by Mia Sheridan
“Oh, Kay, I’m so sorry.”
You told me you got an abortion … I didn’t want her seven years ago, and I don’t want her now.
A tear slipped down her cheek. “It was my own fault. I listened to him. I did what he wanted. I chose him over my own baby. And look where it got me—in the end he left me anyway. I hate myself for what I did, and I’ll never forgive myself. My baby would be five years old now.”
I sat down next to her on the couch, taking her hands in mine. “You’re a good person, Kayla.” I didn’t know what to say other than that, and so I didn’t say more. I just held her hands and squeezed them. She was a good person. I wished I could tell her how to forgive herself, but if I knew the answer to that, maybe I’d be a lot better off than I was. I sighed, giving her hands one final squeeze before letting go.
“Let’s stop beating ourselves up right now, Kay. This is what Rodney wants us to be doing—going over every way in which we should feel ashamed. Let’s not give him this power over us. You lay off the Doritos and call me if you need someone to hang out with, okay? And as far as the gravity stuff, I think we have a little bit of time before it starts stealing our assets.” I put my hands on my breasts, plumping them up over my bikini top before winking at her, feigning a nonchalance I didn’t feel, trying to cheer her up, even just a little. What I actually felt was breakable, as if I might shatter the moment someone looked at me the wrong way.
Kayla smiled. “Okay. You got an appointment with your boyfriend tonight?”
I raised a brow. “My boyfriend? Hardly. He’s just another paying customer.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I heard a special little something in your voice when you told me about him on the car ride here tonight.”
I rolled my eyes, going to the mirror, where I wiped a smudge from beneath my eye. “He pays well.” And after tonight, I’d be able to give the garage enough money that they’d start fixing my car.
“Uh-huh. Maybe he’ll be the one to sweep you off your feet. Wouldn’t you like that? Someone to take care of you?”
“Oh, Kay, life doesn’t work that way. And anyway, I take care of myself just fine.” I turned to her, feeling a strange ache where my heart lay. The truth was, I found myself thinking of Gabriel Dalton more often than I liked since I’d seen him last. I’d woken to the vision of the gentleness in his eyes, the curve of his lips when he smiled, and then the way he panicked when I’d gotten close. The look on his face as I’d moved toward him had felt like something sharp was pressing against an old bruise deep inside. It had hurt seeing him like that. It wasn’t that I felt sympathy for him, although that was part of it, but mostly it had hurt me, and I couldn’t figure out exactly why. It made me feel twitchy and restless. He made me feel twitchy and restless.
That’s what I need you to help me with. Staying.
I wanted to push those words away. I’d felt embarrassed and exposed when he said them after I’d told him I could help him remove himself mentally from a physical encounter. I’d revealed myself to him, and I hadn’t meant to, and now he knew far more about me than I wished him to.
There was a knock on the door, and Anthony stuck his head in. “Gabe’s here, Crystal.”
“Speak of the devil himself,” Kayla said, laughing. Devil? No, an angel, just like I’d first thought. And angels didn’t belong in hell. What had he said to me? Funny, I was thinking the very same thing about you. Why would he think that about me? This was where I belonged. And in any case, there was nowhere else to be. Nowhere.
I felt like screaming. God, I needed to pull myself out of this …funk.
“Thanks, Anthony, I’ll be there in a sec.” He nodded and shut the door behind him.
Kayla stood. “Well, I’ve got a dance in fifteen minutes. I gotta go get ready.” She hugged me. “Thanks for the talk.”
“Anytime,” I murmured. Kayla left, shutting the door behind her. I stood there for a few moments, attempting to find my equilibrium, to form that protective shell around myself. Memories of my mother, along with the confusing feelings Gabriel brought up in me, made me feel raw, as if I’d turned my skin inside out, and I had the brief, intense desire to cry. Cry. The feeling shocked me. When was the last time I’d cried? I really couldn’t remember. I wasn’t a crier. Why cry when it solved nothing? Why be like her? My mother had been a crier. She’d cried all the damn time, and what had it gotten her in the end? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
I grabbed my sweatshirt and pulled it on over my costume, took a deep, shaky breath, and walked out of my dressing room, toward the lap-dance room. When I opened the door, Gabriel was standing by the couch. He was wearing a T-shirt this time rather than the button-down shirts he wore the first two times he’d been here. In one sweeping gaze, I took in his tanned arms, the contours of his muscles, his broad shoulders—not the efforts of a gym rat, but the slim, defined body of a man who used his muscles as he worked. It surprised me to notice at all. Somewhere along the line, men’s bodies had all started looking the same to me. Fat, skinny, well built … what did it matter? They all used them the same way: to inflict pain on others, and to take pleasure for themselves.
Gabriel startled slightly at my abrupt entrance and then smiled, that warm, open smile that put me on edge. But his smile faded when he saw me. “Hey, is everything all right?”
I realized I was frowning and forced a smile. “Of course.”
He brought his hand up and presented a small bouquet of white flowers, holding them out to me. “I brought these for you.”
I stared at them for a moment. “You don’t have to bring me flowers, sugar. You just have to bring me cash.” His smile wilted, and he brought one hand to the back of his neck, massaging it as he grimaced slightly. “I told myself it was a stupid idea. I just passed them as I was walking to my truck and I thought of you.”
“You thought of me when you saw flowers?” I scoffed softly. “Well, that’s one I haven’t heard before.”
His cheekbones had taken on a pink tinge. I knew I was embarrassing and hurting him, and something small and mean inside me took satisfaction in it. I tried to hang on to the shallow feeling, but the remorse that rose up instead overwhelmed it, and I turned my face away momentarily so he couldn’t see the regret in my eyes. When I turned back, he was setting the flowers down on the arm of the couch. A rejected gift.
“Ready to get started?” My voice sounded empty and sort of hollow.
He paused, his brow creasing. “Sure. But is it okay if we just talk for a little bit?”
I sighed. I was about all talked out. “All right. What do you want to talk about?” I sat down on the couch and he sat down, too, in the same positions we’d started out in the last time.
He smiled, turning toward me and putting his palms on his knees. I studied his hands for a moment, laid out flat like that. I couldn’t help thinking how beautiful they were for a man, his fingers long and graceful, his skin smooth and tanned. “How has your day been?”
“Just peachy.” I crossed my legs, and his eyes followed the movement. He swallowed, his cheekbones flushing very slightly again. “How about you, sugar? How’s your day been going?”
He stared at me for a moment in that assessing way, like he wanted to know all my deepest secrets. Some sort of desperation pooled in my belly. “Not too bad,” he finally murmured. “Good now. I’m happy to see you.”
I laughed, a shaky sound. “Well, if I’m the best part of your day, it couldn’t have been very good, sugar.”
His brow creased again and he tilted his head. “Why do you say that?”
I shrugged, examining a fingernail. “Do you want to get started, or not? I hate to waste your therapy time.”
“What’s wrong? Please tell me.”
“Nothing’s wrong,” I said, but it came out too high-pitched. It sounded wrong and strangely far away. “Please, Gabe, can we just get started? I want to help you.”
He studied me again, his expression filled with so much compassion it made me
feel raw and vulnerable all over again. Needy. Why did he have to look at me that way? I didn’t know how to react to that look. It made me want to run away, hightail it out of this room.
“I want to help you, too,” he said softly.
I laughed then, and it sounded cold and bitter, even to my own ears. “But I haven’t asked for your help, Gabe.”
“No, you haven’t. But I can be a friend. We could go for coffee and talk. Somewhere other than here.”
I shook my head. “You’re not my friend. You’re a client. And you’re paying me.” My hands felt shaky, and I pressed them down on the leather couch to the sides of my thighs.
His gaze traveled from my hands to my eyes, and he gave me a small smile. “Then you can buy my coffee. I might even have a slice of pie, too. Your treat.” He tilted his head and gazed at me imploringly, so sweetly flirtatious. I stared back, a fluttering between my ribs, knowing somehow that he wasn’t even aware of his appeal.
“Coffee? Most men request a threesome. The last time I went out with a guy I met here, he showed up at the restaurant with a friend and they asked if they could take turns doing me in the bathroom. Some sort of fantasy they had going, you know?”
He looked momentarily shocked, and then his expression settled into one of sadness. I had meant to repel and disgust him, not make him feel sad. I looked away.
“I’m not most guys, I guess,” he said softly.
No, he definitely wasn’t. He couldn’t even hold my hand without having a panic attack. Maybe he was the safest man on the planet. So why did he make me feel so decidedly unsafe? I picked at my cuticles. When I looked back at him, he was studying me intensely, that same sad look on his face.
“I think you’re getting the wrong idea here, Gabe.”
He pressed his lips together. “How’d you get that bruise?” he asked, nodding to my cheekbone. I had tried to cover it up with makeup, but it had turned a darker purple in the last couple of days, and apparently he’d spotted it. I put my fingers on it lightly. “Hazard of the job. I hit my cheek on the pole.”
He nodded slowly, but didn’t look convinced.
“Please can we just get started?”
“All right.”
I nodded, one jerky movement of chin to chest, and scooted closer. He stilled and his expression changed slightly, but he didn’t move. He held eye contact as I drew nearer, his only reaction to the brush of our thighs a soft intake of breath. My own heart picked up speed, and I felt slightly flushed—the same reaction I’d had to getting closer to him the last time. I didn’t like it. I let my mind drift, moving my gaze from his eyes down to his chin, focusing on the very slight cleft, the angle of his jaw, the stubble that was just beginning to grow in. His stubble was dark, with a smattering of gold pieces throughout. If he ever grew a beard, it’d be lighter than his hair …
“Don’t leave me,” he whispered.
My eyes moved to his mouth just as he finished speaking. “I wasn’t going to go anywhere,” I murmured, feeling disoriented. Why had he thought that?
“No.” He brought his trembling hand up and tipped my chin. “Stay with me here.” He stared straight into my eyes. “I need you.”
I blinked once, then my eyes locked on his. The force of our connection shocked me, as if he had reached out and touched me in some way I didn’t understand, and had certainly never experienced before. His gaze wouldn’t release me. He knew I’d gone somewhere else in my mind. He knew. That desperate feeling in my belly moved up to my chest, into my throat, and I gasped out loud, finally breaking eye contact.
“What’s your name?” he asked quietly. Stay with me here. I stood, stumbling away. When I turned, he was standing, too. Panic seized me. He’d asked for my name, but it felt like he was requesting my soul. No, no.
He was asking too much, and I had so little to give. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t.
“I don’t think this is working.” I pulled myself straight, attempting to shake off the feeling that had overcome me, the inexplicable desperation coursing through my blood. “I … I don’t think I’m the right girl. I’m sorry. I know I accepted the job but—”
He took one step toward me, but no more. “I don’t want anyone else except you. You are the right girl. Please.” He attempted to look in my eyes again, but I avoided eye contact. I can’t … I can’t bear it. This, whatever this is. It’s too much. The tension in the room was palpable, the silence awkward and loud. I wanted to put my hands over my ears to block it out. God, why am I feeling this way?
I shook my head. “No. I’m sorry. I can’t.”
“Let’s give it one more chance. We can take it more slowly. I—”
No, it was too much. This. And him. And it was worthless because I couldn’t help him. He needed someone warm and caring, someone who would nurture him and piece together the broken parts, someone who would look in his eyes and be his calming spirit. I was not that girl. I couldn’t even begin to piece together all my broken parts as I’d lost most of them long ago. I shook my head. “No.”
His disappointment felt …tangible. I wanted to turn away from it. He sighed and reached into his pocket, drawing out his wallet. He counted out the money and handed it to me. I almost declined—I had hardly earned it, but he must have sensed my reluctance because he pushed it forward. “I insist.”
I took it and stuffed it in my bra, forcing a smile, forcing myself to look him in the eye. “I’m sorry this didn’t work out. It…it wouldn’t be right for me to waste your time or money. There are several other girls here who I can recommend to take my place—”
“No, thank you.”
I cleared my throat. “Well, okay. Good luck.”
He nodded and stepped past me. I heard the click of the door as he closed it behind him, and something about it brought to mind a cell door shutting.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Don’t give up. Everything is possible when you have the right friends.
Shadow, the Baron of Wishbone
GABRIEL
“Fuck,” I muttered, tossing the small stone bird aside. I’d just accidentally carved off his beak. I picked up a second piece of marble and sat staring at it for a moment before sighing and reaching for my hammer and chisel. For a few minutes I was able to get lost in the work as I roughed out the shape, but then her face crept back into my mind. I set my tools aside and removed my gloves.
I was too distracted to pay full attention to what I was doing. And stone carving required focus. I grabbed a bottle of water from the mini fridge in my studio and drank half of it.
I … I don’t think I’m the right girl.
Why had she felt that? And why couldn’t I stop thinking about her? Why couldn’t I get that haunted look in her eyes out of my head? It had followed me into my dreams for three nights straight now. Her panic. I couldn’t shake the feeling that she needed me even more than I needed her. I set the bottle of water down and raked my hands through my hair. Crystal … Crystal. I kept coming back to the way our eyes had met that last time, the pure vulnerability in her gaze, the way she’d looked lost and afraid, so desperately lonely. For just a moment, she’d let her walls down, and the tender beauty of it had stunned me. It had felt like the time George had brought me a geode when I was just a kid. On the outside, it’d just looked like a plain old rock, but when he broke it open, it was filled with glittering, purple crystals. I’d been surprised and delighted that such beauty could be contained in something so unexpected.
I kept coming back to that geode whenever I thought about Crystal. In that sense, her name really did fit her. But I also couldn’t help wondering if maybe I was just a fool captivated by the first beautiful woman I’d ever touched. Christ, I’d barely even touched her. Her dismissal had hurt me, and in all likelihood, she hadn’t given me more than a moment’s thought since. And here I was, feeling a cold, sinking sensation when I considered that I’d never see her again. That I’d never have the opportunity to find out more about her.
She doesn’t want anything more to do with you, Gabriel.
What had changed, though? The minute we’d connected—and there was no question we had—she pushed me away. Why? She had told me she could teach me how to turn off when I felt uncomfortable, so perhaps she’d never learned how to connect. To stay. Maybe we were more alike than I’d imagined. Considering where she worked, it was understandable that she set firm boundaries. Boundaries I was trying to push. Maybe I’d been wrong to ask that of anyone, even someone I was paying to do it—but it didn’t mean I couldn’t be her friend. I massaged the back of my neck as I paced my studio.
Be honest with yourself; you have more than friendly feelings for her.
A stripper. God, what was I doing?
What about you, Gabriel? How would people describe you if they were only going by the few things they knew? If they only met you once, only read the newspaper articles, what would you be called?
Damaged.
Ruined.
Victim.
Sometimes we wore such hurtful, limiting labels in this life, whether they’d been assigned by others or by ourselves. I’d felt damaged and ruined once, but I didn’t anymore. I was still a work in progress, but I wasn’t a victim. I was a survivor.
And Crystal was more than just a stripper. More than just a girl who took off her clothes for men. I knew she was. I’d seen it in her eyes.
It still didn’t mean she wanted anything to do with me.
I was confused and frustrated, and my own thoughts were leading me around in circles, filling me with painful self-doubt. I thought about something my father used to say. When you can’t figure out what to do, Racer, you go with your gut. You might not be right every time, but you’ll never regret following your own heart, especially one as pure as yours. I stopped pacing as a sense of resolve settled over me. I was going to go with my gut. And my gut told me to try again. My gut told me she needed me to try again. If I was wrong, I was wrong—but somehow I felt strongly that no one had ever put much effort into trying when it came to Crystal. Maybe not even Crystal herself.