Assemblyman whoever-the-fuck has made her laugh about something, and Wilder looks … astonished, jealous, pensive? He takes a step closer to her but stops short and tucks his hands into his pockets.
“What the—”
“Hey, Cara,” one of Inez’s girls whispers as she walks past me. She winks like we’re members of the same fucking club, and my annoyance distracts me long enough to lose sight of Wilder.
Until he pulls out the stool beside me.
Wilder drops some cash onto the bar and orders two Johnnie Walkers. A preference for quality whisky must be a Ridge thing, and I’m not mad about it.
He hands me a glass and says, “I’m going to make this fast because my brother will be back, and I don’t want to upset him.”
“Is he a kid or what?” I ask, sipping my drink.
Wilder lets out a short laugh and checks his wristwatch. “He’s my kid brother, yes.”
Sipping takes too long, and I toss the entire glass back, filling my cheeks with whisky before swallowing—as one does in a situation as formal as this.
Wilder isn’t disgraced by my ill manners. He remains every bit of the dignified rich kid that he is and savors his alcohol. “Does he know who you work for?”
“Yep,” I say, licking vanilla spice from my lips. “You can thank Phillip Vogel for that, by the way. I’m actually surprised I don’t see him here tonight. He hired an escort to fuck your brother in his office. Nice place. Tell me, does your office have the same view as Talent’s?”
Wilder smiles into his glass, and this son of a bitch has the audacity to say, “It’s better.”
“I’ll mention it to Megan. I saw you looking at her. Did you like what you saw?”
His smile falls.
“She looks different when she’s not bleeding all over the place, right?” I elbow him like we’re old chums. “For the right price, she can be all yours.”
Setting his empty glass onto the bar, Wilder scoots his stool back and thanks the bartender. Any trace of amusement leaves his face, and I return the sentiment.
“Stay away from my brother. It won’t end well.”
“Aye aye, captain.” I lift my imaginary hat.
He makes it less than six feet away when I call his name and lift his brother’s blazer from my lap. “Do you want to give this back to him?”
Wilder’s eyes slide past me and he says, “Give it to him yourself.”
“Dammit,” I whisper to myself as my heartbeat recognizes Talent’s and flickers to life. Whisky lessens my inhibition and I don’t leave Talent at the bar alone to be approached by someone from his own social circle like I should.
“I thought you left,” he says. He watches his brother’s departure.
Shaking my glass at him, I say, “I needed a refill.”
Disappointed but not surprised, I notice Talent keeps an appropriate amount of space between us to look casual to anyone paying too close attention to him tonight. We’re just two people who happen to be at the same bar—nothing more, nothing less. I’m annoyed by how saddened I am by his distance, when this is what I should want.
“What did Wilder say to you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t lie to me, Lydia.”
Jerking my head in his direction, I’m ambushed by his rigid posture and the callousness in his metallic eyes. I want to smooth the lines of concern between his eyebrows and soothe his tense jaw muscles.
“He told me to stay away from you.” I return his jacket instead. “And he told me to give that to you myself.”
Talent takes the blazer and tosses it to the stool beside him. “I can put your worries to rest right now, you know. I can take you in my arms. I can kiss you. I can throw you over my fucking shoulder and carry you out of this hellhole.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
He grins. “I won’t if you come home with me tonight.”
“I can’t.”
“You can’t or you won’t because you’re afraid to be judged by these motherfuckers? I already told you, none of them mean a thing to me.” He moves a few feet forward, pointing his thumb toward the party. “I’ll put your mind to rest right now and tell everyone in this room you’re mine.”
I snort, like anyone besides Talent scares me.
A perk of the emotionally mute: I don’t fear judgment.
My worry is for Talent’s status only. He can’t throw away his good name for me.
“No,” I correct him, waving him back. “Don’t be ridiculous. I can’t because I need to make sure Camilla gets home. I’m not here because I enjoy the crowd. It’s business.”
“Tomorrow night?”
“Talent, it’s impossible.” He moves closer to me and I lick my lips, hoping but not hoping that he’ll make good on his promise.
“Promise to call me tomorrow or you’re leaving kicking and screaming over my shoulder. I know you act like a badass, but I’m stronger. Imagine what the headlines will look like.” He sweeps my hair off my shoulder, sparking a wave of goose bumps down my arms. “I’ll make sure Camilla gets home safely.”
“If I agree to call you, do you promise to leave me alone afterward?” I ask with a shaky voice.
“No,” he says. “But I’ll let you walk out of here on your own two legs.”
As the clock tolls midnight, Camilla excuses herself from our assigned table to meet me at the exit like we agreed upon before we arrived. It’s interesting to watch her play the role of a giddy blonde so well, only to turn it off like a light switch the moment she leaves the warehouse. Aside from the occasional lingering paparazzi hoping to capture late night mischief, we’re alone now.
The glow dwindles from Camilla’s eyes. She rubs her jaw, sore from over smiling, and stops beside me to hold my shoulder and remove her heels. She stretches and bends her toes before placing her feet on the concrete and hitching the dress to her knees to walk without tripping.
I’m relieved to see she wasn’t dazzled by the show of wealth or undivided attention the patrons at the gala were eager to share. She seems to be as exhausted by it as I am, and we head to the limo, accompanied by the sound of my dress brushing along the concrete sidewalk under my feet and nothing more.
The drive back to the apartment is quiet. I’m at peace with Camilla’s somber reaction to the gala—had she left excited, I would have called Inez first thing in the morning and warned her that we had another Naomi on our hands.
Camilla is appropriately disturbed.
And I’m not mad I promised Talent I’d call him tomorrow. I’m just not convinced I will.
“Among riotous eaters of flesh: For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags,” Camilla whispers to herself. Her warm breath clouds the car window.
“What was that?” I ask, unsure if I heard her correctly.
She shines one last fake smile and says, “Oh, nothing.”
I lost my mom when I was fourteen years old.
Her heart didn’t stop beating until after my sixteenth birthday, but on the night when all I wanted was money for a ticket to the dollar movie theater and instead saw the horror show that was Cricket Montgomery’s life, was when she stopped being my mother.
I’d triggered the beginning of the end of Cricket’s life and the start of mine alone.
Pretenses were up.
She was no idol. Cricket was an addict and a prostitute.
The truth is my mother got pregnant with me when she was a baby herself. My dad didn’t want to be a dad, so he wasn’t. Cricket’s parents didn’t want to be grandparents, so they weren’t.
They’d said, “If you’re grown enough to spread your legs and have a kid, you’re grown enough to move out.”
She couldn’t afford an abortion and didn’t know how to get one for free.
Cricket never forgave me for being born, but I was a constant companion during her lonely life. I entertained her ambition, stayed in my corner
of the dressing room while she danced naked under the red-hot lights above the stage, and I believed her when she said it was just a pit stop on the way to our real lives with a house and a pet.
She didn’t give a fuck about me.
Had she, I wouldn’t have spent my childhood in a strip club, tricked to believe it was liberation. If she loved me, she would’ve tried harder to change after we slept in the Buick the first time. Cricket wouldn’t have moved me into a house with a man who lingered outside my bedroom door at night, and she wouldn’t have let her only daughter walk in on her trading her body for drug money.
Cricket didn’t love anyone. Not even herself.
I stayed with my friend, whose name I don’t remember, for two nights after I realized the truth about my mom. Her room had roaches, the bathroom walls were covered in mildew, and her parents chain-smoked in the house. They hoarded, but I didn’t care. They were honest about their dysfunction, and I hoped to stay hidden behind the stacks of boxes and bags of trash for as long as I could. Didn’t happen that way.
“I think you need to go,” nameless friend said on what would have been night three. “My mom is starting to ask a lot of questions, and I really don’t want to tell her the truth.”
In two short years, my mom would be dead, and I’d belong to the streets. But I didn’t have it in me yet and went back to Mom and Marty.
Mom sat on a rickety, sun-bleached plastic chair against the front of the house. She was barefoot and sucking a long drag from a cigarette when I approached. The cherry at the end of her Camel Crush burned neon orange, and she accidentally kicked over a can of beer crossing her legs.
“Don’t you dare judge me,” she’d said behind a billow of cigarette smoke. “Someone has to support your lazy asses around here.”
She didn’t ask where I’d been, if I was hurt, or if I’d be staying. Her concern wasn’t that I’d caught her in a compromising position at the club, but that I didn’t condemn her for it. I was expected to accept it like I’d been fooled into accepting my entire irrational upbringing. But I’d finally figured it out.
Marty waited for me inside with a drunk smile on his fat face, and he said, “Where the fuck you been at?”
I’d known Marty was disgusting, but there were holes in the veil Cricket kept over my eyes. Marty was dangerous.
“If you come near me, I’ll kill you,” I said. I think it was the first mean thing I’d ever said aloud to anyone in my life.
It was the kindest thing I’d done for myself.
Cricket continued like nothing happened, but I’d woken to the transgressions of the sinners around me overnight. What I’d once considered powerful had turned intolerable, and I didn’t sit in the dressing room while my mom danced again. If I couldn’t stay with my nameless friend or avoid Marty at the house, I sat at the club’s bar with my back to the stage. Cricket had lost her magic when the track marks started to appear on her arms and neck, so she danced less and fucked strangers more.
The bartender served me spiked sodas and let me eat as many baskets of peanuts as I wanted. That’s how I got to know Marcel, the tall Polish security guard who’d pointed me toward the devil’s closet a few weeks prior. Marcel was in his early twenties, wore the same dingy hoodie every day, and had a patchy beard. He was nice to me, and I’d felt rebellious.
He called me pretty.
“Yeah, I know,” I’d said.
He called me prettier than Cricket. “That bitch is going to get fired if she doesn’t put down the dope.”
“Yeah, I know that, too.”
“She’s fucked-up, Cara,” Marcel had said.
I rolled my eyes. “My name is Lydia.”
He laughed loudly with the bartender and asked, “Who the fuck is Cara? My bad, girl.”
Marcel was my first kiss. A couple of days after he stuck his tongue into my mouth, I asked if he’d have sex with me. Motivated by curiosity and spite, I wanted to know how it felt as much as I yearned to hurt Cricket. He was kind enough to take me into the men’s restroom and lock the door. He wore a condom, and I kept my shirt on.
He freaked out when I bled.
“You’re a fucking virgin?” he asked with his dick in his hand.
I was unimpressed.
But Marcel followed me around like a hungry street dog for weeks after, and I knew my mom was right about one thing:
Men will do, give, or pay anything for pussy.
It’s a tale as old as time.
My eyes open the morning after the gala, and I feel heavy like I have cinder blocks strapped around my ankles and wrists. I know immediately it’s because I carry the burden of an appointment with the city’s district attorney at noon. He likes to handcuff me to his desk and fuck while he stares at booking photos of the men and women he’s prosecuted since he was elected two years ago.
We do this while hundreds of lawyers, investigators, and the office staff bust their asses to keep Grand Haven safe just outside his office door.
Deputy District Attorney Clay R. Deegan, Jr. was a guest at the Carousel of Love Gala, accompanied by his beautiful wife, who’s a regular client at Hush. Their four kids stayed with a babysitter.
I caught him looking at me once while I sat at the bar alone. Per our contract, we acted as perfect strangers. With the memory of my promise to Talent still on my lips, I can’t help but wish we were. The thought of metal handcuffs biting into my wrists while I breathe in the bitter scent of ink from the photocopied booking photos sends a wave of revulsion through my body.
Dog notices I’m awake and places his small paw on my arm. He whines, and when I ask if he wants to go outside, he barks and jumps off the bed.
I’ll get around to making the Lost Dog posters once my life calms down.
Every step weighs a thousand pounds, but I walk quietly past Camilla’s room to the front door. A better person would at the very least put a bra on, but I don’t feel like a person at all this morning. I drag the imaginary cement blocks behind me and follow Dog to the grassy area, where Dog Mom tries not to gawk at my nipples through my shirt.
She hands me a tumbler. “I brought it for your roommate. She’s such a lovely girl, but since you brought Dog out today, it’s all yours. I got a new cappuccino maker…”
Dog Mom goes on and on about her fancy coffee maker, and I’m shocked to realize I’m not mad about it. The cappuccino is good, and it lessens the load around my limbs.
“I know it’s none of my business, Cara, but you should really wear more clothes when you come out from now on. I mean, I don’t care—girl power and all, but there are some real freaks around here.”
I smile near the rim of the tumbler and mumble, “You have no idea how true that is.”
For the next ten minutes, Dog Mom pitches crime prevention strategies. She considers the neighborhood watch program and suggests the need for security guards at every entrance and exit around the complex. She almost bought a gun once.
Dog Mom doesn’t realize I’m the freak she’s wary of.
Camilla’s sliding her feet into a pair of slippers when Dog and I return to the apartment. She doesn’t blink an eye at my current state of undress or ask why I’d go outside in nothing but an oversized shirt. She thought I was still in my room.
“Did you get to try Dawn’s cappuccino? She told me she was going to make it again. Amazing, right? We should totally invest in a machine like hers. Day before yesterday, she made the most divine drip coffee.”
“Dog Mom’s name is Dawn?” I ask, heading back to my bedroom.
“Dog Mom? Oh, because of her mug. Clever.” Camilla laughs. She loads a coffee pod into our shitty coffee maker. “Lydia, can I ask you something before I don’t see you for the rest of the day?”
I stop in my doorway and ask, “What?”
“Can I decorate? Nothing outlandish. We can soften the couch with a throw blanket and pillows. Maybe put some color on the walls. It would make the space more inviting.”
What’s the point when
I don’t want anyone invited over at all? Enough people have invaded my life lately, and I don’t see myself opening my home to guests again.
“Do whatever you want, Camilla.”
I start my routine before an appointment with a bath, like I do every day.
Soaking in lavender-scented water, I rest one leg over the edge of the tub and let water drip from my toes to the tile floor. The ends of my long hair float atop the surface, and wispy pieces around my hairline stick to my skin from the steam. Last night’s mascara melts and paints my eyelids translucent black. I chew on my perfectly painted nails, chipping the gloss finish.
This month’s burner phone is within reach, haunting and silent because Talent left it up to me to contact him this time.
“Don’t make me wait all day,” he’d said. “I’ve waited long enough for you.”
Calling him is too daunting—like a single phone call has the possibility to tip the scale and change everything indefinitely. Has my lifestyle hung in the balance this entire time? Have I always been one decision away from a new path? Is that why I never strayed from my rules?
Tomorrow is the ten-year anniversary of Cricket’s death. A decade later, I still pay for the choices she made during her life because I didn’t hesitate to pick up where she left off.
There’s so much I’ve missed.
But Cricket never found someone like Talent Ridge, a man who only knows the worst parts about me and isn’t afraid to hear about the rest. Had she come across someone like him, it may have given her the chance to change direction, too.
This is why I reach for the phone and dial his number I know by heart.
Hugging my knees to my chest, I hold the phone to my ear and count how many times it rings.
Once, twice, three, and…
“Hello?” he answers in a careful tone, like he might scare me away if he speaks too loudly or moves too suddenly. As if he knew it would be me before he accepted the call.
I hold the phone between my ear and my shoulder and lather velvety shaving cream from my knee to my ankle.
“There’s so much you don’t know about me, Talent. You won’t want me after.” I wet my razor in the warm water and slide it from my Achilles heel up the back of my calf.
Tramp (Hush Book 1) Page 18