“What did happen?” I ask.
She ducks her head, and her long hair sweeps across her face and partially hides the beet red blush that is spreading across her cheeks.
This girl is a riot of emotions. Angry, and then embarrassed, all in the time it takes to order a drink. In spite of myself, I really do want to know why she is here. I told her to come find me if things didn’t work out with her fiancé. It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours. What could possibly have happened to bring her back so soon? I know I’m good, and if we had slept together, I might believe it was me that brought her back. But even my ego won’t let me believe that one dance and a short conversation made her throw her entire future aside. Certainly a rich girl like her doesn’t leave all that behind for a guy like me. Yes, last night was full of surprises and emotions that I don’t normally experience, but this isn’t a movie. Those feelings and her being here aren’t real.
I turn to the TV over the bar, It’s playing a mash-up of music videos and movie scenes. I pretend to be interested and nurse my drink.
“It’s not just last night that ended things.”
The muscles in my back and shoulders tense; here it comes. I’m about to find out her justification for why she wants to sleep with me.
“Did you wake up and decide you didn’t get your money’s worth from me?”
“Why are you acting like this? You’re not the man I met last night.”
“No kidding, sister. I’m a real man, not a fantasy.”
“I never thought you were a fantasy. I never thought anything like that. I thought you were the first real person I had ever met.”
“That’s a shame. I would think your money and your fiancé would be all the reality you would need.”
Her face is scarlet now and she glares at me with open hostility. She downs her wine and motions to Theresa.
“I’d like a vodka and soda, please.”
She gets off her stool and tosses her hair over her creamy white shoulder.
“Feel free to get on with your evening,” she growls.
The view is good as she turns away without waiting for a reply and struts off to the Ladies Room. Watching her walk away, I know I’m not going anywhere.
“What’s your problem?” Theresa asks. “I’ve never seen you be so rude to a client, especially not a pretty one.”
“She’s not a client,” I bark.
“What is she then? I know you don’t believe in relationships that last longer than a night.”
“Lay off, will you. It’s been a crappy day and I don’t need you making it worse.”
Theresa shrugs and puts Aria’s drink on the bar.
“You staying or leaving?’
This just keeps getting worse.
“If she doesn’t like my company, she can leave. Bring me a beer.”
I know my limit and if I keep drinking the whiskey, I may say something I’ll regret. I probably already have.
Aria settles back onto the stool and crosses her long legs towards me. She takes two big gulps of her drink and her blue eyes water from the alcohol. She straightens her shoulders and boldly meets my eyes.
“You told me to come and find you if things don’t work out with my fiancé. When I walked in on him getting a blow job from my best friend this morning, I realized that things aren’t going to work out.”
Her blue eyes, are tearing up from more than just the alcohol. My first instinct is to reach out to her but I’m not going to let her reel me in. She’s here because she’s been hurt and is humiliated. I don’t like being used.
“Let me guess, the slutty blonde from last night?”
Her mouth drops open. “How did you know?”
“Sweetheart, that girl is no one’s friend and she has trouble written all over her.”
“Yeah well, Ella had me fooled.”
“So, let me guess. You want to get revenge on your lawyer boy by coming down here and getting fucked by me. Then you will be even on your wedding day?”
Vodka and ice hits me full in the face.
“You need to apologize and get out, Ryan,” Theresa says, and throws me a towel to dry off. “Honey, you sit tight. I’ll get you another drink,” she says to Aria.
Theresa is glaring at me and Aria is shaking with what I can only imagine is a heady mix of hurt and rage. I am an asshole, but not such a huge asshole that I’m going to make things worse for her. That and Theresa scares the hell out of me. Even as an annoying little kid, tagging along after her brother and me, she was a force to be reckoned with.
“I’m sorry, Aria.” A pang of regret rips through my chest. She won’t look at me and I don’t blame her.
I chug my beer, throw a twenty on the bar, and leave.
I feel terrible and know I can’t go home. I need to burn this feeling off; I’m pissed at myself and sorry for Aria. I head to the same bar I went to last night.
I can’t help but feel myself rage as I make my way to the bar. I’d like to punch that shit of a fiancé in the face. What a fool, to throw away a woman like Aria on a cheap thrill. I don’t know what it’s like to have an easy life. And I don’t know what it’s like to have everything handed to you on a silver platter. But I’m damned sure I would care for anything I had of value. I hate the man but I also pity him. Aria will forget all about her moment of weakness with me and she’ll forgive him his indiscretion and they will get married and be miserable and he will be too stupid to see the treasure that he has.
I, on the other hand, am smart enough to know that this kind of woman isn’t for me. I like my life just fine the way it is. It is free and easy with no complications.
I head to the bar and steel my resolve before entering the fray. I ignore the swift jolt of remorse over Aria and hope I can do a better job of forgetting her tonight.
Chapter 6
Aria
What I saw this morning with Xavier and Ella made me think I had reached the height of my humiliation. I was wrong. Ryan, who had been so wonderful the night before, brought me to tears in front of a bar full of strangers with nothing more than a few well-chosen words. I can’t believe what an idiot I was to think last night was anything more than a performance for tips.
The bartender puts a fresh drink in front of me and wipes the vodka and ice off the bar. She has tattoos of fairies and flowers covering both of her arms and her flaming red hair is done like the pin up girls from the fifties. She smiles at me kindly and it just serves to make me feel worse. I have sunk so low that a girl who tends bar at a male strip club feels bad for me.
“Did I really just throw a drink at Ryan?” I ask.
Theresa raises a sharply defined eyebrow and leans over the bar towards me, placing her ample cleavage on full display for anyone who may be looking. “Don’t tell me you’re regretting it? He totally deserved it. I only wish you’d been drinking something red. Then the playboy would have been forced to go home and change before hitting the hook-up bars.”
Why doesn’t she tend bar at a female strip club, or even a regular bar? I can’t imagine the women who frequent the club have much cash left to tip a busty female bartender after throwing all their money at naked men who are dancing for their pleasure.
“Do you think that’s where he is going? To a bar for sex?”
“What bus did you come in on, Pollyanna? This is New York and Ryan Temptation is one of the most notorious players in the city.”
Temptation? His name is Temptation? And he has a reputation even in a city like New York? Could I really have been that mistaken about him?
“He was so different last night. He was genuine and interested. He told me to come and find him if things with my … if I ever needed help.”
“Ryan sat and talked with you? That man never talks to the women at the club unless it’s to set up a meeting place for sex.”
I am both pleased and horrified by this. Pleased that he found me interesting enough to talk to about something more than just sex. But horrified that he proposition
s women he doesn’t know for sex and on top of that, he apparently doesn’t find me attractive enough for said casual sex. A terrible suspicion snakes its way into my head. Maybe Ella paid him extra for the whole sit down and pretend that you care thing. It certainly explains why he was so rude to me this evening and it definitely played into my catching Ella and Xavier together today, which is probably what she has wanted all along. I will give her credit though. She managed to destroy, in one night, an engagement that has been in the making for over twenty years.
She is even less savvy than me, though, if she thinks Xavier will marry her. His family will never allow the mother of their grandchildren to come from a family whose wealth is untraceable and has been brought into question more than once by the District Attorney’s office. Not to mention Ella’s own reputation amongst the children of the wealthy and powerful.
Theresa scoffs at my description of Ryan’s behavior last night. I’m glad I have thus far managed to keep quiet about the whole, “leaving my fiancé to find Ryan” part of my day. A new dancer comes out on stage and the few women at the bar close out their tab and head to the stage to watch the entertainment.
“The drink is on me if you want to go watch the show,” she tells me.
I glance over my shoulder at the dancer and shake my head. “I think I’m done with male strippers for a while.”
Theresa laughs and tells me this is the smartest thing anyone has said to her in the club all week. She pours me another drink and I soon find myself opening up to her and telling her everything. I tell her about Ryan and how alive I felt when he danced for and with me last night. The words are out in a rush and I’m too upset and confused right now to stop. I tell her about Xavier and how I never questioned that I would marry him and start a family. I even tell her that I am a virgin and how I have never understood what the big deal was about waiting until marriage. That is, until I found myself wrapped around Ryan last night and wanted nothing more than for him to take me. Then I tell her how it got even worse when we were talking because I realized that not only am I missing out in the whole sex thing, but I have no real emotional connection or understanding with Xavier, or my family for that matter.
“I’m scared,” I tell her. “I don’t know what to do. I’ve never had to make a decision about my life because it’s always been planned out for me. And I can’t believe that in one day, I have been betrayed by my fiancé and blown off by the one man I thought was different.”
Tears are sliding down my face and Theresa hands me a cocktail napkin.
“Aria, it’s not as bad as it seems right now. I’m clocking out in a few minutes and going home …”
“Of course, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to keep you. Let me just pay and I’ll head out.”
“Let me finish. I don’t think you should go home alone tonight. You’ve had a terrible day and I don’t want you to do anything stupid like let that fiancé talk you into forgiving him so that your parents won’t be disappointed and you won’t have to grow-up.”
The last part is like a slap in the face. I want to tell her to go to hell, but she is right. I may be twenty-one, but I’m still a child when it comes to the real world that she and Ryan live in.
“Come stay with me tonight. It will give you a chance to think things through before you decide what to do.”
Not wanting to be alone and grateful for any form of kindness, I accept.
Theresa’s apartment is only one room, with her bed, kitchen, and couch all occupying the same space. She has a large window on one wall with a pink neon sign blinking Live Nude Girls.
She pulls her drapes, which are nothing more than black sheets, shut across the window. The sheets help but a flashing pink glow still reflects against the white walls. She puts on a kettle for tea and motions for me to sit on the couch.
“Do you know Ryan well?” It is against my better judgment to ask but I can’t help it.
“I don’t know him well, but I have known him for a long time. He and my big brother were close friends in high school. Ryan’s the one who got me the job bartending at the club. I’m the club’s first ever female bartender,” she says with pride.
I can hear my grandma’s voice clear as day in my head: Curiosity is what killed the cat, Ari girl. You don’t need to know these things. She would say this when I would ask her what my parents were fighting about and why my brother never came home to visit once after leaving for college. I ignore her words now, just like I did back then.
“How did you and Ryan end up here?”
She puts down the mismatched tea cups she was holding and places her hands on her slim hips and stares me down until I am forced to look away.
“What’s wrong with here? It’s a hell of a lot better than where either of us came from, and it’s an honest way to make a living.”
Just how honest is it when you make women believe you are interested in them as a person when all you are really after is their money? But I’m not about to say this out loud to Theresa for fear I will find myself out on the street in a strange neighborhood.
“I just meant that Ryan said he grew up in Boston. How did you both come to be in New York at the same club?”
“I’m sorry,” Theresa says. “I don’t mean to be so sensitive. It’s just I, and Ryan, have worked really hard to make lives for ourselves. It makes me so angry when people act like it’s not good enough, like I’m not good enough. It hurts when people who know nothing about us look down on us, or objectify us, because of what we do to support ourselves.”
I really like Theresa and don’t want to upset her but I’m curious what could make an obviously smart girl choose to live in a tiny apartment in a questionable part of the city and serve drinks in a male strip club.
“Was your life hard before coming to New York?”
Theresa laughed out loud but her mirth didn’t reach her eyes.
“My life is still hard but it’s better. I have no one to answer to and I like it that way. I left home when I was sixteen and have been on my own ever since.”
She tells me about her life living on the street until she found a home for teenage runaways. They helped her get her GED and find a job at a pet store where she fed the animals and cleaned their cages.
“It was the first time I was responsible for anything and I loved it. I would name every fish, mouse, and gerbil that came through there.”
“Why did you stop working there?”
“They couldn’t afford to pay me enough to live on and I had to leave the home when I turned eighteen. You would be surprised how well these ladies tip and the best part is no one hits on me. I worked at a hook-up place before Ryan got me this job. The things men would say to me; it was awful.”
“Is that where you reconnected with Ryan, at the hook-up bar?”
“You know him well. Yeah, it was at the bar but it was still great to see him. We grew up in the same trailer park. He had it a lot better than my brother and me but it was still rough. His parents are poor but they’re together and love him.”
I feel anguish for Theresa and all she has had to go through but a sense of relief and gratitude fills me when she says that Ryan has parents that love him. Even after the way he treated me tonight, I feel better knowing he has family and isn’t alone in the world. Though I am still pretty mad about his behavior.
I think of my own upbringing in contrast to Theresa’s. My father may have worked a lot but I know he loves me and just wants what is best for me. Poor Theresa had nothing but a string of her mom’s boyfriends as father figures and many of them sound like they were abusive. I am ashamed for how I have taken my life for granted. I can’t even be mad at Xavier. If I had bothered to take a second and think about what I want instead of just doing what everyone wants me to do, Xavier and I wouldn’t be engaged in the first place.
I’m graduating from college in a week and instead of looking for a career and an apartment that I pay for instead of my parents, I have been going to wedding cake tastings a
nd diving blindly into a life I don’t want.
I’m glad I came home with Theresa. For the first time, I see things with a fresh perspective. I am calling off the wedding and I am going to stand on my own two feet. I won’t take my family’s money anymore and though they will be mad at first, I know they will still love me. It’s about time I find out who I am and what I want out of life.
Chapter 7
Aria
I steel myself for the call I have to make. I know I need to do it now, before I lose my courage. Theresa is still asleep so I crawl out the window onto the fire escape and take a deep, calming breath.
“Mom.”
“Aria, where on earth are you? The bridal shop called and said you didn’t show up for the final fitting. Do you have any idea how many young girls would give their first born for a custom dress from Pnina Tornai?”
The blood freezes in my veins when I hear my mom’s voice. All I can think of is how much money my family has spent on this wedding. There is the dress, the church, the reception hall, and the caterers. Not to mention the humiliation of the wedding being cancelled a few days before it’s supposed to happen.
I know I can tell her. It’s like pulling off a bandage; a really big, extra sticky bandage.
“Mom, stop talking. I’m calling the wedding off because Xavier cheated on me and I don’t love him. I’m not going to marry him.”
For the first time in her life, my mother is speechless.
“I’ve decided to stay in the city and get a job. I’m going to be independent for the first time in my life. I love you, mom, but this is something I have to do.”
“Aria, don’t over react. I’m sure Xavier was just sowing some oats before settling down with you. And the idea of you staying in the city by yourself is out of the question. I never should have let you go there for college in the first place. I knew living in the city would be nothing but a bad influence. But I thought if Xavier was there with you, it would be alright.”
“I’m hanging up now,” I tell her. “I’ll call back later after you’ve had time to digest everything.” I put down the phone before she can say any more.
Touchdown: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (Pass To Win Book 1) Page 20