by Liz Crowe
“Three,” Evelyn said, sipping and looking down onto the crowd.
“What?” Gayle leaned closer, not sure she’d heard correctly. “Wait, how old are you anyway?”
“Thirty-five.”
“That’s not too old. Please.” She waved a hand, an unwelcome sensation of anger creeping up her spine. “They were early ones, I assume.”
Evelyn glanced over at her, her eyes swimming again. She swiped at them, then attempted to put her hair back up, which drew the gaze of several men. Evelyn was a tall, curvy beauty, with a thick mane of blonde hair, deep blue eyes and full lips. It was no wonder she was getting attention. “This last one…” She stopped and made a face. “I guess it was about four months. Messy. Had to go to the outpatient clinic for a…a…”
“My God,” Gayle yelped, grabbing her friend’s hand. “Why didn’t you call me? I would’ve gone with you.”
Evelyn’s face fell. “We didn’t tell anyone. Austin was with me. It was fine.” She met Gayle’s eyes. “And I wasn’t about to subject you, of all people, to my disaster.”
“I’m not… That’s bullshit, okay?” Anger flared again, hot and choking. “I’m not some kind of fragile waif, you know. If anything, I’ve been there, done it. I can handle it. And I want you to ask for my help, if you need it.”
A single tear slid down Evelyn’s face. Gayle reached over and wiped it away with an encouraging smile. “I’m sorry. I know how hard this is.”
“I know you do.” Evelyn looked away from her. “I think that guy over there is staring right at you,” she whispered. “Look. To my right.”
“No,” Gayle said, determined not to look even as she did. The man was indeed staring straight at her, his brow furrowed as if he were trying to place her. She treated him to a light smile, then focused back on her friend. “I had four of them,” she said. Evelyn’s eyes widened.
“Four? Four miscarriages? Jesus, Gayle. I had no idea.”
“No one does, except Ethan, of course, and he isn’t telling anyone.”
Evelyn frowned at her, but Gayle grinned, shocked and yet pleased she’d managed a tiny joke. She patted Evelyn’s arm then leaned over the railing, watching the roil and pulse of bodies below them. She put her chin on her hands, realizing the horror of those years had been entirely forgotten, superseded by the worse one that had come later. But the memory of her frustration at her body’s seeming lack of basic female functionality filled her mind now. She pushed against Evelyn’s shoulder with her own.
“You’ll be fine. Don’t stop trying.”
Evelyn made a snorting noise and finished off her water. “Austin’s barely talking to me right now. He says I’m too obsessed with it. Keeps telling me if I’d just ‘relax’ everything would be fine. Like he can understand this. We had a huge fight before he left. I probably said some things I shouldn’t have. Shit.” She sighed and wiped another tear off her face.
“Yeah. They don’t get it at all. No matter how great they are in other ways.” She shoulder-bumped her friend once more. “And he’s pretty great. Don’t take it for granted.”
Evelyn nodded. “I know. You’re right. I should just chill out about it.”
“Probably.” She motioned for the waitress again. “I’m going to have more water, then I’m going to dance.” She didn’t really want to, but it seemed silly not to, since they were both dressed for it and it actually looked kind of fun down there in the scrum.
Evelyn sat back again and finished her water. “I’m sorry to be a buzz kill.”
A laugh burst out of Gayle, surprising her and drawing the eye of the mystery man again. He lifted a dark eyebrow and leaned back against a wall-height bar. She watched him, surprised at herself, but unable to stop. Their second water bottles arrived, along with two more clear liquor shots. Gayle frowned at the man. He shrugged, sipped from a brown beer bottle and turned away from her.
What the hell, why not?
She handed Evelyn one of the shot glasses and held hers up. “Here’s to me not being the buzz kill for a change. It’s a relief, I assure you.”
Evelyn met her grin and her glass and they knocked back the booze. Gayle smiled at the sensation of the ice-cold vodka laced with a bit of lemon.
“That was good,” Evelyn said, plunking the glass upside down on the table between them.
“Yeah, it was some expensive vodka. I can tell. Tequila is for college kids.”
Evelyn sat up straighter and her eyes were shining, but not with tears this time. “Speaking of kids, I say we show the ones down there how this shit is done, my friend.” She rose, pulling the gaze of half a dozen men as if she were a giant, female-shaped magnet.
Gayle smiled and joined her, doing her own dude-eyeball-magnet thing. She linked her arm in Evelyn’s and they headed for the spiral stairs. “I haven’t been dancing in forever,” she confessed to her friend.
Evelyn patted her hand, then lead the way down the steps. “Me neither,” she said once Gayle was standing next to her once more. “But I hear it’s like riding a bike,” she said, towing Gayle toward the dance floor. “Or sex.” Evelyn’s grin was wide and wicked. Gayle shivered again, recalling the explicit scene of near-sex she’d witnessed behind the curtain under the steps earlier.
Evelyn turned and backed into the undulating group of dancers, wigging her hips and crooking both her index fingers. “Come on,” she mouthed. The music shifted from loud and annoying to louder and sexy. Gayle sighed and dove into her new life, wondering just how this whole thing might turn out and not really caring at the same time.
Chapter Seven
Look up and to the left.
Noah glanced up from his phone screen and to the left across the jam-packed upper balcony of the club, and saw his friend waving. He sighed, squared his shoulders and focused straight ahead, making his way through the throng. This was not his idea. He didn’t even want to be here. But Jake had insisted and he’d made a compelling you-need-to-get-off-your-ass-and-get-laid argument, even as he more or less guaranteed that getting laid was a stone-cold lock if he partied at Nexus.
At least two women hesitated right in front of him, only moving aside with reluctance when he smiled and motioned he was on his way elsewhere. One of them grazed his arm with her half-exposed boob, which gave him a bit of a pleasant shock, but he kept moving, figuring if this was how the first ten minutes went, he’d be set in an hour or two.
“Yo, dude, about time!” His buddy handed him a brown bottle. “Drink up. You’re behind.”
Noah sniffed the mouth of the bottle, then sipped, hoping his friend knew him well enough by now not to offer him a macro-brew. He did, apparently, so Noah drained half the hoppy IPA in one long gulp. He had come here with the whole getting-laid-already thing in the forefront of his brain, but he knew he had to lubricate his mind first.
“Check it out,” Jake said, jamming him in the side with his elbow. “Six o’clock. Couple-a MILFs, if I’m not mistaken. Right up your alley, eh, bro?”
“Fuck you,” Noah mumbled around the mouth of the bottle, scanning the crowd for a waitress. He needed at least two more of these things if he was going to venture anywhere near a woman. But he looked where his friend had indicated, if for no other reason than to have somewhere pleasant to rest his gaze while he waited for his beer. One of the women had long blonde hair tumbling down her back. The other one’s face was mostly hidden by the sleek, straight fall of her brown hair. Intrigued, he shifted to his left to try to get a better look at them.
He was interrupted by the arrival of his beer and his friend, who’d snagged a couple of chicks into their small conversational circle. He smiled at the women—just girls in their twenties, really, not his type—and sipped, angling for a better view of the MILF table.
“Let’s go dance,” one of the girls trilled, grabbing his arm. He pulled away from her, intent on making eye contact with a woman across the room. Something about the one with the straight brown hair was making him anxious, as if he knew her
or something, which seemed unlikely.
“Maybe later, thanks.” He raised an eyebrow at his friend, indicating the other man should take advantage of the Jake-sandwich option. His friend shot him a jaunty salute, then held out both elbows for and led them toward the stairs. He leaned on the wall-height bar and sipped, content to simply observe the two attractive older women, who appeared to be locked in a bit of an emotional exchange.
After about fifteen minutes, they were both leaning on the railing and looking down at the dance floor when the brown-haired one stared right at him, making him blink fast.
Good Christ in a sidecar. It’s her.
He held the woman’s gaze, unable to stop looking at her even if he wanted to—a familiar place for him, since he’d been visualizing her for the last month or so. More precisely, she—the woman sitting not twenty yards away and glaring at him—had been the superstar of his most vivid and slightly sticky fantasies for the last month or so.
It was fairly clear she remembered him too. At least that was what Noah told himself. He took as casual a sip as he could manage while he waited for her to break their stare-down. She did, of course. He was a pro at this kind of thing. The unlikely, happy coincidence of the incredible woman from the yoga studio being here, tonight, filled his chest and his head, making him wobbly on his feet.
He motioned for a waitress and placed an order for two chilled shots of Chopin vodka, each with a fresh squeeze of lemon, delivered to their table. A bold move, but one he had to make if for no other reason to get her to look up at him. He’d give his left nut to see those incredible green eyes again.
He grinned around the mouth of his bottle when the shots arrived and she did what he’d hoped. He was struck breathless by the intensity of her stare—it spiraled him straight back to the moment when she’d marched out of the yoga room in her miniscule get-up and glared at him until he got back to work. The memory of her—tall, slim yet fit, hair yanked back in a severe ponytail with her somewhat odd-colored eyes boring into him—was etched onto his retinas as if from acid. But it didn’t exactly burn in a bad way.
Her full, red lips turned up in a small smile at him before she handed her blonde friend a shot, clinked and knocked it back like a pro. The hairs on Noah’s arms stood up and his scalp tingled. Luckily, he was enough of a grown man not to pop a woody in public, but he had to concentrate to keep it from happening. When she glanced at him again, he raised an eyebrow, shrugged and turned away, lest he lose his cool and run over to beg her to leave this noisy chaos with him.
Her companion rose, which drew his—and a lot of other—eyes. The blonde was built like a brick shithouse, to put it mildly, and she was dressed to show it off. When Noah’s dream woman joined her, the two of them looked like a pair of models. Between Blondie’s killer curves and Yoga Lady’s slim, long-legged perfection, they made every single red-blooded male on the balcony turn when they made their way to the steps, pausing at the top to exchange comments and laughter, then descending into the mosh pit of humanity below.
Noah sidled over to the railing so he could keep her in his sights. When she hesitated on the edge of the crowded dance floor, he wanted to run down and tell her he didn’t want to jump into the sweaty fray either and she should come with him someplace quiet where they could drink and talk.
But of course, he didn’t.
Blondie turned and did an impressive hip shimmy, backward, into the press of bodies, crooking her fingers at her friend. He leaned farther over the railing, willing her to resist. He swore to himself that if she did, if she turned away from the dancing, he would leap over the side—or at least run as fast as he could down the steps—and scoop her up. The waitress brought him his fourth and final beer, which distracted him just long enough for him to lose sight of them both.
“Fuck,” he muttered. Spotting the two ladies dressed as they were in that crowd of mostly silver and black would be the proverbial needle in a haystack. He propped himself on his elbows and tried, nonetheless, leaving his beer untouched for a few minutes until he gave up with a louder curse.
“Hey, there he is!” He winced at the sound of Jake’s voice. “Come on, man. We’ve been invited to a private party.”
“Not interested,” he said, putting the bottle to his lips and taking a long drink.
“We don’t have to go anywhere. It’s just downstairs.” He leaned into Noah’s ear, breathing whisky fumes into his face. “Come with me, just to check it out. Please? One of those hotties over there won’t take me unless you come too.” Jake jerked his chin to their left. Noah spotted the women Jake had left with earlier. He squinted, trying to figure out if a quick fuck with one of them might take his edge off. When one of them, the taller of the two, with thick brown curls and a huge rack, blew him a kiss, he made his decision.
“Fine. But if I don’t like the scene, I’m leaving, got it?”
“Got it.” He nudged Noah’s side. “That one’s got the hot ‘n readies for you, my friend. He waved at the brunette, who was now licking her lips like a bad porn star. But she did look pretty good doing it. God, he was weak. But still…he needed this, maybe. It would help his mood, maybe. “Her name’s Amber,” Jake said, filling Noah’s nose with brown liquor fumes again.
“Of course it is,” he said with a sigh and followed his friend to the women, then down the stairs, around the dance floor where he assumed his real dream woman was having a grand old time, and through a set of double wooden doors behind the DJ. A cool puff of air hit his face, which was a relief after the heat of the main room. He took a step forward into the low-lit room and met with a hand to his chest.
“Hold up, buddy. Twenty bucks. Cash only.”
“But…” He tried to see Jake, but he’d disappeared into the gloom along with the chick who obviously shilled for this fucking place, blowing kisses and licking her damn lips at any fool who’d follow her. He didn’t have twenty to spare, but he’d come this far, might as well see what was what. He’d never find Yoga Lady out there, anyway. He handed the goon in a suit a twenty, then made his way farther into the room.
Once his eyes adjusted, he saw what appeared to be a repeat of the action outside, only with less overhead lighting. There was a large, seemingly clear acrylic bar staffed by half a dozen women and a couple of guys. Waitress types moved around the clumps of small tables. Music played loud enough to cover most conversations but not loud enough to deafen. The biggest difference his brain finally absorbed was that the women who were sitting, chatting, drinking and flirting were dressed in just enough for it not to be a strip bar.
He eased farther into the room, hugging the perimeter and observing. The women were good-looking, of course, worthy of his twenty bucks’ admission. He berated himself, thinking this would have been anything but some kind of a money grab for hapless, dateless, non-dancing dumb-asses. He finally caught sight of Jake. The guy was settled into a chair with a girl who was not the Amber-bait leaning close to him, her boobs spilling out from under a tacky crop-top. Jake was, of course, mesmerized. The guy was an easy mark for shit like this. Of Amber, there was no sign. She must be back outside, blowing kissing to lunkheads and luring them to the ‘private party’.
Noah sighed and stuck his fingers in his jeans pockets. He looked around a bit more, noting how close the women would get, but also noting there was a clear line of demarcation. Wondering for a hot second how much more it would cost to the get the full lap dance, he headed for the bar, ready to break his four-beers-and-done rule for the night. His head still spun from the memory of her eyes, her hair and that incredible body in the god damned tiny, yet perfect silver dress. His Yoga Lady…
He sighed and leaned forward, ordered a local IPA, flirted half-heartedly with a couple of the planted, half-dressed chicks until they gave up on him. When he turned and leaned backwards on the bar top, determined to at least get a few voyeuristic jollies for his twenty, he saw Jake had disappeared. Not terribly surprising, since the guy was nothing if not direct when it ca
me to women and what he wanted from them. Noah put the bottle to his lips and was shocked to find the thing already empty.
Deciding he should do his friendly duty and figure out where the guy was, just in case this was a shake-down joint on top of everything else, he moved through the crowd, deflecting the women and keeping his eyes on a couple of doorways covered in black, flowy material, like curtains. The high, lilting laughter coupled with low, masculine chuckles and utterances he couldn’t make out all the way through the room. When he got to one of the doorways, another suit stopped him. Big surprise.
“Sorry, pal. You don’t come back here without an escort.”
“Good name for it,” he said. “I’m trying to find my friend. To let him know I’m leaving.”
This seemed to perk the bouncer guy up. “Hey, don’t go yet. You just got here.” He made a subtle motion with one hand and a couple of girls materialized as if conjured from thin air. Noah sighed at the sad dreariness of the whole scene and the girls looped their arms into his and guided him toward a table.
“I’m not interested, ladies. Really.” One of them gave him a not-too-gentle shove into a chair, then giggled to her friend before turning to face him. She was older than most of the companions, which piqued his waning interest. She had long, jet-black hair and startling blue eyes which seemed to bore into him, as if reading his reluctance and willing him to think differently. She smiled, slowly, and put her hands on the chair arms where he sat, pinning his wrists and giving him an unadulterated view of her tits. They were not huge, but not small either and tipped with dark, rock-hard nipples… Just right, he thought with a wry smile, releasing the big-boy control he’d kept over himself, groaning under his breath when his dick hardened, trapped as is was under too-tight jeans. He tried to move his arms to reach for her, but she kept pressing down, letting him leer all he wanted, but not touch.
Another hand landed on his thigh, making him flinch. “We get to touch,” the woman whispered, giving him a face full of spearmint fumes and a whiff of booze.