Next To Me

by Amabel Daniels

  I ran my hand up his chest, reveling in the thundering piston of his heartbeat. I did this. I was making him crazy like this. Heady confidence swept in. “And you constantly trying to push my buttons and tease me.”

  He rubbed his thumb along my lower lip, dragging the flesh apart. I struggled to swallow past the lump in my throat.

  “The only thing I want right now is to tease a kiss from your sassy mouth.”

  My breath hitched as he closed the gap, bringing his full, warm lips to mine. First a gentle brush and then crashing into me. I fisted his shirt, needing something to hold on to as he devoured me, my other arm trapped hanging to my side.

  He growled into my mouth as he leaned closer yet. Hot, demanding, uncontrollable—

  A rough pull at my side jerked me off-kilter and I flexed at the evening air in my grip. My fingers… Nothing was there. I’d been clutching my purse strap—

  Mav broke away as instantly as my arm had been pulled.

  “My—”

  He whipped his head side to side, scanning our surroundings.

  “—purse.”

  To the left, a figure sprinted down the darkening sidewalks, my turquoise bag flying behind him.

  “Fucker.” Mav ran after him.

  I gasped and brought my fingers to my swollen lips. Stunned by not only the hottest kiss of my life, but the fact someone had stolen my damn purse!

  My purse.

  And Richard’s ring!

  “Motherfucker!” I whispered to myself before I took off running after them.

  Six

  Mav

  I kept my sights trained on that scrawny-ass punk for two blocks. Carly’s bright-blue purse stood out vividly like a flash of brightness to follow. He twisted around pedestrians, smacked into and stumbled over a peddler, and still, I couldn’t catch him.

  Carly yelled out behind me and I frowned, my worries split in two directions. I needed to get her purse and our boss’s millions-dollars’ worth of a ring. With the unfamiliar city space darkening, I had to make sure I didn’t leave Carly behind—without a phone to locate me, help, or anything.

  I slowed down, my shoes pounding my fury into the pavement. Standing still, I set a fist at my hip and growled.

  You little punk.

  Carly’s heels clacked in a flurry and she, too, ceased the pursuit. “Where— What are—” She sucked in a breath and clutched the back of my shirt. “Where’d he go?”

  I’d sure as shit find out. I held a finger up, gesturing her to hold her horses, and pulled my phone from the pocket.

  She’d released my t-shirt and walked around me, surveying the corner we’d stopped at. Her shoulders rose as she heaved out a deep breath. “How will you know what to tell the cops? I know we were at a tan-bricked building, but—”

  “I’m not.”

  She whipped her face toward me. “Not what?”

  “Calling the cops.”

  Her arms shot out like the Y of the YMCA. “Because it’s absolutely fine if my purse and that Richard Young the Third’s ri—”

  I slapped my hand over her mouth and hugged her to me. My phone waited at her side as I embraced her. “We don’t exactly need to broadcast that to the world.”

  Her eyes sparked fury and I released her, despite her glower that hinted she wasn’t done yelling yet.

  “I’m tracking it.” I held up the phone as the app booted up.

  “The ring?”

  I smirked. “How the hell would they chip a fucking ring?”

  She crossed her arms, weaseling out of my hug. “It was a huge rock!”

  “Your phone.” I shifted so she could view the screen with me.

  “You—” She huffed and her mouth stayed hanging open for a second. “Track my phone. You can stalk me?”

  I groaned. “Richard’s phone. Not yours. It’s Young, Inc.’s property and all of the devices can be tracked.”

  “And you still don’t think the cops should know about this?”

  “Me being able to track the locations of phones as part of my job as head of security?”

  She smacked my arm. “No! My purse and the you-know-what.”

  I shrugged. “Nah. They’ll take too long to get here and when they do, it’ll be a hassle. It’s just some skinny punk-ass kid. He’s not going to disappear.”

  We huddled close to watch the app search for her phone.

  When the dot blinked in a steady line, I wished the rest of the app’s map would show. As soon as the street lines of the night-vision map would fill in, we’d follow.

  Aha. It filled in the street names.

  “Come on,” I said and trotted forward. “He’s not that far ahead.”

  When she didn’t meet my pace, I held my free hand out to her instead of slowing down.

  I bet her idea to contact the law held some merit, but if we simply hustled and found the guy, we could take care of this ourselves. He couldn’t be any older than eighteen—a scrap of a punk I certainly could handle on my own. No need to get tangled with cops and filing reports. Documenting that I’d fucked up and lowered my guard—slacked in my responsibilities of protecting that stupid, expensive piece of jewelry.

  All my goddamn fault. I just had to push her. Nudge her. Tease her for more.

  I licked my lips, hating how her taste was already so faint.

  “Next time,” I said and squeezed her hand in mine, “hold on tighter.”

  She immediately did the opposite. Yanking her hand free, she strode next to me, not making any eye contact.

  We were in New York, after all. Regardless of who was kissing who, wouldn’t she have a little common sense up in that intelligent brain of hers? Orlando was a big city, but not as notoriously enormous as the Big Apple. It was hard to remember that she was still naïve in some ways, a small-town country girl unaccustomed to potential dangers in the cosmopolitan corners of the world. Yet it wasn’t like she hadn’t been in cities where crime could and would happen.

  “I was holding on tight. Just to the wrong damn thing—you!”

  The bite in her retort hit me hard and deep. “Got frostbite from that one, darling.”

  Yep. She was already regretting it, wishing she could delete her moment with me. And without a doubt, it was over. My shot at anything with Carly was locked out of the realm of reality because the next time she’d probably let me close enough to prove our chemistry, it’d be sometime within the next ice age.

  Goddammit. But now wasn’t the time to complain about it.

  Obeying the path of the dot on my screen, we walked four blocks of nighttime New York. The course ended, so to say, at a brightly neoned entrance. Here was where the dot turned ninety degrees and remained in place.

  A club?

  I squinted my eyes as I peered at the signage blinking, flashing, and fading in and out overheard. Contrasted to the navy sky, it was too gaudy. Too bright. Too vivid.

  “What is this place?”

  “Lula’s Lounge,” I answered, reading the biggest sign above the door.

  “A nightclub?” she asked, leaning to her side in front of a blacked-out door, as though she could gain a sneak peek of the interior with Superwoman eyesight.

  I pointed to the large neon vector image of a female dancer with a short skirt flying up. Her lower half pose screamed Marilyn Monroe, but the coy, opened-mouth gape on her face reminded me of old Betty Boop cartoons.

  She scowled. “A strip club?”

  I shrugged, alternatively paying attention to the immobile tracer dot on my screen and the front façade of the building. It seemed too big—tall—for a strip club. More like a theater?

  I stepped toward the door. “I’ll go in and…”

  She lurched forward and took hold of my beltloop. “No, no, no, no. I don’t think so.” After I stopped, she pointed at the double front doors. “You’ll go in there and get a gaggle of women all over you, and the thief will get away.”

  I rolled my eyes at her assessment and estimation of me. “Then we�
��ll go in and get the guy.” I didn’t want to be separated from her anyway. Now it was my turn to take hold of her. I kept my arm around her waist, marking her as my companion, as I tossed more than enough bills to a beefy thug of a man collecting cover charges.

  “Show starts in eight minutes,” he told us.

  “Lucky us.”

  I ignored Carly’s mumbled sarcasm and shepherded her through the audience. I was right. Audience, as in rows and rows of people facing a stage. It wasn’t set up like any strip joint I’d ever gone to. And whatever this was about, it was packed.

  What kind of a show…? The entertainment didn’t matter. Following a route to Carly’s purse did. We trotted down a side aisle as upbeat muzak played on the background. Too many conversations mashed into a roar that made it hard to focus.

  Further and further, we entered the darkness broken only by dim sconces on the wall. Passing the first row, we came to a split in the hallway at the corner.

  Stage access? I glanced at my phone again. Yep. The thief was in one of the backstage spaces.

  “Please take your seats,” an usher said as he squeezed past us in the aisle, setting his hand on my back to help me move aside for other spectators to get to their row.

  “Uh-huh,” I muttered to him with a stiff smile. Then to Carly, “Come on.” I hugged her closer to me and we rushed toward the door labeled Stage Access.

  We pressed through another crowd in these narrow halls behind the stage. Women—maybe?—dressed in exotic and dated costumes lingered in front of doors. Some fluffing feathered headpieces, a few more adjusting the collar hem of their dresses and accessories draping from their neck. Drag queens, it was. One, uh, dancer worked her mouth from a silent scream to a Groucho Marx frown. Exercising her mouth? It was a grotesque display of too many facial expressions too quickly.

  “Um… Mav?”

  I held the phone aloft some more so she could see I wasn’t going on a wild goose chase here. The dot blinked on the map. Yards ahead. Feet now. We dodged around a couple of performers. The taller one in neon green tilted her head side to side, likely testing the balance of the two-feet-tall fruit basket atop her head. It didn’t fall on us as we rushed by, but her shorter companion, a dark-skinned attempt of one of the McGuire Sisters, spritzed perfume and the noxious cloud damn near brought me passing out to my knees.

  “Right—” I had to cough up my other lung to speak more. “Ahead.” I pointed to the door at the end of the corridor. Dead end. Yet right where the tracer dot had been sitting for a few minutes now.

  “Can I help you?” A sugary sweet voice threw me off with the politely termed question. It sounded like Dan Rathers, but too girly?

  I turned, still hacking up that perfume, and Carly pivoted with me.

  A broad-shouldered Amazon of a man stood waiting for an answer. But he was a woman in this outfit, I assumed. She tapped a large magenta high-heeled boot to the floor and propped one meaty hand with talon-like fuchsia nails on the tips to her hip. Her tanned skin was coated with varying layers of purple makeup, the heavy cosmetics a performer on stage might need to endure.

  “Maybe…” Carly said as I still studied the woman who’d stopped us.

  I narrowed my eyes, trying to place the flashy dress straight from the sixties. Tall boots. That hair, though…

  My dad was a big fan of the oldies. I should be able to place her… Bingo!

  I pointed at her. “Martha Reeves! From Martha and the Vandellas!”

  She smiled smugly at me. “Nah, sweetie. I’m just one of the Vandellas. Annette Beard. You can call me Nettie. Lula’s Martha.”

  Carly squinted at me and shot a nervous look back at the door we needed to bust down.

  “Are you two cuties lost? Show’s on in a few min, m’kay? Head on back to your seats.”

  “No, no.” I shook my head and jerked a thumb back at the closed door. “Someone stole her purse. We tracked her phone that’s inside, and it’s in that room.”

  Nettie shrugged and crossed her arms. The polyester top of her dress didn’t accommodate the girth of her shoulders. “Prolly Tito.”

  Carly scoffed. “At least we have a name…” she mumbled to me. She stepped closer to Nettie and asked, not so gently, “He steals women’s purses?”

  In a show of indifference, Nettie studied her nails, her painted lips frowning in a pout, and said. “The kid’s gotta make a living somehow.”

  “That’s theft! Not a job.”

  Nettie sneered at her. “Someone’s gotta do it.”

  Carly gaped at her. “Actually, no, no one needs pickpockets—”

  I stepped between the women—well, Carly and the drag queen—and flipped a few bills out of my wallet. “I’d really appreciate it if you’d let us in that room for a moment.”

  Nettie gave me a lusty once-over. “Mmm hmmm. And I’d really appreciate letting you in a room with me for a moment.” Her throaty cackle was a deep, braying chortle.

  “Okay.” Carly butted around me to face the performer again. “You and Maverick—”

  “Oooh. Mav-er-ick. Strong, bold name for you. Bet you sure know how to make a girl fly.” Nettie felt up my jacket sleeve and I bumped back into Carly.

  “You and Mav hang out in that”—Carly pointed at the room Richard’s ring had to be in—“room for a moment together then.”

  What in the hell is wrong with this woman? Pimping me off? I stepped to the side, away from both of them.

  “Hmm.” Nettie strapped an arm over her chest and tapped at her chin with her free hand. “He’s a fine-looking boy, but I like my men…less Hulkish.”

  Carly sighed.

  I glowered at her.

  Carly switched tactics. “Please, we need to get in there. I need my purse back.”

  Nettie harrumphed. “Don’t we all need our bags, cupcake? Huh?”

  “Four minutes!” The announcement was bellowed from down the hall.

  Another dancer rushed up to Nettie. In a sequined gold flapper dress, she nearly blinded us once the fabric finished reflecting the domed lights from nearby dressing tables. “Nettie. We’re short a backup on this one.”

  “Ain’t the owner supposed to handle them?”

  Flapper Girl shook her head and brushed at the skin above her lip. “One called in sick.”

  Nettie huffed. “Don’t be looking at me, Lula. You’ve got the wrong decade, sugar pie.” She brandished a hand at her sixties getup. “I’m not on ’til after intermission but I ain’t changing all my gear.”

  “Well,” Lula said with a grating, manly growl, “I need someone on stage behind me. I can’t have three for backup in four spots.”

  Nettie tilted her head slowly and turned to Carly. “You dance, cupcake?”

  My coworker laughed once. “Uh…No?”

  “Who’s this?” Lula turned smoky eyes toward us, her lip-sticked lips scowling like a mafia boss.

  Nettie shrugged and pointed a finger at the closed door nearby. “They say Tito stole her bag. This one’s trying to bribe his way in there to get it.”

  “That stupid punk.” Lula frowned, showcasing more lines and crow’s feet that even the inch of stage makeup couldn’t conceal. “Tito’s my little brother. Dumbest sack of crap to walk the earth. You wanna get your bag back, fine. I’ll let you in there to get it if you do me a favor too.” She got up in Carly’s face. “Can you dance?”

  “I…would rather not.” She backpedaled into me and I caught her.

  Lula and Nettie scoffed. “What, you’ve never met a drag queen before?”

  “No, I actually haven’t. Nice to…meet you. But that has nothing to do with the fact I’m not a professional dancer.”

  Nettie cracked up. “Hell. We ain’t pros either!”

  Lula chuckled. “But we do have a show to put on.” She jerked a square jaw toward Nettie. “Find her that backup dress.” To us, she declared, “You step in for my absent backup for this number, and I’ll drag that idiot brother of mine out of the room and make him
hand over your purse.”

  She didn’t linger to know the outcome, perhaps confident in her growling tone and firm negotiations that Carly would agree to her terms. Away she went, the millions of amber sequins shimmering in a wave over her bulky yet glamorous body.

  “Can you dance?” Nettie pressed. She walked over to a sliding rack of dresses and chose a flapper gown, similar in style and cut to Lula’s gold but darker, almost completely black.

  Carly opened and closed her mouth, her eyes too wide for her to be calm. “Well, sure, but—”

  “How about the Charleston?”

  She winced a small smile. “Reigning champ on Dance Off Four.”

  Now I worried. She was the winner of a PlayStation game? Likely beating her ten-year-old daughter and my almost eleven-year-old niece?

  I was all for a little bartering to simply get Carly’s bag back. My job counted on it and I wasn’t in the mood to get a new one. Richard was a little wacko but he paid damned well. I was almost done paying off my student loans and had a steady house down payment accumulating…

  If she could get on stage and pull off enough moves to get us that ring, sweet deal. But what if she…sucked? Got booed off the stage?

  “Good ’nough. Ain’t no room for two prima donnas out there. Just make sure you don’t upstage Lula. She’s the star.”

  Carly took the dress with a weak grip, nearly dropping it. “O…kay.”

  Nettie clapped then. “Well, don’t just stand there. Get dressed. There’s an empty room right over there. Your boy here can help you into that number. It’s a dick to zip on your own. Come on out and we’ll get you in line. Go!”

  I didn’t give her a chance to hem-haw. She jolted in surprise when I linked her arm with mine and guided her to the changing room. As soon as I shut the door and faced her, she freaked.

  “This is nuts, Mav. Insane!”

  “Maybe, but—”

  “It is ridiculous!” She shouted but began undoing her dress.

  “True, but—”

  She stomped and pointed at me, her other hand on the zipper of the pastel summery dress she was wearing. “You’re not getting a private show. Turn around.”

  I did, biting my lip. I’d wanted to see what she hid under her usual bright, simple dresses but certainly not like this. I wrangled to stay patient and not rush her. It wasn’t like we had time to hash out the ludicrousness of this plan. I couldn’t make sure she was hurrying if I had to look away.