Offensive Behavior (Sidelined #1)

by Ainslie Paton

  Melinda moved to stand in front of Vi. “That’s a terrible shock. We need to take care of you.”

  “There’s food,” said Therese. “We’ll have to throw it out if we don’t eat it.”

  Melinda was a mediocre pole dancer but a great nurse. She took care of Vi, made them all sit and eat, told them what happens when someone has a heart attack. Zarley felt dazed. She ate the pasta Therese dished up and drank a single glass of wine in a toast to Lou. He was sixty-three years old. Long divorced. Lived alone. He was a big man with a beer gut and a loud voice. He had a black beard and a gray ponytail and liked his Jack. He didn’t like men touching his dancers. He was the leaseholder of Lucky’s and had run the bar as long as Vi had worked here. And that’s all they knew about him.

  “He wasn’t a bad boss,” said Lizabeth. “Had worse.”

  “There is nowhere in the city like Lucky’s,” said Melinda.

  Part bar, part club, too wholesome to be a regular strip joint, not sophisticated enough to be a popular night spot, not rundown enough to be outright skanky, or aimed at pulling in men who fancied themselves high rollers.

  “He was good to me,” said Vi.

  “Did he have any family?” Kathryn asked.

  He’d had two daughters. One was killed in a car accident when only a toddler and the other died of a drug overdose while still in school.

  Too sad, they agreed.

  “What happens now?” Therese asked.

  “We’re out of work,” said Kathryn.

  “Out of money,” said Melinda.

  Out of luck.

  They parted with plans to stay in touch. Vi promised to let them know whether Lucky’s could reopen, but she was as much in the dark as the rest of them. Zarley walked back to Reid’s, she wanted time to think.

  She was homeless and jobless, but she had a rich boyfriend who wanted to take her to Paris. Reid shocked her with the idea of trying out at Madame Amour. It’d never crossed her mind as anything more than a pipe dream, but now it made her wonder. What if she could get an invitation to perform? What if she won? The scholarship would pay her student loans.

  If Lucky’s didn’t reopen she had to find another job. In every other club in the city, the dancers had to pay a fee for their turn on the stage and were expected to give private sessions, dancing for up to an hour at a time for any customer who paid for the privilege. That was in addition to lap dances.

  She’d be expected to work topless and drop the artistry of her pole routines for the more regular bump and grind. She could be cute and sassy at Lucky’s, but anywhere else sexy was more narrowly defined. She’d be expected to make friends with the customers and use social media to encourage them to come back.

  It was so far from gymnastics it might as well have been cooking.

  There really was nowhere else like Lucky’s.

  But there was Madame Amour, where the feature performers included Vegas-style acts and the dancers were ballerinas and acrobats, where maybe a gymnast had as good a chance as anyone to take the prize money.

  What was the reason not to try?

  There was that pesky airfare for one, and the sense of obligation that went with it. Had Reid genuinely thought she was staying with him because she pitied him?

  She could always try waitressing or retail, though with no experience to trade on, it could prove difficult to get a job there.

  She rang Cara and filled her in on Lou, told her about Reid’s offer. “What would you do?”

  “Can you win?” They’d both watched the artists on the Madame Amour website when Zarley was first putting her routines together for Lucky’s.

  “Maybe.” A strong maybe, but it depended on what the judging team was looking for. They gave points for skill, thrill, appeal and entertainment value; a criteria far more rubbery than for an Olympic competition.

  “Remind me how it works.”

  “It’s a twenty-five thousand dollar cash prize. And there’s a month left in the competition.” She had to check that from the poster in the dressing room. “But you have to be selected from an audition tape to get an invitation to perform and I haven’t applied.”

  “How much do you like this guy?”

  “More than I should.” More than any man. A dangerous thought. She had memory loss when he was around.

  “Because?”

  “Because I need to be focused on study.”

  “Because people who study don’t have boyfriends.”

  Zarley watched the street and crossed when it was clear. “Not the smart ones.”

  “So you pay him back.”

  “In the year 3027.”

  “So offer him interest. That’s a good deal.”

  “You’re supposed to be talking me out of this. You don’t like him. He’s obnoxious, remember.” She could hear Cara moving about, the sound of a television in the background.

  “He grows on you.”

  “What am I missing here?”

  “I had a call today from Plus. I have an interview tomorrow. There might be a job in their customer care team.”

  Zarley stopped walking. “For real?” She was one of those annoying pedestrians. A man carrying shopping stepped around her with an exasperated look. She let him pass, he wore a business suit but sunny yellow socks that reminded her of Dev.

  “It’s probably not going to happen, I’m not the only candidate but it’s something. Did you look at any news websites?”

  Out of solidarity she hadn’t. If Reid didn’t want to know, she didn’t need to. She walked on, listening to Cara.

  “The media savaged him today. He wrote to staff and a couple of websites got hold of it, and you probably already know this. You should go to Paris. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, Zar.”

  She’d had the chance at once in a lifetime and blew it.

  “We could go and I might never be invited to perform.”

  “So you have a once in a lifetime holiday in Paris with a man you like a whole lot.”

  More than like. “I don’t know if my passport is still valid. I don’t even know where it is, burned up, probably. It would take too long to organize a new one.”

  “It was with my birth certificate in my button box. I’m looking at it now.”

  Another weak excuse bites the dust. “It’s not only the airfare, it’s accommodation and food.”

  “Then it will be 3050. He can wait.”

  “That’s not right. I don’t want to feel indebted to him.”

  “How do you want to feel toward him?”

  She was outside Reid’s place now. He wouldn’t expect her for hours. She wanted to feel excited and respected, challenged and cherished, and he’d shown her all those feelings in a hot mess of greedy impulse and irresistible longing. She wanted to feel loved again after so long feeling like failure.

  “I’m here now. I should go in.”

  “Zarley, I’m sorry about Lou.”

  It didn’t seem right he was gone.

  “And it’s okay to want to be with Reid. He’s not like the others and you’re not like you were when you slept around for a fun fix.” Wasn’t she? That’s how it had started with Reid. “You haven’t been for a long time, but you’re still punishing yourself.”

  “I lost a lot of time. I lost my family.” Lost herself.

  “Maybe, but maybe you needed to have that happen to be who you are today.”

  She groaned. “Unemployed, homeless and broke. If you’ve been reading self-help books, they’re not working.”

  “I haven’t. Okay, I read one. It’s called Get Out of Your Own Way: How to Overcome your Insecurities and Limps.”

  Zarley laughed. “It is not called that.”

  “Close.”

  “Did you buy it? I think I’m going to Paris.”

  “Lord no, it’s Gavin’s. Bring me back a baguette and a cute Frenchman.”

  She pressed the access code to Reid’s building. “I’ll need to borrow a big suitcase.”

  Cara sa
id, “I only need a small Frenchman.”

  It made her smile all the way to Reid’s door. When she let herself in she heard music. Not from the television. He wasn’t gaming. They’d spoken once today. He was avoiding his cell and computer, having set an out of office message on all his devices. She followed the sound.

  Reid was on the treadmill. He was barefoot, pounding it out. He was shirtless, wearing track pants, and he was drenched with sweat. Zarley kept close to the doorjamb so she could indulge in watching him. She was more often the watched than the watcher, though she’d studied plenty of male gymnasts, their perfectly sculptured physiques on easy display at training camps and competitions, but there’d been something clinical about that.

  With Cara at her side, she’d engaged in professional objectification. They’d compared the abs and pecs, triceps, lats and quads, chest expansion and skeletal structure of each of the men in the US team. Never with the intention of licking them.

  Reid wasn’t built like a gymnast. Too tall, his muscles were bunched, functional not showy. He didn’t have a gymnast’s learned grace or explosive power and iron control. He could be gawky, halting, unsure of his own strength, like he hadn’t read the user instructions for his body and was still fumbling it out. But looking at him made her go tight with want. And if he’d let her, she’d lick that rivulet of sweat that ran from his collarbone, across his tattooed pec and down the ladder of his abs into the waistband of his pants. She’d tongue him dry.

  And then start on making him sweat for her all over again.

  When the programming on the treadmill ended he slowed and stopped. He didn’t see her till he stepped down. He was overheated but he flushed further when their eyes met.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Little while.” Long enough for it to affect her heart rate. To almost forget about Lou. For her emotions to get screwed up and to feel teary.

  “Did I lose time?” He dragged a towel over his face and chest. “Zarley, what happened?” He stepped in close, but didn’t touch her, aware of his state.

  “Lou died.”

  He forgot about being considerate and wrapped her in a slippery, smelly hug. He didn’t say anything. He scooped her up and carried her into the bathroom, where he ran the bath and held on to her as she cried the tears she hadn’t shed at Lucky’s.

  When they’d undressed and she was curled against him in the warm water, he said, “Baby, who’s Lou?”

  It almost made her laugh. She told him what little she knew about Lou and when she finished he was so quiet she turned her face to check he hadn’t fallen asleep.

  “I know what I want to say, but I’m worried it’s the wrong thing.”

  “Say it.”

  He nuzzled her cheek. “Run away with me. I don’t care where we go. Vegas, Portland, your Waco waterslide, it doesn’t matter to me. I don’t have a job, my friends don’t want to know me, the media want to catch me doing something else dumbass and my girlfriend is on a break.”

  It was a nice way to put it. So far he was doing well. Not turning the pressure up like she’d expected.

  “Cara could stay here and take care of my plants while we’re gone.”

  Now that was a genius idea. “You don’t have any plants.” She played her fingertips along Reid’s thighs, bent up out of the water either side of her own.

  “I could get some.”

  The earnestness in his voice had a loveliness to it. It wasn’t his natural way of speaking. This was Reid doing all he could to please her. “I was thinking we might go further.”

  He found her hand and wrapped it with his own. “I’d go with you to the moon. You name the star system.” He was letting her choose.

  It was enough to make a girl love a man.

  She uploaded her audition tape to Madame Amour’s website.

  The next afternoon Cara moved in to Reid’s apartment, taking over the spare room and setting her sewing machine up in his office, and she and Reid were on a flight to Paris. Business class because he liked the extra legroom. Zarley hadn’t bothered arguing cost sharing with him. There was time for that. In another year she’d graduate, get a job that used her degree, she’d find a way to pay her share even if it meant continuing to dance nights. Or she’d win the Madame Amour prize and there’d be different options open.

  Surprising how quickly her old competitor instincts kicked in. It was easier to imagine winning the prize than it was having a real-world day job. Post college work was a hazy notion. She was supposed to know what she wanted to do with her degree. She couldn’t see past graduation and yet all her classmates had concrete plans. Starting their own businesses, joining companies they’d done internships with, looking for work in a variety of industries all over the country. She envied them the certainty of their ambition. She’d once been like that.

  But sitting beside Reid on the Paris flight, she felt that old ambition stirring. She’d packed her sexiest costumes and favorite music, but had to narrow her performance down to one three-minute selection. That was going to take some thought. But until she heard from the Madame Amour contest organizers, she was a woman in Paris with her boyfriend. There was sightseeing to do and salted butter caramel crepes to eat.

  “Doing okay?”

  She should’ve guessed Reid was a nervous flyer. He shifted and twitched and fiddled and projected his discomfort onto her.

  “I’m great. I like this business class thing.” Legroom galore. Travel for gymnastics competitions had been coach. “Have you always hated flying?”

  “I don’t hate it.”

  She laughed at him. “You hate it.”

  He screwed up his face. “I don’t hate it. I prefer teleporting, but the Tardis was in for repairs.”

  She reached for his hand. “You hate it.” She leaned against the console they shared to get closer. “I could make you feel better.”

  He leaned in. “How?”

  “Take your mind off the fact you have absolutely no control for the next nine hours.”

  “Nine more,” he grumped. “What’s your plan?”

  “Mile-high club.”

  He reeled back into his own seat laughing. Exactly what she’d hoped he’d do. Job done, now to bring it home.

  “I’m perfectly serious. You’re tense. I’m small and bendy. We can fit in the lavatory cubicle.”

  “That wasn’t on the list,” he choked out from beneath the hand he’d plastered over his face.

  “That list was a jumping off point. It didn’t include dining room tables or baths.” Or public galleries or popular parks.

  “It’s not going to include a passenger airline.”

  She unclipped her belt.

  He twisted to face her. “What are you doing?” If she could only bottle his expression to drink on days the serious was too damn high.

  “I thought a nice blow job would work for you.”

  Although she whispered it, he must’ve heard it like a shout. He reached for her and brought her face close. “Are you trying to get me arrested?”

  “You’re the gate-crashing hacker.”

  Reid’s eyes widened.

  While they’d waited at the gate lounge to board, a man with a child on his hip and a waiting wife and baby approached Reid. He wanted to present a business opportunity, started straight in, telling Reid how great his app was while shifting the grizzling toddler hip to hip. Reid had been desperate to shut the man down but he persisted, making every eye turn their way, using an outside voice in the crowded space and outright asking for a large sum of money. That’s when Reid cut him off very deliberately, only to have the man loudly proclaim Reid was an egomaniac asshole, gate-crashing talentless hacker who shouldn’t be allowed to leave the country.

  She rolled her lips against her teeth to stop herself laughing. “Too soon.”

  He unclipped his belt.

  Oh. He gave her a game on look and stood. He had the aisle seat. He walked a half dozen strides up that aisle to the empty lavatory
and shut himself inside.

  She drummed her feet on the floor. He’d gotten the jump on her. She’d been teasing, surely he knew that, right? He didn’t really expect her to . . . in there, did he? Oh God.

  She knelt in her seat, looked around, trying to act casually, screwing it up. Passengers were reading, watching the entertainment console, most had headphones on and drinks in hand. No one paid any attention to her. She stood up in the aisle and went to the lavatories and then blanked on which one he’d entered. Both were occupied. Great reason to go sit down again. She squawked when a door folded open and Reid dragged her inside.

  He was almost sitting in the sink. She banged her knee. He tried to close the door on her foot. He was laughing so hard and they’d made such a commotion, there was no way they’d get away with this.

  He stood in the zero space between the toilet bowl and the sink, his back to the mirror, legs spread so she could stand between them. He had to keep his knees bent, back curled and head ducked.

  “Is this the kinky part, Flygirl?”

  He had his arms around her and she pressed against him, the backs of her knees against the toilet bowl. The tiny space smelled of floral antiseptic and pepper. It was hard to imagine a less romantic location, except for the look on Reid’s face. Soft eyes, the frowny tension in his forehead gone, a quirky smile that was somewhere between laughter and disbelief.

  She got a hand to his cheek, via an elbow to the door. “Is this one of your fantasies?” Would he remember that conversation? The one that had her dance for him and led to spectacular sex.

  “Not until a minute ago. Thought you were bluffing.”

  “Thought you were.”

  “No room to dance in here.” He remembered. That made her heat up from the inside.

  This was still a stupid idea, but it wasn’t impossible. If he sat on the closed toilet lid. If he was halfway there and they were quick. “Show me what you’ve got.”

  “Jesus.” He boxed her face in his hands and brushed his nose on hers. “I was joking. We should get out of here.”

  Inconvenient, unsanitary location, and imminent embarrassing discovery aside, she had to kiss him; impossible not to. He was so delightfully scandalized and easy to please. It was a longer, wetter kiss than was sensible for two people who were calling this crazy off.