What if Lucas was the perfect mixture? Easy to get along with, seemed to respect her; she knew him well enough to at least trust him to wear a condom. And commitment definitely wouldn’t be an issue with him. From the stories he’d told, it sounded as if he went through women like pieces of chewing gum.
She scowled at the mental metaphor. Somehow the image of her being chewed up and spit out made the whole idea less appetizing.
“What are you thinking about over there?”
“Nothing,” she spat out. Damn. She really had to work on her tells around him. “What kind of question is that anyway? What am I thinking? Is that how you get all your girlfriends? By being all sensitive and caring?” The attempts to push the attention back on him might be a little too obvious, but it was more than apparent that she wasn’t exactly a smooth operator around him.
Lucas let out a little laugh. “A little sensitivity never hurt. And yeah, if you want to know the truth, girls love it. Nothing gets a girl’s panties wetter in this day and age than talking about how dangerous toxic masculinity can be.”
“Is that right? Are you the beta male of everyone’s dreams?”
“Honey, I’m whatever any girl wants me to be. Beta, Alpha, Omega—I got the whole Greek alphabet covered.”
Harper let out a laugh. Damn, this would be easier if he didn’t make her smile so much.
As Harper stood outside Cuestar, she most certainly wasn’t smiling. The outside of the club wasn’t all that impressive. The old warehouse building was done up in aged red brick, and the sign that announced the name of the club was turned off so she couldn’t even tell what color it was. They were in the Upper East Side, so Harper had to imagine parking was next to impossible when the club was actually open. She and Lucas had to park the rental two blocks away even during this slower part of the day.
Harper held the sides of her leather jacket and rolled her shoulders, adjusting it on her as best as possible. She knew she looked a mess, but she needed Leo take her seriously. Sure, she didn’t have an ounce of makeup on, but at least she had her jacket to give her confidence. She pulled her blonde curls back in a tight ponytail so the tangled mess wouldn’t be too obvious. For her to be taken seriously in a meeting with a bunch of men, it usually took her at least half an hour prepping, whereas Lucas looked ready to go with almost no sleep for two days straight. Damn the patriarchy.
Annoyance. She held onto the frustration bubbling through her veins. That was good. Annoyance was a lot better attitude to have than nerves. Usually when she was around strange men, she knew she had to keep on her toes, but with Leo that feeling was amplified. For one, it wasn’t as if she could go in and cultivate any personality she wanted. He already knew far too much about her for her to keep her mysterious badass persona. She liked to pretend that she’d been a badass all through high school, but she knew Leo had seen her cry way too many times.
But to be fair, she’d seen him cry too. Once. And it was one of the worst memories of her life.
“Are you sure there’s nothing you want to tell me about this guy?” asked Lucas.
“I’m fine,” she lied. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Harper stepped up to the door and brought her hand up to knock, but before her skin ever made contact, the door pulled open. Considering it was so early, she expected to see Leo there, but instead, it was some cute blonde wearing a barely there skirt and ultra-deep V-neck tank. “Hi. Are you Mr. West’s special guests?”
Harper’s eyebrows went sky-high. For real? He brought in staff for this? “Yeah, we’re the special guests.”
“Fantastic. We already have a special table set up for you guys. Right this way. If you have a drink order, I can take it for you now.” She led the way. “Our full bar is open to you, so whatever you’d like.”
“Water,” said Lucas and Harper in unison.
Harper glanced around as they walked through the club. Under the bright fluorescent lights, everything looked so... tame. She was sure she was getting a behind-the-scenes look that few people got. Cuestar had originally been a well-known billiards club, but as people started to lose interest in billiards and gain interest in rubbing their bodies against one another in dim lighting, the club had evolved.
Now, from what she understood, it was essentially a rave every night, with pounding EDM playing, glow sticks being tossed in the air, and drugs galore.
Leo wasn’t a full owner. From what she knew about it, he owned less than half. His day job was as a photographer. She didn’t know the exact details of how he was able to make a living off something like that, but she had a feeling Wade had something to do with it. Maybe guilt money? Maybe one favor so he could help Leo and then never have to deal with him again?
The club had various sections. There were two smaller rooms and one main one. Tables and booths surrounded the perimeter, but the back of each of the rooms had a DJ stand and stage, and the center floor was left clear for dancing. The main room had a large full bar, and the two smaller rooms each had limited selections bars. From what she knew about the club, they didn’t exactly have a full menu, but when the waitress led them to the small corner table where Leo was sitting, there were three place settings, each with a full plate of food. From what Harper could see, it looked like the good stuff, too: a juicy-looking steak—medium rare, of course—along with some creamy-looking mashed potatoes and a few sprigs of asparagus on top, almost as a garnish.
“I said I had a few questions.” She stopped at the edge of the table and looked at the spread questioningly. “I didn’t realize it was such a fancy occasion.”
“Harper Sloan.” Leo stood from his seat and looked her over approvingly. “You know I consider you one of the best, and the best deserve some damn good food. You know I’ll always take care of you.”
Harper rolled her eyes and saw a flicker of movement from Lucas. She glanced down and saw he was clenching his hands into fists.
“Luckily, I don’t need you to take care of me.”
“Well, that’s what makes it more fun.” Leo sat back down.
Harper decided to follow his lead. The way the table had been set up, there were three plates set down. The table was large enough to fit six, with one side being a plush-looking booth and the other having three chairs. Leo sat on the booth side, with a plate on either side of him. Harper debated taking one of the plates and pulling them to the other side of the table but then remembered that she wasn’t here to have a battle of wills with Leo. She was here to ask him for a favor. So instead, she played nice and went around the right side of the table to sit next to him. Lucas did the same on the left side.
“So from what I understand, you’re looking for somebody?” Leo started to cut into his steak.
“That’s right.”
“You should’ve told my manager who over the phone. That way I could have started looking into it for you.”
“Unfortunately, the information we’re dealing with is a little sensitive.” Lucas notably didn’t touch the food.
“Do you know the name or have a picture I can go off of?”
“Yeah, we got both.” Lucas took out his phone and showed Leo a screenshot of one of those pictures. “Her name is Lily Reinhardt. She went missing about three weeks ago.”
“Missing? What exactly does that mean?”
“It means missing. Do you want me to get a dictionary for you?” asked Harper.
“Yes, I understand the concept of the word. I don’t understand the context. She ran off with a boyfriend somewhere? Is there a bloody hotel room she left behind? Is it a consensual missing?”
“Missing as in no trace of her,” said Lucas. “She never packed up her stuff from her dorm room, she hasn’t used any of her credit cards or bank accounts in the past seven days, her phone was left in her dorm room. No signs of a struggle.”
“Is there any reason for her to want to run away and never be found?” asked Leo.
“I don’t see how any of this matters for our conve
rsation,” said Harper. “I just want to know if you or one of your employees saw her or talked to her on the night that she was at your club.”
“Well then, I’ll be sure to let you know. Normal staff comes in around four o’clock, and I’ll make sure the first thing they do is look into it. In the meantime, I’ll try to have my security footage from that night sent over to you as soon as possible.”
Harper blinked a few times. That was it? She expected there to be more trouble. To be fair, this whole dinner spread thing he’d laid out didn’t exactly help matters. “Well, I really appreciate you going through all the trouble of bringing us lunch, but we’re kind of on a time crunch here. I don’t think we can stay for a whole meal.”
“Oh, if you’re busy, you’re busy. I get that. Before you go, how are things? How are your parents?”
Now she knew something was wrong. “My parents? They’re fine.”
Why the hell was he asking about her parents? They didn’t have anything to do with anything. How often had he even met her parents? Sure, they’d come to games to cheer her on, but except for seeing them here and there, Leo hadn’t had anything to do with her family. “Actually, they’re about to go on vacation. It’s a big deal for them.”
“That’s good to hear. I know we haven’t exactly kept in touch over the years, but I want you to know that if you need anything to help, with this Reinhardt case or anything else, I’m here.” Then, in a move that she wouldn’t have expected, even if hell froze over, he put his hand atop hers on the table. If it had been anybody else, Harper would’ve yanked her hand away in shock. Was he sick? Was this what food poisoning did to somebody?
No, she’d had food poisoning before. Of the many, many terrible effects it had on the human body, it didn’t cause someone to randomly go stir-crazy.
“Lucas, can you give us a few minutes alone?”
“I’m not going to—”
“Lucas, now,” she ordered.
A flash of anger flickered in his eyes, and she knew she’d crossed some invisible boundary. She offered to help him, not boss him around, especially not in front of others.
But instead of snapping at her, he pushed his untouched food away and strode away from the table.
“That was a bad idea,” said Leo as he watched him walk away.
“He’ll be fine,” said Harper, wishing she believed what she said was true.
“I don’t know. You don’t want to push a guy like that too far.”
What the hell was this? Leo went from asking about her parents to holding her hand to giving her relationship advice about Lucas? And still, she couldn’t help but take the bait. “What do you mean, a man like that?”
“You know.... What are all the kids calling it these days? Alpha. You don’t push alpha guys too far.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind? Lucas isn’t an....” She couldn’t bring herself to say the ridiculous word. “He’s not anything, okay? He’s just a guy. From what I see, a pretty unlucky one at that. If anyone’s beta, it’s that man.”
“You just keep telling yourself that,” said Leo.
“What the hell makes you qualified to know any different?”
“It takes one to know one.” He winked.
“And what is wrong with you? I come here asking for a favor and you give me some fancy lunch and start holding my hand? I know you, Leo, and this isn’t you.”
“You really think you know me?”
“There was a time I knew you better than almost anybody.”
“Yeah, that was back when I was the son of one of the biggest pieces of trailer trash around.”
“Your mother wasn’t trailer trash. She was a really good Realtor, too.”
Leo winced, and Harper had a feeling his mother was never going to be a safe topic. “She was a half-assed real estate agent, if anything. As much as she tried to do better, everyone in that town thought she was trash. That’s not what I thought, obviously, but I know what people around town said. Now I make more money in one month with my photography than most people do in a year, and in addition to that, I have investments all around the world, bringing in even more cash. I’m nowhere near the man you knew back then.”
“And are you a better or worse man now?”
“I don’t know. But I don’t like how distant we’ve become. Especially considering how close we used to be. I’m not big on all that social media bullshit, but I want us to stay friends, Harper. I don’t want you to come see me when you’re looking for a favor. Maybe next time you’re in town, we could do something. I could show you around the city. Take you to Broadway or something.”
“You like Broadway?”
“Hell no. But it is a thing people seem to like to do in the city, so....”
“Are you asking me out on a date, Leo?”
He rolled his eyes. “If that’s what you thought, I’m doing this wrong. Listen, I gotta go, but I’ll have your steak wrapped up—you can take it with you and go. I know I said everything wrong, but I’m serious. I do want to see you, and soon.”
Harper opened her mouth, but no sound came out for Leo was pulling himself out of the booth and walking away from her. What the hell?
Lucas checked his watch again. It’d only been twenty seconds, but it felt like an eternity since the last time he looked at the unmoving digital numbers. Finally Harper emerged from the building, and he immediately exploded on her. “Where the hell were you?”
She was obviously taken aback by the harsh words, literally stepping away from him. “Excuse me?”
“I thought you were going to be right behind me. It’s been like five minutes. We’re supposed be working as a team here. This doesn’t feel very team-like.”
Harper set a hand on her hip and glared at him. “What exactly is happening here? Because I feel like I’m in bizarro land.”
“What’s happening here is that you’re supposed to be helping me, and instead I drive you two hours so you can flirt with some old high school friend of yours. That’s what’s happening.”
“Flirt! There was no flirting happening back there. We asked him to help us, and he agreed.”
“Then what the hell took you so long? What exactly did you have to talk about while I wasn’t there?”
“Nothing. He left almost immediately, and I was waiting for his little hostess to box up our food for us.” She held up the plastic bag in her hand accusingly, and he kicked himself for not noticing that earlier.
Fuck, he must sound like a crazy person. Hell, at this point, he was a crazy person. What the hell was wrong with him? So what if she stayed an extra five minutes to talk to a childhood friend? She was an adult. She could do what she wanted. He wasn’t the jealous type. Usually he wasn’t the jealous type. Fuck.
“We have a few hours until Leo gets us any information about what Lily was doing at his club. Until then, we can head up to these other places she stopped to use her credit card.”
“We need to find a hotel so we don’t end up sleeping in the car tonight.”
“We’re not here to sleep. We don’t have a lot of time. We need to make sure every second we have is spent looking for Lily.”
“Harper, we don’t know each other very well. I think the past two days have tricked us into believing we were closer than we are. Right now, I’m at a ten. If you want me to be functional at all, I’m going to need a few minutes to decompress, hopefully away from you. Got that?”
“Fine. I got it.”
He should feel bad for hurting her, but right now, he couldn’t feel much of anything. Just anger and annoyance all blended together into one unhealthy combination. He wasn’t kidding. He wasn’t any good to anybody in this state of mind. Hopefully with the quiet drive to the hotel and a few minutes to be by himself, he could pull his shit together.
But it was becoming abundantly apparent the longer Harper was around him, the harder it was for him to get anything together. He drove to the hotel in silence. He knew his way around the city well enough th
at he didn’t need Harper to give him directions. He already knew a place they could stay. The city was known for being expensive, especially around the campus areas where Lily spent most of her time. Luckily he knew a place off the top of his head that was usually under two hundred bucks a night. Considering his life was at stake, he should be worrying less about prices, but he was constantly aware of the dangerous state his bank account was in. As if he were on autopilot, he put the rental car in the overpriced parking structure, went to the lobby, paid for one room for two nights, and then went to the elevator. It wasn’t until he was on the elevator that he realized Harper was right next to him. “What are you doing?”
“Umm.... Bringing my stuff to our room?”
“No, you were supposed to get your own room.”
“That’s ridiculous. I didn’t leave you last night and I’m not leaving you tonight.”
“Last night, we were staying in a home owned by two crazy people. Tonight, you can go a few hours without being around me.”
“Well, excuse me for being unable to resist your animal magnetism. I thought we were partners in this together, and that meant watching each other’s backs.”
The elevator hit the floor and dinged open. “Yeah, but right now I need someone to watch my back to keep me away from you.”
“Whoa. This is totally uncalled for. I have done nothing but help you and be your friend. I don’t know why you’re being such a dick about it.”
“I’m not being a dick about it!” he screamed as he strode down the hall. “I told you I need a couple fucking minutes to decompress. I don’t know why you can’t even give me that.”
“Hey, if you were my friend, I would totally give you a few minutes to decompress. But you’re just some jerk I don’t even know right now.”
He shoved the key into the hotel room door, and as soon as the light flashed green, he yanked the door open. If Harper weren’t so close behind him, he would’ve slammed the door shut in her face. “If I’m such a big jerk, why don’t you leave me the fuck alone?”
Lucky Girl (Lucky Alphas Book 2) Page 9