by Aiden Bates
He was the kind of man I needed to stay away from.
The kind of man I wouldn’t be able to get out of my head for the rest of the night.
2
Max
My phone vibrated six times in quick succession against my thigh. I didn’t need to take it out of my pocket to know who was messaging me—or even what those messages said.
Please, Max. It was just one time.
One little mistake. Are you really going to throw away what we have over one little mistake?
Max, answer me! I know you’re there.
Max, please.
Max, come home.
When I finally did reach into my pocket, it was only to turn the damn thing off. I didn’t need this shit right now. Didn’t want it. Didn’t care.
I’d caught Ethan bare-ass naked in my own apartment, with his mouth around some other man’s dick. I’d seen the trashy porn they’d had playing on my flat screen, the bad nose job and pillowy lip injections of some no-name Omega adult film star taking rope after rope of cum on his face. The other man’s coat hanging on my hook in the foyer. The other man’s shoelaces tangled with Ethan’s on the floor.
If I had it my way, Ethan would’ve lost my number. Forgotten my name. Instead, I’d had to listen to his bullshit excuses while he scrambled to tug his clothes back on. Had to smell the scent of another man’s cock on Ethan’s breath when he tried to kiss me. Had to ask him to return my key—then, when he refused, I’d had to call a locksmith to come around the next morning on my way out the door.
Worst of all, now he was filling up my fucking inbox with pleas for a second chance. If I’d been a better man, maybe I would’ve explained to him that this wasn’t baseball. There were no three strikes, you’re out when it came to blowing another man in my goddamn living room.
If I’d been a smarter man, I would’ve never given Ethan a key to begin with. Never asked him out. Never even asked him his name that night he came up to me at The Peel, half drunk on cheap shots of vodka and giving me those damn bedroom eyes.
If I’d been a smarter man, I never would’ve tried dating at all. Sooner or later, everyone cheated in the end.
The quicker I accepted it, the better I’d be able to avoid needing my locks changed again.
I leaned back in my chair and watched the stage lights dance across the bare chest of an angel arching and preening around the rim of a larger-than-life martini glass. I had to hand it to Heaven’s Ballroom—they were doing their damnedest to take my mind off what a bad mood I was in. But it wasn’t the dancer splashing around with a fake olive the size of a watermelon that I wanted to see just then, though. He was handsome, sure—but not quite my type.
It was the other dancer that I was keeping an eye out for as I waved a cocktail waiter over for another drink. The one who had come to me during the opening number, all fluttering eyelashes and soft skin. I could still smell the ghost of his cologne on me. Amber. Vanilla. Bitter almond. If I closed my eyes, I could still remember the color of his irises. Brown and scintillating. Like a well-aged liquor in a crystal decanter held up to catch the light.
“How may I be of service?” The cocktail waiter had a Gomez Addams pencil mustache and a feather tucked behind his ear. He perched one ass-cheek on the edge of my table and raised his eyes to meet mine like he was a Lauren Bacall character in a Bogart film. Classy, sensual—but a little overdone for my taste. “Our specials tonight include—”
“Scotch,” I said abruptly, thinking of the dancer’s eyes again. “Neat. Single cask if you’ve got it. If not, single malt will do.”
“We’ve got it.” The waiter quirked a smile. “But it’s not on the specials list.”
“Never is.”
“Maybe you’d be interested in a little something to accompany your drink, then?” The waiter’s eyes drifted to a door just left of the stage that must have led to the back. “Riley seemed to like you. He’ll be free for private dances in a few minutes if you’re interested.”
Riley. I rolled the name around on my tongue, unable to speak it just then but still wanting to taste it in my mouth. I could imagine the way it’d sound from my throat, though—scratchy. Rasped. A dark growl. Riley. Get those fucking clothes off. Or, Riley. On your knees, darling. Open wide.
“How many private dances do the dancers here usually do in a night?” I asked, patting my thigh for my wallet.
“Our veteran Angels generally only do three or four. They tend to focus on their long-time regulars,” the waiter revealed. “But Riley is newer here. He might do…oh, a dozen. Maybe as many as twenty.”
“Twenty different men?” I scoffed. Ethan would’ve loved working here—if he’d had any penchant for keeping rhythm at all. Even made fucking him boring. He’d always just lain there, waiting to see what I’d do next.
“We’ve all gotta make our paycheck somehow, sugar.” The waiter shrugged, turning his chin up like I’d offended him. Considering how it’d sounded—like I was slut-shaming his dancer friend—hell, maybe I had.
I slipped my black AmEx out of my pocket and slid it across the table toward him. Wasn’t much in the way of any apology, but after all—he had to make his paycheck somehow. As did Riley.
“Just the scotch, then.” The waiter thumbed my card into his palm, nodding curtly.
“And the dances.”
“From Riley?”
“From Riley.”
He paused as he moved to place my card in his apron. “More than one?”
I nodded.
The waiter narrowed his eyes. “How many are we talking, Mister…” He glanced down at my card. “Mr. Griffin?”
I leaned back in my chair and curled my fingers around the arms of it, my chin tilted up like I was daring him to challenge me.
“All of them.”
3
Riley
I loitered behind the curtain backstage for a little while, watching Anders splash around in a Paul Bunyan-sized martini glass and catching my breath. The brief lap dance I’d given that businessman during the opening number had left me more winded than I’d ever felt before. I knew I’d need to cool down before I went back out, and Anders’ routine was the perfect distraction.
He reminded me that no matter how good I was, he’d always be better.
Anders shimmied and gyrated like Dita Von Teese on steroids. His audience couldn’t have been more captive even if he’d pulled a gun on them and started walking around demanding wallets. In fact, knowing the way Alphas usually reacted to Anders, they probably would have offered to run to the ATM to pull out more cash if he tried it. Asked him for his number and thanked him for the pleasure afterward.
I knew I’d never be the kind of dancer that Anders was. He reveled in all the male attention he got every night; I shirked from it. I liked the dancing—loved it, in fact—but there was only one man I wanted attention from, and he wasn’t currently even returning my texts.
That guy you were dancing on wouldn’t return your texts either, you know, I reminded myself. Grass isn’t always greener. He’s out of your league. Get your head on straight.
As Anders neared the end of his number, I headed back down to the lights and mirrors of backstage proper to give myself a final once-over before I went out to flirt and mingle. Dancing in the opening number had left my chest feeling full and light, but when I checked my makeup, my cheeks were still tinged pink with embarrassment.
“That guy in the audience really got to you, huh?” Damon nudged me aside so he could share the mirror with me. He was built like a football player, so Foster had been quick put him in a pair of cleats and breakaway football pants. A set of football pads clanked heavily on Damon’s shoulders in the place of his angel wings as he reached up to apply eyeblack to his cheeks. “I’ve never seen you give a lap dance with such gusto before, Ry. Have a little crush?”
“Nah.” I forced a laugh. “Just getting a little jealous of Anders’ fan club. Thought I ought to start trying a little harder.”
/> Damon side-eyed me with disbelief. “You? Jealous of Anders? Please, Ry—you’re a better dancer and you know it. You just don’t thrive on attention the way he does.” He cracked a smile. “Except maybe when that guy in the audience was concerned.”
“Just doing my job,” I told him dismissively—but in my chest, my heart was thrumming away even faster than it had been when I was up on stage.
“He put you out of step,” Damon pointed out. “Not that I blame you—he was handsome, Ry. Seemed into you, too.”
“You know I’m a one Alpha kind of guy, Damon.”
We both looked back down at my phone instinctively. I didn’t even need to check it—I knew there was nothing there to check.
“Not that it seems to matter,” I added, my voice suddenly small.
“Aww, Ry…”
I shook my head. “I’m not stupid, you know. About what you and Noah were saying earlier…I’m not dumb. I know how it looks.”
“We never said you were stupid.”
“Naive, then.”
Damon cracked a smile. “Yeah, maybe a little naive.”
“I just want to believe in him. Or…I don’t know. Believe in something, you know?”
“Yeah, and I want to believe that someday I’ll fit into my college sweatpants again.”
I rolled my eyes. Damon was good at hiding his self-esteem issues, but sometimes they still crept in here and there. “Jesus Christ—you’re not fat, Damon.”
He laughed. “Maybe not. But you get what I mean. I just don’t want to see you hurt, man.”
“I know. I guess it’d just be easier to believe he was cheating if I had…I don’t know. Proof or something.”
“So we hire a PI after our shifts. There’s a good one out in Brooklyn—Spades Marlboro or something. But as for right now…” He turned to me with uneven eyeblack smudged across his cheekbones. “Help me fix this up before I go on? I’ve fucked it up beyond my abilities to rectify.”
As I busied myself in cleaning up the black smudges on Damon’s face, I felt a presence hover behind me. A finger reached beneath my wings to tap my shoulder and I turned to find Carlos, one of the Ballroom’s cocktail waiters. He had a coy smile lingering beneath his razor-thin mustache and a look on his face that said I know something you don’t know.
“Headed out onto the floor soon, Ry?” he asked.
“That’s the plan.” I narrowed my eyes. “Why?”
“Looks like your little bit during the opening number really worked some magic.” Carlos held up a receipt. “Twenty dances. You’re booked solid for the night, sweetie.”
“What? Twenty guys wanted me?” I leaned in to peer at the letters on the receipt. “Are you sure they didn’t get me confused for Anders?”
“I didn’t say twenty guys,” Carlos corrected. “I said twenty dances. That guy you picked out for the opener really liked what you’ve got.”
And there it was, laid out in black and white. A thirty-dollar scotch and twenty dances at fifty bucks a pop—not to mention a more than generous tip. All from one patron: Max Griffin. He’d paid by American Express.
Max Griffin. Finally, I had a name to put to those blue eyes.
Over my shoulder, Damon whistled lowly. “Damn, Riley. That’s a doozy.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, nodding in dazed disbelief. But then, with a blink, I snapped back to reality. “Shit—I can’t take these, Carlos.”
Carlos reeled back. “And why the hell not? That’s a thousand bucks plus tip, Ry!”
“Tell him to find someone else to spend his money on, then.” I crossed my arms firmly like I was trying to hold my convictions against my chest. He was the kind of man I’d told myself I needed to stay away from, hadn’t I? It didn’t matter how handsome he’d looked in his business suit or how he’d made me shiver with his growl of a voice. I was still a taken man—and him? He was trouble. “It’s a whole evening of rubbing my body up against another man. I can’t do it. It wouldn’t be right.”
Damon chuckled. “Riley, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but that’s kind of…your job. Remember?”
I shook my head. “It’s different when it’s twenty different guys. Impersonal. A song or two, then we part ways and forget each other’s faces.”
“And you can’t do that when it’s just one guy?” Carlos raised an eyebrow.
“It’s too intimate, Carlos. Feels like cheating.”
It was Damon’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “You think Kevin would agree?”
“Shit—that fuckhead Kevin? That’s what this is about?” Carlos crossed his arms, mirroring my posture. “Because word on the street is, his ass is ghosting you tonight.”
“He’s not ghosting, he’s just—”
Bzzzzzzzzt.
We all looked over to the counter where my phone was still laid face down.
A message.
Kevin finally texted me back.
“You look first,” I begged Damon. “I don’t think I can do it.”
Sighing, Damon picked up my phone and glanced down at the screen. His face fell immediately—a bad sign.
“What is it?” I asked. My heart was off to the races, galloping anxiously in my chest.
“Not a text,” Damon warned me. “Instagram notification. Kevin just posted.” He bit his lip, unable to meet my eyes. “You should take that man up on his dances, Ry. I gotta go—I’m on.”
He pushed the phone in my chest and jogged up towards the stage where Noah was already standing, tapping an invisible watch on his wrist and looking annoyed.
I swallowed hard. What could Damon have seen on Kevin’s Instagram that was so awful?
“Are you gonna look?” Carlos asked, peering over my shoulder.
“I guess I have to.” The phone felt like the sharp end of a blade in my hand as I turned it over.
I’d told Damon that I wanted proof. Some kind of evidence that what he and Noah had told me wasn’t just bullshit.
If nothing else, at least now I had it.
“Fuck—I can’t tell where one guy’s body ends and the next begins,” Carlos said slowly, wide-eyed.
“Yeah, well, I can.” I pointed to the face in the middle of a throng of naked male bodies, slick champagne bubbles and thick foam. A disco ball glittered overhead, illuminating Kevin’s messy red hair as he locked lips with one faceless Omega and stuck his hand down the pants of another.
“Shit, Riley…” Carlos touched my back gently. “I’m really sorry…”
“Don’t be.” I moved away, shaking his hand off. “It’s my own damn fault. Everyone warned me. Should’ve known better.”
Damn right, I should’ve known better. Being caught out in public with other Omegas. All those nights that he’d left early with the promise that he’d call when he got home—a call that somehow never seemed to come. The fact that he was never available—even when he was with me, Kevin was always on his phone. And when he wasn’t with me? He might as well have tossed that phone into the Hudson, for all the use he was getting out of it.
Or so I’d thought. From the looks of things, Kevin was getting plenty of use out of his phone when he was out at night—he was just using it to take pictures of his drunken escapades instead of using it to text his boyfriend back.
At least he wouldn’t have to worry about texting me back again.
Nice Instagram pic. I sent the text to Kevin abruptly before typing the rest of what I had to say.
Before I could even finish typing, my phone buzzed again.
Kevin.
The asshole was finally texting me back.
Shit, the text read.
The phone buzzed again.
That was supposed to go to my other Instagram, babe.
I blinked. An excuse—but not even a sorry.
Another buzz.
You mad?
It was so ludicrous, I laughed out loud.
We’re done, I typed back to him. Have your shit out by morning.
“Damn,” Carlos swore. �
��That’s cold, Ry.”
“I know,” I said softly.
“Make you feel any better?”
I hung my head. “Not really.”
I should have felt vindicated. Righteously angry. Relieved, maybe. But no—all I felt was that pang in my chest that reminded me why they called it heartbreak. Kevin was my first serious boyfriend. I’d imagined a future with him—kids someday, maybe. A house. The same sweet, perfect life that my parents had raised me in. He’d get a real job—marketing or something, maybe. I’d run a dance studio where I’d teach our daughter tap and ballet.
And now it had all gone up in disco glitter and champagne foam.
The Alpha from the audience’s piercing blue eyes rose up in my memory again. He hadn’t been able to tear his gaze away from me—and here I was, tearing myself apart over an Alpha who didn’t even have the time to send me a fucking thumbs-up emoji—let alone stay faithful.
“What’re you gonna do now?” Carlos asked, his mouth turned down in concern.
I shrugged my shoulders back and jutted my chin out high. “I’ve got twenty dances booked for the night, don’t I? I’d say I better get started.”
Carlos’ frown shifted into a grin as he smacked me on the ass. “Atta boy!”
4
Max
“Another drink, sir?” It was a new cocktail waiter this time—the other one had disappeared backstage, apparently never to return. I’d waited long enough that my ice was clinking around the bottom of my glass loud enough to summon a refill.
Guess I should’ve taken the hint. No answer still means no.
“Single cask scotch,” I told the waiter. I’d never been one to give up so easily. Not for something I really wanted. “And make it neat this time, please.” The waiter gripped the glass to take it from me, but I held tight for an extra second so I knew I had his full attention. “That means no ice.”
“Of course, sir.” The waiter tucked his chin against his chest as he hurried off to pour me a new glass.