by Kaylee, Katy
And although I hadn’t become a part of the Hendricks family, I’d stayed close with Hollie. She’d been my best friend since the day Harrison had rescued me. We were always in the same classes at school, and we had a sleepover at Hollie’s house almost every weekend. My own foster family didn’t pay that much attention to me beyond doing the bare minimum, but I didn’t care.
In my dreams, I was a member of the Hendricks family.
And in my secret, innermost thoughts, Harrison was my hero. I dreamt about him constantly. I loved him with the pure, sweet love that only a young girl could know.
Now, my love for him didn’t feel quite so pure. Looking at him made my whole body tingle with desire, and even now, I couldn’t seem to let go the fantasy of being with such a man, a man who saved me from a lifetime of horrors and abuse. And although he’s handsome, that had little to do with my feelings for him. Harrison was strong and kind and generous.
I knew I’d never find a better man than him.
Maybe now, staying with him and Hollie over the summer, things would finally change. I hoped more than I dared admit, even to myself, that Harrison would wake up and realize how much I’d always loved him and dreamed of him.
I glanced over at Hollie, sipping a pink, fruity cocktail and my hopes faded a little bit. I wouldn’t ever want to hurt her – she’s my best friend – and we’d always dreamed of working together. Hollie had always wanted to open a private medical practice and have me by her side as her lead clinical counselor. But after everything that happened at school, I had started to think that I wasn’t cut out for that life. I didn’t do well enough a basic psych class, and I had to find a job to be able to afford fall tuition.
Hollie knew that I found a job.
She was proud of me, telling me that she was sure I’d kill at it, whatever it was.
The problem was, well, I couldn’t tell her just what I’d be doing.
Come this weekend, I was going to start working as a stripper.
And I knew I’d have to keep it a secret for the rest of my life.
3
Harrison – Thursday
I sat at the bar with Steve, my partner, and sipped another watered-down drink. Strip clubs weren’t exactly famous for heavy pours, but at least it was something. The Pink Diamond was located just outside of Chicago, just far enough to allow alcohol at all, and I was grateful for the distraction.
I couldn’t stop myself from wondering just how long this fucking assignment was going to take. I was sick of the cheap strip club. Sick of the people in it. Sick of my work overall, even though I knew this assignment was an important one that would likely lead to a satisfying payoff.
Over the last years, I’d become sick of life in general. It happened right around the time Krista left. I’d worked so hard to make detective and make my way through the various departments, but I’d found myself suddenly wondering what the hell the point had been.
Now, I just felt like I wanted it all to be over. Especially if it meant the end of long nights spent sitting at the bar of The Pink Diamond.
“You ever wonder why the fuck we put up with this?” I asked Steve, turning to him and finishing my drink.
Steve narrowed his brow at me. “You don’t normally talk like that,” he said slowly. “Something bothering you?”
I frowned. Something was bothering me: the fact that now, Paris was once again living under my roof. Maybe that was why I was having a harder time than usual concentrating on my work.
Jesus, just thinking about her was difficult. I kept picturing her sitting at the table at that sushi place, licking her lips and shyly smiling at me.
It killed me. She probably had some kind of crush on me, the kind of thing that she’d get over. Hell, she probably even had a boyfriend at school.
And why the hell was I acting like this, anyway? Acting like some idiot teenager with a crush on the most popular girl in school.
I was in fucking trouble if I couldn’t get Paris out of my head, but that wasn’t something I’d ever admit to Steve.
“I’m fine,” I muttered. “Just tired. I want this to be over.”
“No kidding,” Steve said. Having clearly misunderstood me, he continued: “My wife ain’t happy about this. She doesn’t want me hanging out in a titty bar, even though she knows it’s for work.” He rolled his eyes and drained the last of his drink.
“Yeah, well, can you blame her?” I asked. On stage, dancers gyrated their hips and cupped their breasts, turning to all the patrons with smiles that were supposed to look sexy, but mostly just looked bored. Maybe it was because I was getting old, but the whole concept of stripping seemed ... uncomfortable to me. Those shoes, their knees on the hard floors as they crawled to collect their tips from horny patrons.
Besides, I’d always disdained men who had to pay women to fuck them or pay attention to them. It was base. Maybe the reason I was so uncomfortable there was because I worried I was turning into that kind of man: a pathetic, old, lecher who needed to stare at fresh young pussy in order to feel alive.
Fuck, I was depressed.
My boss was convinced that the owner of The Pink Diamond was running a drug ring, with the strip club serving as nothing more than a front. At first, the assignment had sounded meaty, something I could really sink my teeth into.
Now, I was starting to wonder why I’d taken it at all.
As I motioned at the bartender for a refill, I heard a squeal of delight from across the room. The sound made me flinch.
“Could be worse, though,” Steve said. He took a swig of a fresh drink and raised an eyebrow at me. “Nice scenery.”
Seconds later, a pair of skinny, deeply tanned arms wrapped around me from behind.
Ah, yes.
My least favorite part of the job.
Faking a relationship with the star performer of the club, Madison Maxx.
“Hi, baby,” Madison cooed in my ear. She smelled like cheap rose perfume and cigarette smoke, and I gently detached her arms from my torso before turning around on the stool. Getting to my feet, I hugged her as lightly as I could.
“I love seeing you here so often,” Madison said sweetly. She batted her lashes at me and Steve. “You’re like, such a devoted boyfriend. I swear, all the other girls are so jealous.”
I pasted a fake grin across my face. “You know me,” I lied. “Can’t stay away from this place. I love seeing my baby dance for me,” I added, hoping the lie was enough to convince her.
Madison grinned like a fox. Sometimes, I wondered if she really bought the lies that I was selling her. Maybe she was smarter than she looked – maybe she knew it was all bullshit. After all, strip clubs were sold as fantasies to everyone. The idea of taking your clothes off for a bunch of strangers and getting turned on ... maybe it wasn’t just an illusion for lonely, horny men.
But judging by the lovestruck in her eyes, Madison indeed bought my lies.
“Baaaaaby,” Madison said, stretching out the word to four syllables. “You have to promise that you’ll buy a dance after my next song. I miss you,” she added, pouting and making her blue eyes big.
I grinned at her. “Whatever it takes to make you happy, babe,” I replied. “You know that.” With her eyes on mine, Madison reached for the rest of my drink and threw it back in one gulp. She moved in for a kiss but I tilted my jaw at the last second and her freshly painted lips landed on my cheek.
“Bye, baby,” she cooed. Blowing a kiss at Steve, Madison burst into a girlish giggle and flounced away on her plastic platform heels. As soon as she was gone, I rolled my eyes.
“Don’t even say it,” I told him sternly.
Steve smirked at me. “Oh, the hardships we have to endure,” he said. “Got a nice body on her, doesn’t she?”
I thought of Madison Maxx: her honey-blonde hair that obviously came from a bottle of peroxide. Her blue eyes, perpetually caked in glitter and fake lashes. Her gigantic fake tits, which she’d once bragged to me had been paid for by a singl
e “fan” of hers.
“It is a hardship,” I said finally. “I’m not really interested in women who are mostly plastic.”
I expected Steve to snicker, but he narrowed his eyes at me.
“What?” I asked him flatly.
“Nothing, man,” Steve said. “It’s just ...” He trailed off, still looking troubled. “What the fuck are you interested in, then?”
I didn’t reply.
“It’s been years since Krista left your sorry ass, and you haven’t shown a lick of interest in any woman – real or plastic.”
I sighed, still not answering.
I could never tell Steve the truth: that I was thinking of Paris and her young, beautiful, natural body. That morning, I stumbled on her coming out of the bathroom in just a towel. The white cotton hadn’t quite been enough to conceal her ripe curves, and the sight of her, almost naked, hadn’t done fuck all to push away my dirty thoughts. If I were to ever want another woman, I’d want her.
Hell.
I do want her.
But there ain’t shit I can do about. She’s off-limits, and she always will be.
Thankfully, at that moment, the music changed and the two girls doing a lackluster striptease on stage climbed off. Madison’s signature song came on over the speakers and she emerged in a sparkly, sequined corset and matching thong. A playful grin was on her face as she stalked out to the pole and wrapped her hand around it, making eye contact with me before bending over. Her tits spilled out of her corset and with an expert hand, she pulled it off and tossed it to the side.
As I began to play the part of a dutiful boyfriend, pulling bills out of my wallet and tossing them at her nearly naked, writhing body, I pushed all thoughts of Paris out of my head and turned to work.
It wasn’t Madison that I was attracted to – it was the possibility of finally closing this case. As I threw more money at my “girlfriend”, I silently thanked her for giving me a reason to come here every night. After all, I had to keep an eye on operations.
Tonight, I was planning to cause a diversion that would let Steve into the back room and copy the owner’s hard drives. Now, I was just waiting for the perfect opportunity.
I didn’t have to wait long. Madison finished her song and I paid her for a dance, then she got back up on stage in a sequined thong and matching pasties. As she got down on all fours and showed off her assets, I noticed a drunk guy over to the side getting a little too close to her.
Bingo, I thought. You poor fucker.
The drunk guy kept reaching for Madison’s dangling breasts. When his hand brushed her skin, I leapt into action and grabbed the guy back by the collar before security could step in. We stumbled together and landed on the floor, where I wrestled him down and gave him a hard clip to the jaw that knocked his head back.
“Hey, you fucker,” the guy growled. He threw a punch at me, which I dodged. I was determined to keep my hands on him until the commotion was big enough to drag the owner, Angel, out of his office. Soon, the guards were surrounding us, pulling me off of the drunk guy.
Seconds later, Angel himself was standing there. An attractive man with tattoos and flashing dark eyes, he looked pissed as hell.
“What the hell are you doing in my club,” he growled at me. “You’d better watch your ass, or I’ll ban you.”
Madison caught sight of the whole spectacle. She looked wide-eyed as she darted over and took my arm.
“He was just trying to protect me, Angel,” she pleaded as she took my arm in her hands. “That asshole was trying to put his hands all over me!”
Angel rolled his eyes. “Whatever, enough,” he said. “Behave yourself, you understand me?”
I nodded, playing the repentant man as hard as I could.
“Come on,” Angel said, taking Madison’s arm and dragging her back to the dressing room. I rolled my eyes, knowing she was in for a lecture about dating clientele, but that was fine.
The plan had worked. I counted the seconds until Steve re-appeared, then jerked my chin at the exit for him to leave. As soon as I saw him disappear into the parking lot, I breathed a sigh of relief.
My body was hurting from the fake fight – it was true that I was no longer a young man. With an ache in my gut, I turned to the bar and flagged down the bartender for a drink.
Now, I didn’t have shit to do until my “girlfriend” came back.
Fucking great.
4
Paris – Friday
With a big yawn, I walked over to the coffee pot and frowned at it. It wasn’t like the small one that Hollie and I shared in our dorm room at MontClaire. It was a complicated, large contraption that I somehow guessed brewed a ton of coffee.
Was it possible that Harrison drank all of that himself?
I couldn’t stop myself from yawning again, and I rubbed my eyes with both of my fists. I’d barely slept the night before, meaning that I was once again, up way too early.
If I didn’t have so much anxiety about my new job, things might have been different.
As I fumbled with the coffee maker, the door from the garage swung open and Harrison appeared. My heart started to thud faster, just like it always did when I saw Harrison. God, he was always so handsome ... even when he looked wrung-out and exhausted, just like he did then.
“Hey,” I said shyly. “Good morning.”
Harrison looked surprised to see me awake.
“You want some coffee?” I asked. “I mean, I probably screwed it up ... this thing is way fancier than the one that Hollie and I have.”
In reality, I didn’t care if Harrison had coffee or not.
I just wanted him to sit with me for a few minutes. Even though it wasn’t like I could tell him about my new job, being with him always had a calming effect on me. Just talking to Harrison made me feel chill and relaxed, and I hoped he’d say yes.
He paused, and I flushed at the memory of yesterday morning: Harrison catching me stepping out of the shower, in just a towel and nothing else. I’d forgotten my robe back at school and I’d prayed that no one would see me.
But of course, that’s not the way the universe worked. Harrison’s face had changed and contorted and I’d blushed so hard that I’d nearly started sweating.
I hadn’t seen him since then.
Without answering me, Harrison went to the coffee maker and poured himself a cup. He sat down at the kitchen table and after a few seconds, I joined him.
“So,” I began, clearing my throat of early-morning sleepiness. “How was your night?”
Harrison shrugged. “Business as usual,” he told me. He took a long swallow of coffee and I had to force my eyes away from his handsome face. He looked so tired, so wan that I wondered what he was really doing. Hollie had told me that he was working on some new assignment, but she didn’t know any details ... and she sounded so uninterested in her father’s current job that I didn’t feel it would be right for me to have asked about it.
“I see,” I said quietly.
Harrison took another swallow of coffee and winced.
“Did I really screw it up that much?” I ask.
Harrison shook his head. “No,” he said, wincing again, and I wondered if he was in pain. He turned his head to the side and cracked his neck twice. As he turned away from me, I frowned. There was a smudge of something red – lipstick? – on his neck, and the sight of it sent a fleeting thought of anxiety and loneliness through me.
Was he really at work last night?
Or had he spent it with a woman?
My palms began to sweat and I wiped them on my thighs as I wondered what really happened. Hollie told me that she wasn’t sure that her dad would get over losing her mom.
But Hollie and her dad didn’t talk much when she and I were at school, and a lot could have happened over the last year.
Maybe Hollie was wrong.
I bit my lip and tried to push the thought out of my head. It made sense that Harrison wouldn’t want to be a monk. He was a handsome
man, an incredibly handsome man, and his job had to be hard.
It made sense that he’d want company, but the thought of him being with another woman made me feel sick and queasy.
“What are you doing up so early?” Harrison asked.
I swallowed hard. “I ... didn’t sleep so well last night,” I told him.
Harrison narrowed his eyes at me. “Everything okay? I know that mattress in the guest room isn’t the best. Krista kept talking about wanting to replace it, but well, I never got around to doing it once Hollie moved to the dorms.”
I shook my head. “I guess I’m nervous about starting my new job tonight.”
“What is it that you’ll be doing?” Harrison asked.
For a fleeting second, I thought about telling Harrison the impossible truth. Would his face turn red? Would he be angry, or disappointed?
No. He would probably just think that I was kidding, and the thought is enough to make me blush even harder.
“Just working for an entertainment company,” I lied.
“Oh yeah? That sounds like it could be interesting,” Harrison said.
“Sort of,” I said, trying not to lie outright to his face. “You know, it’s probably one of those things that sounds really exciting to everyone who doesn’t actually do it.”
Harrison nodded. “I can understand that,” he said. “Like catering, or something?”
I nodded. “Yeah,” I said.
“Well, whatever it is, I’m sure you’ll be great,” Harrison said. He drained the rest of his coffee and set the cup down on the table. Then, he looked over at me and our eyes met. The moment to reply and thank him for his vote of confidence passed, and the tension began to grow.
I took a deep breath. “I ... I just wanted to thank you,” I said softly. “For everything that you’ve done for me. For letting me stay here this summer,” I added. And for saving my life, ten years ago, I thought.
Harrison nodded. “It was part of my job,” he said. “But I’m glad that you didn’t have to suffer any more. The things that could have happened ...” He trailed off, his brow furrowing. “I don’t like to think about it.”