by Naomi West
“Where are we going?” she asked.
I nodded towards the stairs. The sly expression on her face made it clear that she knew just what I had in mind.
Then we hit a snag. Right when we stepped off of the dance floor, we came face to face with a handful of the girls Nikki’d shown up with, all with the looks on their faces that girls get when they’re ready to cockblock.
Chapter 4
Nikki
As soon as my friends pulled me away from Tiger, I felt like I’d come out of a trance. The man had a hold on me, and if the girls hadn’t been there waiting for us, I knew that five minutes later I would’ve been under those stairs, my hands pressed against the wall as some wild biker rutted on me like a bull.
I knew my friends had done the right thing. But part of me wished they hadn’t. Part of me wanted to do the wrong thing, the very bad, naughty thing. What had started off as an immature way to get Marcus to back off had ended up with me in a situation where I was about to get fucked hard by a total stranger.
I stirred my drink absentmindedly as I sat back at the tables with the rest of the group. Some of the girls had paired off with Marcus’ friends, but Marcus was nowhere to be seen. I hoped he’d found some girl who was actually into his attention.
“Who was that guy?” asked Patricia, now seated on the lap of Paul, a sandy-haired, handsome-faced friend of Marcus.
I didn’t know exactly how to answer. I knew his name, but other than that, the girls knew as much about him as I did.
“Um, his name was Tiger.”
“Tiger?” asked Chad, another one of Marcus’ friends, scoffing and rolling his eyes. “Cool name.”
“Easy to talk trash when he’s not standing here,” said Melanie. “I specifically remember you looking about two seconds away from pissing your skinny jeans when it looked like a fight was about to go down.”
His masculine pride under attack, Chad sat up.
“Bullshit,” he said. “We would’ve clowned on those assholes. They were lucky as shit Nikki brought them off with some fucking Coors Lights.”
Patricia was hardly convinced.
“Are you kidding?” she asked. “Guys like that live for fights. They probably came and sat down in our section hoping they’d start one.”
I couldn’t help but scan the dance floor as they argued. I was both hoping to spot Tiger again and at the same time fearing that he’d found some other girl. Something told me that a guy like him didn’t have to look far for attention from women.
“Where were you two even going?” asked Melanie, narrowing her eyes playfully. “Out for a little chat?”
“I don’t know,” I said, really not sure how to answer. “I was just having fun. Maybe getting a little carried away.”
“Yeah,” said Patricia. “You were about to get ‘carried away’ all right. Dude looks like the type who’d throw you over his shoulder and take you back to his cave.”
“Is that supposed to be a bad thing?” asked Melanie.
The girls at the table let out giggles and started chatting amongst themselves, the subject of the bikers on their lips. I glanced around and saw that the guys were getting a little nervous, clearly wondering if they had something to worry about with these bikers.
The partying went on, and I tried to force myself to come back to reality.
“Okay, I think I’m ready for another round of drinks,” said Patricia.
She turned her eyes expectantly towards me, and I knew that meant I was up.
“Um, just put on my tab,” I said. “I’ll cover everything at the end of the night.”
“Thanks, babe!” she said, giving me a wink as she sidled out of the booth and headed off towards the bar with Melanie and a couple of the other guys.
Conversation swirled around me, and I began to slip into my own head. I thought about Tiger, about that strange hold he had had on me, about how I had been total putty in his hands. I knew that I had been getting carried away, and I’d liked it. Dancing with him, kissing him, if only for a brief moment, had awoken something in me. I wasn’t quite sure what it was, but I knew that it was something that I wasn’t getting from any of these guys here at the table.
Tiger was a real man. And I was hooked. I wanted more and more.
I let my eyes drift over the dance floor again. Still no sign of Tiger. I told myself that it was just a weird, one-off thing, that guys like him and girls like me didn’t exist in the same world, that he and I even meeting was just some kind of weird fluke. I told myself that I needed to accept that men like Marcus—if you could even call them “men”—were the sort of guys for girls like me, and not men with wild tattoos up their arms that made them look like wild animals on the prowl.
But even the thought of the tattoos made me feel all tingly down there.
I didn’t spot Tiger, but I did catch a glimpse of Patricia and the rest at the bar. Patricia pointed to bottle after bottle, which the bartender surely was adding to the tab. Even though it wasn’t my money being spent, I couldn’t help but feel a little frustrated about how often this process happened, of how often it felt like I was being taken advantage of. And it’s not like these girls were hurting for money—they were even more daddy’s girls than I was.
Soon, the group came back to the table, a waiter following close behind with a large tray of drinks and bottles.
“’Sup, y’all!” said Patricia as she sauntered back to her seat.
I glanced over the wide array of fancy booze.
“Did you get bottle service?” I asked, pointing to the drinks.
“You bet your ass I did,” she said. “I mean, it’s your effin’ birthday! We’re celebrating!”
Easy for you to say when it’s not your money, I thought wryly, forming my mouth into a hard, flat line.
The waiter cracked open a bottle of vodka and started pouring it around into the glasses on the tray, dumping little cubes of ice into each one before passing them out. My eyes jumped from bottle to bottle, a sick feeling forming in my gut. I knew how expensive bottle service at a place like this was, and even with the discount that we probably got through Marcus, it was going to be a hell of a bill.
I mean, I knew that I could spend a few grand here and my dad probably wouldn’t even notice, but that wasn’t the point—I was beginning to feel as though I was being taken advantage of. And I didn’t like it.
“Come on, girl,” said Patricia, handing me a glass. “We’ll get you good and drunk and hooked up with a guy. And I think you know just who we’ve got in mind.”
I took a sip of my drink, letting the cool vodka play on my tongue for a moment before bringing it down in a hard swallow.
“I do,” I said. “And you know how I feel about that.”
I glanced around the table, checking to make sure that the rest of the guys and girls were off in their own conversations. Sure enough, they weren’t paying attention to me. It was just me and Patricia and Melanie, and I was ready to let them have a piece of my mind about Marcus.
“Come on!” said Patricia. “What’s wrong with him? He’s rich as hell, he’s cute, he’s um … rich as hell.”
“He’s just so boring,” I said. “He’s like hanging out with a dishrag or something. A dishrag who’s an especially shitty conversation partner.”
“He’s nice,” said Patricia.
I scoffed. I knew that when people were reduced to describing someone as “nice” it meant that they’d run out of anything else noteworthy to say about them.
“I need more than ‘nice’,” I said. “And you know that ‘nice’ is just a code word for ‘boring as shit’.”
“You call him ‘boring’,” said Melanie, “but that just means he’s got a good head on his shoulders, you know? You let him put a ring on it and he’ll take care of you. What else do you want?”
“I don’t know,” I said, killing the rest of my vodka. “I just need something different.”
“Like, what kind of guy are you even looking for
?” asked Patricia.
My eyes went downcast, and hers went wide. I knew the answer, and so did she.
“Are you fucking serious?” she asked. “That dude with the tattoos?”
“Did you even get his name while you were dry humping him out there?” asked Melanie.
I reached out and grabbed the bottle of vodka, the glass cool to the touch. Then I poured myself a heavy measure and took a sip.
“Um, his name was ‘Tiger’.”
Melanie and Patricia shared a disbelieving look before turning their attention back to me.
“Seriously?” asked Melanie. “His name is fucking ‘Tiger’?”
“I’m sure it says so on his birth certificate,” said Patricia, a snide tone to her voice.
“I mean, that’s obviously not his name,” I said. “They just call him that because of his, you know.”
I moved my right hand over my left arm.
“Those striped tattoos he has. Make him look like a tiger.”
I had to suppress a little smirk at just the thought of it. Sure, maybe I could see how someone might think it was silly. But I thought it was more than hot. A wild tiger of my very own.
“And what would you even do with a guy like that if you got him?” asked Melanie. “You think a guy like … Tiger, would go to a nine-to-five to make sure that you’re taken care of?”
I threw my hands up in annoyance, nearly sloshing my drink everywhere. I was getting a little tipsy. Maybe too tipsy.
“I don’t know!” I shouted out. “I mean, I just want something exciting in my life. I’ve had enough button-down, straight-laced guys to last me a lifetime!”
I covered my mouth, hoping that no one had heard me.
“Your funeral,” said Patricia. “And good luck bringing home a guy like that to your dad.”
I took another long sip.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I said. “Let’s change the subject.”
Patricia and Melanie were happy to do just that. Right away, the two of them went into some gossip about one guy at the club or another. I tuned it out, mostly, sipping my drink and letting the booze take over my mind. Occasionally I’d head to the bathroom, using it as an excuse to sweep through the club and look for Tiger. But I found no sight of him. As far as I could tell, he was long gone.
So I chose to drown my sorrows in booze and lame conversation. Eventually, the clock ticked over to one in the morning, and it was about time to get out of there.
“Go ahead and take care of the bill,” said Patricia. “We’ll meet you outside, birthday girl!”
I nodded and heaved my drunk ass out of the booth. I wasn’t quite obliterated at that point, but I was sure as hell getting there. Eventually, I slipped through the crowd gathered and clapped my hands down on the bar.
“Hey,” I said, getting the attention of one of the bartenders. “Ready to pay up. Tab’s under Nikki Naylor.”
The bartender nodded and flipped through a few checkbooks. Finding mine, he dropped it in front of me. I opened it up, my eyes going wide as I realized just how high it was.
“No big deal,” I thought. “Just put it on Dad’s card; he doesn’t care about the cost. Anything for Daddy’s little girl.”
I slipped my hand into my purse, ready to take out my wallet.
But it wasn’t there.
“Problem?” asked the bartender.
“Um, no,” I said. “Maybe. One sec.”
I felt around in the tiny confines of the purse, hoping that my wallet was tucked away in some forgotten corner of the thing or something. But it wasn’t there. I rushed back up to the bar, dumping the contents of my purse out onto the surface. Nothing other than a few makeup odds and ends and some change.
“Oh shit, oh shit,” I thought, realizing what had happened.
I’d been robbed.
At some point during one of my tipsy trips to the bathroom, someone must’ve slipped their hand into my purse and pulled out my wallet. There was no other explanation.
“Be right back!” I said, dashing away from the bar.
I went back to the table and looked around for my wallet. But there was nothing.
“What’s wrong?” asked Melanie.
“Nothing!” I said, hurrying away and beginning to walk the path towards the bathroom, retracing my steps, hoping against hope that my wallet might be found on the floor by one of the toilets or tucked into some darkened corner. But after twenty minutes or so of looking, I didn’t find a damn thing.
My heart pounded in my chest as I stepped back up to the bar, the bartender by this point realizing that something was up.
“You gonna pay this or what?” he asked, leaning forward on the bar and glaring at me hard.
“Um, thing about that,” I said. “Someone stole my wallet.”
He scoffed, turning his head to the side and shaking it in disbelief.
“Listen,” he said. “I don’t care about what your sob story is—you need to pay this, and you need to pay it now.”
“I know the son of the guy who owns this place,” I said, looking around frantically for Marcus. “He can clear this all up.”
But I couldn’t see him anywhere. My arms and legs began to go weak with panic.
“I’m sure you know the fucking mayor, too,” said the bartender. “But you’d better figure something out because you’re either leaving this place with a paid bill or in the back of a police cruiser. And that goes for your preppy friends, too.”
The urge to pass out came over me. I didn’t know what else to do.
Then, all of sudden, just as I’d lost all hope, a deep, booming voice spoke from behind me.
“You in some trouble here, little lady?”
I whipped around on my heels and was face to face with the man I’d been looking for all night.
It was Tiger.
“What … what are you doing here?” I asked, not knowing what else to say.
“What am I doing here?” he asked. “I gotta have a reason for still being in the club?”
“I mean, um, that’s not what I meant. I’m just freaking out a little bit.”
The bartender was still watching us intently. Tiger raised his palm to him and gave him a little nod, one that said: “I got this.” The bartender nodded back and was off.
“Tell me what’s going on,” said Tiger. “And slowly.”
I took a deep breath and swallowed hard.
“I was going to pay for my drinks and everything, but when I got up to the bar I reached in my purse and … and …”
“No wallet,” he said.
“No wallet.”
He shook his head as if he was angry at the idea of me getting pickpocketed.
“Places like this attract all kinds of shitheads. Girls like you make easy pickings.”
“Girls like me?” I asked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Girls who’re drunk, rich, and not paying attention. That’s what I mean.”
I guessed he had me there.
“And isn’t it your birthday?” he asked. “What kind of friends are making you treat them on your own damn birthday?”
I opened my mouth to speak but caught myself. I took another breath.
“If you’re just going to give me shit, then leave me alone,” I said. “I’ve got enough to worry about.”
A smirk formed on his face, and it was clear that he wasn’t bothered in the slightest by my temper.
“And now you’re stuck with the bill.”
“Yup.”
He flicked his hand towards the bartender, then leaned in and said something. The bartender nodded and handed him the check.
“Holy fucking shit!” called out Tiger, his booming voice catching the attention of just about everyone nearby. “How the hell you rack up a check like this?”
“Bottle service, mostly,” I said, feeling a little stupid.
“See, this is why my boys and I drink nothing but cheap domestic shit. Goes down smooth, a
nd you can get a pitcher for ten bucks.”
“I’ll keep that in mind next time,” I said, a hard edge to my voice.
I didn’t know what he had in mind, but from where I stood it seemed like he’d come over here to do nothing but give me shit.
He looked away for a moment, tapping the leather book of the bill onto his free hand.