Evie hooted. “Moo. You complete cow. You really did talk to him. You’re not just making this up.”
Teela upped her wiper speed but still had to peer though the downpour. “He kissed my hand.”
“Oh, fuck me rigid. He did not. Who goes around kissing hands in the Anthropocene age? That shit went extinct generations ago.”
“You’re more ready to believe I wanked him between appetizer and main course than that he was ridiculously charming.”
“I wish. He is screaming hot. If you touched his magnificent appendage, I want to lick your fingers. Tell me everything.”
A horn sounded. The traffic went nowhere. There was water running in the gutters, a veritable stream. “I will, but this weather is a shocker, and the traffic is a mess. I don’t want to rear end someone when you shout in my ear.”
“Why would I shout?”
“Later. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Why would I shout?” Evie shouted. “You can’t leave me hanging like this. It’s un-Australian.”
“Hang on to this.” Another horn blast. It had to compete with a roll of thunder right over the top of her to be heard. “He offered me his crooked arm.”
She disconnected the call before Evie finished shout-laughing and she was still smiling when the delivery van behind slid into her, tapping her bumper and turning her car into sandwich meat as she was shoved into the stopped vehicle in front.
Other than pride, no one was hurt, but her car was a mess, with both headlights and taillights smashed. It took over two hours to sort out insurance details, wait for a tow, and fail to find a taxi or an affordable ride share car to get her home. By the time she started walking towards a cab rank she was wet through, dress a limp rag, hair plastered to her head and shoes totally ruined. Whatever magic she liked to imagine Haydn Delany had kissed into her skin was long washed away.
Until he pulled up beside her in a limo, flung open the door and said, “Miss. Carpenter. You’re very wet. Get in.”
OFFENSIVE BEHAVIOR
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.
About the Author
Ainslie Paton always wanted to write stories to make people smile, but the need to eat, accumulate books, and have bedclothes to read under was ever present. She sold out, and worked as a flack, a suit, and a creative, ghosting for business leaders, rabble-rousers and politicians, and making words happen for companies, governments, causes, conditions, high-profile CEOs, low-profile celebs, and the occasional misguided royal. She still does that. She also writes for love, and so she can buy shoes, and the good cat food. More at: http://www.ainsliepaton.com.auand on Twitter @AinsliePaton.
One Wicked Lick from the Drummer (The One Book 3) Page 21