to dinner with me and Axl and then he and Axl were going to take in the show.
I was a little nervous about that.
But I was also a little excited for Dad to see that I was dancing because I loved it, and although the memories were jaded, the bottom line was, he played a part in giving me that.
The only thing hanging over our heads was that Axl had double parent duty tomorrow, seeing as he was having lunch with his mother.
He’d heard not one word from his father, which I thought was awesome.
And from his take on his mom’s texts, he said, “She sounds like she has it together.”
So that was tentatively awesome too.
And last, Axl and I had brunch plans with my mom on Sunday.
I wanted to see Mom, I missed her. It’d been way longer than a minute (too much longer).
But I had to admit, I really loved my first Sunday with Axl when it was just him and me most of the day. Being lazy and making love and eating when we were hungry and playing Pac-Man.
With our schedules, and just how life had been when we started, it’d all been go, go, go and drama. We didn’t have a lot of downtime.
And that Sunday, I’d discovered that rejuvenating with Axl was the best.
So after this brunch with Mom, I was going to suggest to Axl that, if we could, we made Sundays our days.
I had a feeling he’d go for that.
But now, we’d all been called in for a meeting at the club and I had no idea why.
I just hoped they hadn’t assessed how the Revue was doing, weren’t pleased with it, and we were going back to just stripping.
I didn’t want to go back to stripping.
; I didn’t have a problem with it. I was good at it, made great money, the club was safe, classy, for the most part the clientele was all right, my fellow dancers were the best, so was management, and I could move my body and get in the zone.
But being able to build my routines and roll them out, that had been another creative outlet I’d come to seriously enjoy.
So on the way to that meeting, I’d realized, with Axl in it, and my relationship with the girls back on track and as strong as ever, not to mention Dad being cool, and work having turned into something that I dug doing, I was in a zone where I actually liked my life.
No.
I loved it.
For the first time, I thought …ever.
And that was mammoth.
So I didn’t want anything messing with it.
Although I worried (because that was me), it would surprise me that the Revue wasn’t working. The place had been packed every night, regardless of the higher cover charge and drinks prices.
But I was a dancer, I wasn’t a businessperson.
What did I know?
“No clue,” Pepper answered my question about the meeting, but although she was answering me, she was smiling across the room.
I looked that way to see Ryn approaching.
“Could be anything, knowing Dorian,” Lottie said.
She was right.
Dorian was a rare breed. Idea man as well as action man.
And he didn’t let grass grow.
We greeted Ryn and she asked the same thing as me.
“Anyone know what this is about?”
We all shared our negatives, then Pepper went on to share she had the same worries as me.
“God, I hope we don’t go back to just stripping. I haven’t shown my tits since I did ‘Cold Hearted’ that second week. And I gotta say, it’s kinda refreshing being able to keep my kit on.”
The last couple of waitresses straggled in as Smithie and Ian came down the stairway that led to Smithie’s office.
But Smithie didn’t approach the gang gathered around the edge of the catwalk.
He took a seat at the bar as Ian came to us carrying something that looked like rolled-up plans.
Weird.
I mean, we all knew Ian was Smithie’s right-hand man.
But Smithie had never taken a backseat.
Dorian did a scan as he approached, probably to see if everyone was there.
He then stopped in front of us, crossed his arms on his chest, which made his pecs bulge under his midnight-blue dress shirt (and I took that opportunity to appreciate it), the roll of paper in his hand peeking over his left shoulder.
“Right, you all got shit to do so we’ll make this fast,” he began. “The Revue has been very successful, much better than we’d forecast, and it doesn’t look like that’s gonna slow down,” he announced.
Well, then …
Shoo.
Also …
Yippee!
“So in two weeks, we’re gonna close,” he went on.
There were murmurings of surprise and discontent, swaying of bodies, shuffling of feet.
“For three weeks,” he continued.
Everyone shut up and stopped shifting.
“We’ve been covered in calls from people wanting VIP seating,” he shared. “And they’re willing to pay for it. So we’re constructing booths down each side of the catwalk and elevating the floor so the people behind these new booths can see the stage. The far wall will also be a closed-off VIP area that will serve as a place for larger parties, and when we have celebrity clientele, entourages. Further, we’ll be adding lighting embedded in the edges of the stage that can be programmed to a variety of colors, flashes, streams, etcetera.”
“Rad,” I breathed.
Ian wasn’t done.
“And installing apparatus so dancers can make an entrance from above the stage on hoops, in cages, on ropes and poles and most anything else they can dream up.”
How cool!
“Rad,” Pepper, Ryn and I whispered at the same time.
Dorian kept going.
“It’s going to be a tight turnaround, but we don’t want to lose momentum, so we’re hoping our contractors can hit the deadline. During that, the back rooms where the private dances took place will be repurposed into a kitchen. A questionnaire we sent to patrons strongly suggested that they like to stay for a while and they don’t only want to drink, they want to eat. To fill that need, we’ve hired Joy Anderson to take over the kitchen.”
“Joy Anderson, the woman who does the Joy of Food food trucks?” one of the waitresses asked.
“Her,” Ian confirmed. “It will be an extensive, gourmet appetizer menu.”
“This is so fucking cool,” Ryn said under her breath.
It totally was.
They were taking it from a classy strip joint to a straight-up class club.
And we were in on that. We got to watch it unfold. Help them.
On these thoughts, I studied Ian even more closely.
He seemed his usual.
Confident.
Sure.
But it couldn’t be denied.
He was reaching for something.
Working for it.
Risking it.
Going for his dream. And we got to be a part of that for him.
Yes, this week was totally awesome.
“New furniture will replace the old,” Ian carried on. “More comfortable and styled to match the booths, which will be red velvet.”
“I am loving this so much,” Pepper whispered.
“We’ve also begun booking talent,” Ian stated.
“Uh-oh,” Lottie muttered.
Yeah.
Uh-oh.
More dancers?
Like …
Better ones?
“We currently have three up-and-coming comedians who will be doing routines intermingled with guest MCing the program,” he shared. “We’re looking at more and we’re in search of a talent who can be the resident MC and provide filler so there will only be burlesque routines with the headline performances. No outright exotic dancing until two in the morning after the last headliner leaves the stage. But when we reopen, there’ll be no nudity. We’ll provide costumes, which will be attractive, sexy, and brief, but they will also provide coverage.”
“Wow,” I whispered.
Ian looked to us girls. “I need all the headliners here next Tuesday at eleven. I’ll tell you which of your dances I want you prepared to do. We’re having videographers come in to film your routines. We’re updating our website and we need content for that, as well as teasers and marketing promos to keep our clientele’s interest and get them to return when we reopen.”
I didn’t even know Smithie’s had a website.
“Down,” Lottie called. “So down,” Ryn said.
I just smiled hugely at Ian.
He took in my smile and his lips quirked.
He then uncrossed his arms and showed us the roll of paper.
“These are the plans. I’ll lay them out and you can have a look if you’re interested. Any questions?”
“Are we gonna get paid for that three weeks?” a bartender I didn’t know all that well, though he’d been around awhile (and he was kinda annoying, which was the reason I steered clear) named Craig asked.
“Yes,” Dorian answered. “Any other questions?”
There were more questions, a lot of them (hate to be judgy, but seriously, ugh) were kind of unnecessary (these mostly coming from Craig), seeming like folks just wanted to suck time or make people listen to them talk (again, mostly Craig).
Ian seemed to have all the patience in the world for them (though going on like that was keeping me from the studio), something Smithie would not have. On question two, Smithie would get ticked, ask if he’d ever left anyone hanging, wonder aloud why he got no respect (which, honestly, was a good question), and tell us he had better things to do before he took off and did those things.
&nb
sp; Eventually, it seemed we were going over old ground and Ian ended it.
He then told us if there was anything anyone wanted to discuss in private, they could find him or Smithie.
He unrolled the plans on a table, thanked us for our time and strolled away.
He met Smithie where the big boss still stood at the bar and I felt a little thrill run down my spine.
Not only at the way Smithie was looking at Dorian, with pride and respect.
But there was something different about Smithie.
He looked …
Chill.
“The handover is complete,” Ryn remarked, and I looked to her and saw her watching Smithie and Ian go up the steps.
“Yeah, it isn’t official, but it’s still totally official,” Pepper agreed.
“Good for Smithie,” Lottie said. “He deserves to take a breather from all the time-suck and drama. Craig asking if we were gonna get paid, then asking if PTO would still accrue, then asking if we’d have an employee discount for food, then that shit about a health and safety course to best navigate the elevated floor. I don’t know how Ian does it. The dude is a tool.”
I admired Lottie’s ability to be judgy, but sound like she was just saying it like it was.
Then again, she was.
Craig was a tool.
We all hung back and waited until everyone drifted away from the plans before we went to go look at them.
“Killer,” Pepper said, gazing down at them.
And, man …
She was right.
“I thought the club was hot before, but this isn’t next level. This is five levels above that,” Ryn noted.
She wasn’t wrong.
I continued to study the design, thinking that I wanted to tell Axl to cancel plans with Dad for tomorrow and make them after the renovation had been done.
Which reminded me.
“Axl and Dad are coming to the show tomorrow night,” I announced.
“No shit?” Lottie asked.
“Whoa,” Ryn said.
Pepper just stared at me.
“No, it’s good,” I said to Pepper. “Axl’s going to take him home after my last dance so he won’t have to sit next to him during any out-and-out stripping. Because, you know … gross.”
“If you think it’s good, then I think it’s good. But just sayin’, all this stuff that’s going on with your dad, it’s like a whiplash turnaround,” Pepper replied.
Dream Spinner (Dream Team Book 3) Page 31