by Lila Price
After all my stupid wishes, he’s just what I suspected—a jerk who used me for sex.
Why else would he treat me this way?
God, and the most pathetic part is that I like him so damned much—and I’m so attracted to him—that I actually allowed him to get away with it.
I numbly clean up our uneaten breakfast, dumping the food into the trash. Then I text Julia and Cleo, asking them if it’s okay that movie time is off the schedule. I tell them I’m wiped out from work, and if I could have a day of rest before my next shift, I’ll make it up to them.
What else can I say? That, in a stunning miscalculation of emotion, I screwed my stepbrother and he screwed me right back? Not even my best friends will understand that.
When I go back upstairs, I shut Tristan’s door, then burrow into my own bed, trying not to cry myself to sleep. But tears do come, and so does sleep.
I wake up in more than enough time to get ready for work. I’ll get to Shady’s way early, but I can’t stand to be in this house, dreading the moment Tristan walks through that door—if he deigns to come back.
When I get to the club, Brent is in the office, leaning back in a leather chair behind the desk and staring intently at a laptop screen. He might not be the boss of everything here, but I can see him growing into the position someday soon.
His blue eyes light up when he sees me, and if my stomach isn’t upset enough, it sure is now. He’d be a prize for any lucky girl, and he could do a lot better than me.
He raises his eyebrows. “I’ve heard of eager to impress, but you don’t have to report for work this early, Sosie.”
I’ve already been to the club’s locker room, and I’m dressed and ready to go. “I’m making up for last night.” When I took that extra long break with Tristan. When I lied and told Brent I felt sick. He has no idea of how sick I feel now, except it’s not the flu or a bug. Unless you count Tristan as my own special debilitation.
Brent gestures toward the chair on the opposite side of the desk, and I sit.
“You feeling okay?”
“Yeah, great.” Another lie. Maybe I’m as full of them as Tristan.
“All right. Because if you’re still sick, you should take the night off.”
Brent clearly doesn’t believe that I’m “better” from last night’s fake illness, and why should he when, the last time I glanced at myself in a mirror, I was pale and had dark circles under my eyes? I thought I’d covered those telltale signs with enough makeup, but maybe I need a redo.
Instead of offering him a good explanation, I sigh. I don’t mean to, but I’ve been holding one back for what seems like hours.
There’s true concern in his gaze. “Sosie.”
I reluctantly look at him.
“Here’s the thing,” he says. “I’ve spent years pouring drinks. When someone bellies up to the bar with something on their mind, it’s my job to offer tequila and sympathy.” He opens a desk drawer and brings out a bottle of whiskey, and I’ve already learned enough to realize it’s top shelf. He takes out two cut-crystal glasses and splashes some booze into both, then pushes one across the desk to me.
“I don’t have any tequila in here,” he says, “but I’ve still got some whiskey to go along with the sympathy.”
“We’re allowed to drink on the job?” Because I’d love to drown just a little bit of this sorrow.
“Technically, you’re not on the clock, and I’m pretty good at being discreet.” He picks up his glass and tosses back some whiskey. “Soon you’re going to find yourself keeping everyone’s woes to yourself, just as I do.”
I drink a bit, and the whiskey goes down smoother than I expect. There’s no burn, no sting. If only being with Tristan was that easy.
“So,” Brent says. “What’s ailing you?”
He’s my friend right now, not a boss. Maybe when you work at a bar, that’s how it goes—there’s no line between the two of them.
I drink all of my whiskey, and Brent lifts his eyebrows again. He pours me some more, but not nearly as much.
I say, “If I didn’t know better, I’d guess that you’ve cut me off.”
“I’m gonna bet that something or someone has already done that to you. You’ve got that cut look about you.”
The whiskey has worked its quick magic on me, and I speak before really thinking about what I’m saying. “You’re right. Someone cut me off but good, Brent.”
He nudges his glass away, the light gone out of his eyes. I feel like crap for laying this on him, especially since he might have a thing for me, but when he meets my gaze again, the vibe between us has changed. It’s as if he knows that we’re in the Friendzone and he accepts it.
When I sigh again, it’s in relief. At least as far as Brent goes.
He makes a gesture with his fingers that can only mean Tell me the rest, so I do. Mostly.
“I’m seeing this guy…” I start. “God, just listen to me. ‘Seeing him’ is kind of putting it strongly.”
“You hooked up with him.”
I nod. Blunt but true. And even though Brent was in Shady’s when Tristan pulled me out of here in a jealous rage the other night, there’s no way my boss-friend is going to suspect who I hooked up with. Nobody would ever guess it’s my stepbrother.
I go on. “This guy…he doesn’t want me working here, and he’s convinced that I should quit.”
I’ve only told him the simplest part of the equation, but Brent sits back in his seat, mulling it over.
“Whoever it is,” he says, “he sounds like a controlling prick.”
Bingo. I toast him with my glass, but my heart’s not really in it. I still can’t help thinking that there are things about Tristan I don’t get, things he’s hiding, and if I just knew what they were, that would make all the difference.
Brent continues. “Nobody should make you feel bad about the decisions you make, so don’t give him that power.”
He’s right. He’s so damned right.
“I appreciate that,” I say. “Thank you.”
Now he toasts me with his empty glass. “To our decisions, good or bad.”
I return the gesture then sip more of my whiskey. I’m feeling way better, although not my best. I wonder if I’ll ever feel that good again while knowing things aren’t resolved with Tristan.
“You’re such a good bartender, Brent.” I smile at him. “Such a good guy.”
“It’s not the first time I’ve heard that, and probably not the last.”
I try not to notice the flat way he says it or the forced smile. Most of all, I refrain from telling him that, one day, the right girl will come along and she’ll be so much more perfect for him than I am. I try not to think about how, for such a short time, I was perfect for another guy until it all came smashing down on us this morning.
For the next couple of hours, I study my cocktails and try to get to know the wait staff—at least the employees I didn’t go to high school with. Some of them obviously think that I got this job because of my connections with Brent: the way they eyeball me tells me they believe I’m out of my element, and they’re right. But I do my best to win them over, and by the time my shift starts, I just might have gotten a couple of them into my corner.
Even so, as I pour, then collect money, and pour again for the ever-growing crowd, Brent’s words stick with me.
Nobody should make you feel bad about the decisions you make.
He sounds like a controlling prick.
And the more I think about it, the more worked up I get. I’d like to tell Tristan a thing or two about how screwed up he’s behaving.
By the time my shift ends, I’m on edge, dying to call Tristan, even if it’s only to leave him a voicemail. But that’s the coward’s way of trying to solve this. No, I’m going to wait him out and sit down with him face-to-face like an adult. I’m going to let him know that I won’t stand for his “controlling prick” act anymore.
I drive home, and as I pull into the lane where my house
sits with its windows glowing against the suburban night, I see someone getting into a car in my driveway.
A black Chevy. A tall, muscled man in a T-shirt and jeans.
Tristan.
It’s as if something has yanked a brake on my pulse, and I pull to the curb. I let out a breath as his car speeds out of the driveway and down the road, taillights red smears in the near distance.
Did he bother to look for me inside the house to see if I was home yet?
Does he even care about how we left things this morning?
Frustration urges me to do something I might very well regret, and I press down on the accelerator, following those taillights. I want to confront him, but even more than that, I want to know where the hell he always goes.
Somehow he doesn’t see me dogging him as he drives from the picket-fence part of town to a place on the fringes of the city where the streetlights are dim and sparse, where old warehouses sit abandoned. When he parks in a lot where weeds poke through the cracks in the pavement, I make sure he still doesn’t see me as I cut my engine and watch him walk away.
Or maybe I should say stalk, because he looks like a predator in the night, tense and wary as he disappears around the corner of a crumbling brick building.
This might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, but I rush out of my car and lock it, hurrying toward that building and then around the corner, only to find that Tristan isn’t anywhere in sight.
But someone else is. Two someones, and they’re both women dressed as if they’re about to flooze their way into a seedy bar. One of them knocks at the warehouse’s steel door in what seems like a pattern while the other girl looks me up and down, then dismisses me.
I had already changed out of my Shady’s uniform in the club’s locker room, and the ruffled black skirt and clingy sleeveless white blouse I’m wearing with my sandal wedges pretty much announces me as someone who should be drinking cocktails with tiny umbrellas somewhere else, but neither girl comments as the door opens.
A huge gorilla of a guy is standing there, and the women slap money into his hand. He grunts as they pass him by.
He checks me out as I dig into my purse. I highly suspect Tristan is in there, and I’m going after him, whatever this place is.
“How much?” I ask.
“Fifty.”
Jeez, fifty dollars? But tonight’s cash tips will cover that, and I give it over to him. He scans me again and laughs to himself.
“First time?” he asks.
I nod.
“Have at it, babe.”
He motions down the hallway, where sickly lights lead to a place where there’s a lot of noise—raised voices, cheers and jeers. Humidity presses in on me, and it smells like must and sweat and something else I can’t identify.
Cautiously, I make my way toward the ruckus, and then turn the corner into a huge cement room.
What I see there makes me want to run.
5
Dozens of people are crowded around the room: rough men in grease-stained shirts, city men who look as if they’ve just come straight from Wall Street, younger girls with barfly hair, and restless cougars hanging around the fringes. Money is changing hands fast and furiously between them while, in the center of it all, two wiry, shirtless guys go at each other, throwing punches.
Now I know what I smelled in the hallway besides must and sweat. It’s blood, and it’s coating the sweaty skin of those men as one of them butts his head against the other.
A brutal cheer erupts from the audience as the loser goes down, hitting the pavement with a sick smack. The victor backs away and someone—a guy dressed in a suit who looks really familiar—lifts up the man’s arm in triumph.
Then I recognize the fancy guy. I saw him in Shady’s last night, talking to Tristan.
Tristan, who hadn’t been cut and bruised at that point in the night, and who then showed up at home wounded in body and spirit.
As if drawn, my gaze moves to the right, where I find him—Tristan, with his thick arms crossed over his chest, expressionless except for the coldness in his eyes. His cut skin and bruised eye only make him look tougher as the people around him slap him on the back and he moves forward.
Dear God, Tristan.
The ringleader in the designer suit says something into Tristan’s ear, then shouts to the crowd. “One fight wasn’t enough! Look who’s back for more!”
The crowd starts to exchange money again, and I can see the women in the room staring at Tristan, their appetites for him obvious. I want to scratch their eyes out. I’m jealous that they know this one thing about Tristan that I’ve never known and that they’ve been in on this secret that he’s hidden from me. He belongs to this, to them.
But why? Why the hell is he doing this?
As another man steps into the makeshift ring, I cringe. Half the crowd roars. The guy is even bigger than the bouncer at the door, muscle upon muscle, his bald head shining under the dim lights. He’s already got his shirt off, and he’s walking back and forth, his fists bunched.
He’s going to kill Tristan, I think.
It doesn’t make me feel better to remember that my stepbrother’s always been an athlete, a footballer player and wrestler. Nothing can make me feel better about this.
Tristan eyes the guy, and there’s a harsh quirk at the corner of his lips, as if he has no worries in the world. People are shouting encouragement at him, shouting at one another, even as they keep throwing around their money in this sketchy place where there still seems to be an order to all the chaos.
When Tristan takes his T-shirt by the hem and slowly lifts it, baring those cut abs, the women scream. He peels off the material inch by excruciating inch then tosses the shirt at the ringleader’s face. The man chuckles.
Tristan gives him a look so withering that I wonder if they’re friends or enemies.
Before I can take another breath, Tristan and his opponent stride to the middle of the ring, their bare fists up.
The other man strikes first, taking a swing at Tristan, who easily dodges then sends a punch upward, connecting with the giant’s jaw. It barely dents the guy, and he attacks again, only to have Tristan avoid that assault, too. Cocky as hell, Tristan feigns a punch, pulls back, then jabs his opponent with a hit on the chin so degrading that the man bares his teeth and shakes his head.
Tristan’s playing with him, as if asking him when the fight really starts. Is he out of his mind?
Just as the bald man cocks back his fist, I hide my eyes. If I wanted to run away before, I definitely do now, but my feet won’t let me.
I hear skin connecting with skin, shouts from the crowd, more sounds of flesh hammering flesh, and when an extra loud cheer blasts through the room, I lower my hands, compelled to watch this horrifying and brutal dance.
What I see makes me breathe a warped sigh of relief: there’s blood pouring from a cut on the giant’s forehead. Tristan is undamaged so far, and he’s letting loose, pounding the guy’s jaw one way then the other. Now I can’t look away from the rawness of what’s happening as it keeps going on and on…
Even more disturbing is my reaction to the pummeling: my sex is beating, and I can picture myself pulling Tristan out of the ring so I can kiss him, devour him while the sweat of his skin makes him slick against me. We’d tear each other’s clothes off and go at each other like animals, primitive and needy and—
The giant pulls away from Tristan’s fists, recovering, and that’s when the crowd parts.
Everything slows down as my stepbrother’s gaze locks onto mine.
It looks as if he’s stunned, as if the sight of me is the only punch that’s landed on him tonight. I know I’m wide-eyed, fascinated, repulsed, and his expression tells me he sees all of that and more. In a flash, that lost, haunted look takes over his gaze.
Why? I think again.
Out of nowhere, the other guy’s fist comes flying at Tristan, knocking him back. Half the crowd groans and trades more money, and when Tristan doe
s nothing but look at me again, I want to scream at him. But there’s something in his eyes that’s different now, and when he merely stands there and takes another punch, I know what it is.
He’s accepting some kind of punishment, and I don’t know if it’s entirely about me.
“Tristan!” I yell, trying to snap him out of it.
Someone next to me tries to get me to bet, but I push them away and head toward the ring.
Tristan looks at me again, and he must see how desperate am I for him to fight back, because in the next instant, there’s a raging fire in him that I recognize, and he ducks the next punch. Then he’s on the guy, smashing him with his fists, backing him away farther and farther, thrashing him with an uppercut from the side, then from the other side, causing sweat to fly from the man’s face. When the man topples to the ground, Tristan pounces on him, his forearm jammed against the guy’s throat.
The crowd is in a frenzy while the giant grips Tristan’s arm with one hand and tries to beat him off with the other. But each effort gets weaker and weaker as he chokes under Tristan’s arm. It seems to take forever for him to lose strength and stop battling back.
“Blackout!” someone shouts, and I have the feeling there are extra points for that as Tristan stumbles to his feet.
People are reaching for him, patting him, congratulating him, and as the ringleader comes over to lift his arm in victory, Tristan only grabs the T-shirt the man is holding and pushes his way out of the ring.
His bad attitude doesn’t seem to matter much to anyone, because the ringleader only pulls the next fighter into position. Money is already changing hands again as I follow Tristan, but he’s moving fast, and I have to run to catch up. As he passes the bouncer and bursts through the door, he pulls on his shirt.
I stalk him down the cracked sidewalk, not giving up, even as he takes one step for every two of mine.
“Tristan!”