The Logan Brothers - Books 1-4: (EXPOSURE, CRASH, TWIN PASSIONS, and ADDICTED TO YOU)

by Shorter, L. A.

  I stopped halfway to the door as he spoke, my back to him. “I'm sorry,” I said, “it's just not me,” before stepping once more towards the exit and disappearing out into the busy restaurant.

  Chapter 8

  “WHAT!” NO, YOU'RE KIDDING!”

  Tess was literally shrieking in my face.

  “You went on a date with the guy who broke into your room!” She rolled back onto the bed, her feet lifting to the heavens, giggling like a little girl. “What the fuck Alice, that's so random!”

  “Well if you'd shut up for a moment and let me finish maybe I'd be able to explain it!” I said, shouting over her laughs.

  She stomach-crunched her way back up into a seated position and crossed her legs, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees and planting the most serious expression she could manage onto her face.

  “OK, explain.”

  I took a deep breath and started talking. “He seemed nice enough and explained the whole breaking in thing. He said Jen worked for him and he was trying to track her down...”

  “Shit, intense boss!” Tess interrupted. “What was she working as?”

  I raised my eyes and huffed. “I'll get to that.”

  I could see the light shining her Tess's eyes. She loved a good drama.

  “OK, so he said he wanted to apologize for everything - breaking in and all that - and said he might have work for me, right.”

  “Mmmhmmm.”

  “And you know how desperate I am...”

  “Yeah...so what happened...what's the job?”

  I could hardly bring myself to say it. “He took me to this fancy restaurant, into a private room and everything, and then asked me...”

  “Yeah....” I could tell the suspense was killing her.

  “He wants me to strip. Can you fucking believe that, strip!”

  Tess's eyes opened wide, a sort of dirty smile appearing on her face. “Really?” she said, her voice lacking the incredulity I expected. “Are you gonna do it?”

  “What the hell do you think Tess! Of course not!”

  I could see her mind ticking over. “I dunno babe, might be a good idea.”

  HUH! “You're kidding right. This is all some big old joke, just a massive prank? Where's Justin Bieber...surely I'm being punked right now!” I looked around the bedroom theatrically as if I expected him to jump out of the closet.

  “Err, I think Justin only punks celebs Alice,” she said with a grin.

  “Look, seriously, you are kidding, right?”

  “Well, what's the money like?”

  I mumbled something along the lines of “pretty good.”

  “I'd do I reckon,” she said triumphantly. It didn't actually surprise me all that much, Tess wasn't exactly the shy and retiring type, not if the stories she told me were to be believed. “Is it private dancing or stage dancing?”

  “I dunno,” I said, shaking my head, “private I guess. What does it matter Tess - it's stripping in front of men! How could you be up for that?!”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “It's sexy isn't it. Knowing they can't touch you, that they want to fuck you but can't. It gives you power, and you get paid a fucking bomb to do it. I dunno Alice, beggars can't really be choosers.” She said it lightly with a grin but there was a truthful slant to her words.

  She had a point. I needed work, and I needed it now. My rent was due in a couple of weeks and my bank account was about as dry as the Sahara. Now that I'd finished my paper that part of the course was finished too and I had a new module coming up. I knew what that meant - more damn textbooks, more damn work. Oh, then there was just the small matter of food and drink - you know, the vital parts of life. At least oxygen was free.

  “Yeah well I'd rather be a beggar than a stripper,” I said.

  Tess put her hands up and pulled her shoulders back with an expression of “have it your way” plastered all over her face. She could be infuriatingly self righteous sometimes. I'd love to see what she'd do in my position, if she'd actually go through with it. She was all talk.

  It was getting late when I finally left her room and went back to mine, stepping into the cell, the walls bare, the floor cold beneath my feet. I looked over at Jen's empty bed. I can't believe she was a stripper. You think you know someone and then, pow.

  I wondered for a while how far she went, whether she only stripped to her thong or went all the way. I'd never have pegged her for that - she was so quiet, so unassuming. To think she'd been going down there every night, getting her kit off in font of drooling men.

  I wondered why Kyle had been so keen to track her down. Couldn't the girls leave when they wanted? Couldn't they quit? Maybe she got fed up with it all, walked out on a client. Maybe she was one of Kyle's prized assets. I wonder where she is now?

  I turned my mind to other things as the night drew on. Priority number one had been completed earlier in the day. Now it was time to focus on priority two - get a job. That task would start in earnest tomorrow.

  Chapter 9

  “I'm sorry Alice, you're a good girl, but I have no place for you now.”

  I couldn't believe I was stooping to this, standing there and begging for my old job back. God this was embarrassing - I hope no one from college can see me.

  “Please Mr Asim, I'll work harder, I won't be late again, I promise.”

  “Look, I wish I could help you but we're fully staffed now. I'm sure there are plenty of other restaurants that will hire you.” He looked at my desperate face with pitiful eyes. “Tell you what, I'll let you know if anything comes up. There's really nothing else I can do Alice, except give you a reference if you need one.”

  A reference? I needed a miracle. It had been the same story all week. We're fully staffed, we have no work, there's no space at the fucking inn.

  Nothing was fitting together. I'd found a couple of jobs going in shops but they were either full time, or part time on days where I needed to be in class. The odd shift at the weekend wasn't going to be enough - I needed an evening job, something where I'd be able to work most nights for a decent wage.

  But no. No waitressing jobs, no bar jobs, nothing. I couldn't even get work in the cloakroom. Seriously, what was the deal.

  I returned to my car, parked in a multi-storey, stuck my key in the lock, opened it fast, got in, and slammed the door hard. The noise echoed around the parking lot like a gunshot. It was dark now, the snow once more beginning to cascade from the sky and settle on the road outside.

  I shoved my key into the lock and turned it. The engine chugged and coughed. NO NO NO! NOT NOW!

  I turned it again and it continued to groan like a distressed and dying rhino. Great, just great. I laughed out loud in the car. I really should have seen this coming.

  “I mean are you fucking kidding me,” I shouted, looking up to the roof, my hands banging down on the wheel. I turned the key again and again, the dying sounds of my car shattering the silence of the car park.

  My nightmare was complete.

  I stuck my hand into my purse and dragged out my phone. I dialed and it rang several times before clicking to life.

  “Babe what's up?”

  “Car's packed up,” I said blankly. I was too drained to go off on a rant.

  “Nooo! Where are you?”

  “That multi-storey near Clifton.”

  “All right, stay put, I'll come get you.”

  Su-fucking-perb. I'd just have to hope that it's out of fuel or something, nothing major. Frankly I had less than no idea about cars, so it could have been anything. Please don't by anything major. Please.

  ….

  By the time Tess drove us back into the dorm I needed a drink and I needed one bad. I almost froze my ass off waiting in that tin shell as she
drove to me, my heart throbbing from anxiety, my head spinning like a ballerina.

  “Come on hun, let's get you to the bar,” Tess told me. “It's all right,” she said, seeing my “I can't afford” it huff of the shoulders, “I'm buying.”

  We sat in the bar and gulped down a bottle of wine. Twenty dollars and she didn't even batter an eyelid. Then another bottle, another twenty bucks and it meant nothing to her. After the day I'd had, the week I'd had, I couldn't help but feel green with envy. I wish I had it that easy.

  “Well look who it is.” Great, just what I needed. “If it isn't Bambi. How you doing Al, haven't seen you since my party.” He didn't say it like that - he actually spelled out the word “party”. So cringe.

  “Hey Tom,” Tess piped up, suddenly going all coy as she always did around him. I wonder if she'd still like him as much if she knew how he'd come on to me that night. I wonder if he knew himself - he was pretty wasted and was only going to get more drunk.

  “Ah hey...er...”

  “Tess,” I whispered through gritted teeth, jabbing him in the gut.

  “...hey Tess, you girls on a girly night?”

  “No no, you can join us if you want?” Tess said quickly. That bottle of wine she'd drunk was all over her face, her eyes looking at him longingly. She had no idea how to keep her emotions in check.

  “Can't stop, gotta meet the BOYS,” he said, bellowing the last word like a chant. “You girls have fun drowning your sorrows.” He winked at me with his final words, as if he knew my life was as shit as it was. I guess it was written all over my face.

  “That guy is a nightmare,” I said to Tess as he walked away, her eyes following in his wake. “Tess, are you listening to me?”

  She turned back to me, a dreamy look in her eyes.

  “Seriously, what do you see in him? He's such an air-head.”

  She shrugged her shoulders lightly and smiled. It was as if she didn't even care that he didn't know her name. Did she even notice?

  “Erm, he's hot, he's rich, he's captain of the football team, and did I mention he's HOT!” she said, leaning in towards me.

  “OK, fine for a fling, but can you actually imagine being in a relationship with him! He'd go on about football all night. Does he even study here or is he literally just here on scholarship?”

  “Errr, who cares Alice. I revert to my original reasoning - he's HOT, and rich.”

  I could see there was no convincing her, not after a couple of bottles of sauvignon blanc. I knew she wasn't that vacuous really, but hell was she doing a good impression. Just another one of Tom's groupies.

  Chapter 10

  “I can't do anything about this here. I need to get it back to the shop to fix it up.”

  “How much will it cost?”

  “Shouldn't be too bad, it's a pretty old car. I'd say two, maybe three hundred dollars.”

  Three hundred dollars! The car was barely worth that!

  I could feel my heart beginning to rumble in my chest, a feeling that had grown all too familiar. “But I can't afford that right now.”

  “Not much else to say I'm afraid sweetheart, it's gonna take a couple of parts and a few man hours to get this tin can back on the road.”

  “Oh, and that's thirty dollars for the call out as well,” he continued, jotting down a few notes onto a clipboard. “If I take it away now we can add that to your final bill if you like?”

  Well at least that was something. Small fucking mercies.

  What else could I do. I needed that car, needed it to get around, needed it to get to work if ever I found a job. But three hundred bucks - there was no way I could afford to pay that right now.

  “Is there any way I can pay you in instalments? Maybe work out some sort of payment plan?”

  I could see the man's mind ticking away as he scratched at this bearded cheek. “We can do that but they'd be interest charged on the fee. It's best for you if you can pay up front or the charges can add up pretty quickly.” At least he was being honest.

  I could feel the well of emotion bubbling inside me, threatening to explode out right in this guys face. He was just doing his job, but it was yet another kick in the gut, another slap in the face. My eyes were welling up, tears slowly building in their corners, ready to be unleashed down my face. My life had descended to this, to a point where I was running on fumes, my bank account bare.

  I'd have no way of paying the bill, no way of paying my rent, no way of buying food. I'd been down to my last few cents before, but always with a paycheck promised at the end of the month, always with a glint of light at the end of the tunnel. Now that tunnel was dark, my world cast into blackness, and I could see no way out.

  “Hey love, don't start crying now, it won't work on me. Look, do you want me to take the car or not?”

  “Hold up.”

  The voice came from behind me, echoing around the walls, cutting the silence. I turned and saw him walking over to me, his eyes set on the mechanic.

  “What's the charge,” he asked as he approached.

  The mechanic looked slightly bemused, glancing up and down at Kyle in his expensive suit and large overcoat. He must have smelled money, because his price seemed to suddenly inflate dramatically. “Erm, it's five hundred dollars all in all.”

  Kyle smiled at him knowingly, as if he knew he was being swindled. He reached into his inner coat pocket and pulled out a brown leather wallet. “Five hundred,” he said, sliding five crisp bills from it and passing them to the mechanic. The man's greedy eyes ogled the cash as he took it, trying to contain his smile.

  “Oh, and it's fifty for the call out as well.” Now he really was pushing it.

  Kyle didn't flinch, reaching for another note, and handing him another maximum bill. “Get it done by tomorrow and you can keep that change.”

  The man nodded. “No problem at all, I'll have it done by midday.”

  I remained a bystander the entire time, my words deserting me as I was struck from the negotiation. Kyle didn't look at me, his eyes sticking to the mechanic like glue, watching as he clipped my car to his tow truck.

  “Here's your receipt,” the mechanic said, scribbling onto a sheet of paper and then ripping it from his clipboard. He turned back to me and said “come by midday, it'll be ready then,” and handed me his card, before stepping into his truck and hauling my car away.

  I turned to Kyle as he watched the car depart. “I don't know what to say.”

  “I think the customary response is thank you,” he said, his back still turned to me.

  He swivelled on the spot, slowly bringing his eyes into contact with my own, his blue irises shining in the morning light. “I see you're having a tough time of it at the moment Alice?” he said, a sympathy in his words.

  I nodded, my eyes watering slightly, my words falling short in my mouth, unable to trickle out. “Look,” he continued, “let me buy you a coffee, you look like you need one.”

  “No, I can't,” I sobbed quietly, “I need to find a job.”

  He said nothing, but I knew what he was thinking. Over the last couple of days the thought had crossed my mind a couple of times itself.

  “Is all of this worth it?” he asked suddenly, his question ambiguous.

  “What?”

  “This. Struggling for money, scratching around to pay your bills, searching night and day for a minimum wage job. You're young, Alice, you should be enjoying your life, enjoying your time at college.”

  It was like he could see into my world, like he was looking through a window into the crappy, run down house my life had become. I guess he'd seen enough of it to put the pieces together. A clapped out banger for a car, an empty prison cell of a dorm room, that constant look on my face that something was wrong. He was right
- I wasn't enjoying the normal college experience, I wasn't having fun, I wasn't happy. Maybe, just maybe, it was time for a change.

  He stared at me as my mind ran from thought to thought. I could see the look on my face in my minds eye - troubled, a deep frown etched across it, a sullen look in my eyes.

  “Work for me Alice. Just one time, just to see what it's like. Do it, and we can call it quits on the car.”

  My heart started beating wildly once more at the thought - the thought of stripping, of showing my body to strange men. I'd have to dance, too, be sexy. I didn't know how, I'd never known how. I wasn't Tess, I couldn't do something like that.

  “I - I can't. I'll pay you back, I promise.”

  He stepped forward and grabbed my arm, his chest so close to mine, his warm breath clouding over my forehead. He smelled so good, his fragrance filling my cold nostrils. “It'll be me Alice,” he said. “You'll dance for me, no one else.” His words had dropped to a whisper, his voice and scent and the warmth of his body intoxicating as he inched closer to me, pressed up against me.

  I felt an urge run through me to grab his face and kiss him, feel his soft lips against my own. He leaned in closer, his eyes locked to mine, his lips so close as his words slipped from them. “One time, Alice. Just one time.”

  He released my arm and slowly stepped back, his energy drawing me with him and sucking me forward a touch. “Tonight, Alice, come to this address tonight at 9 PM. Ask for me at the door.” I couldn't speak as he passed me the card. “No commitment, no pressure. If you don't want to come back, I'll never bother you again and we'll wipe the slate clean.”

  He had begun walking backwards slowly as he spoke, taking him further from me, my body growing cold once more without him near. Then, he turned, walked faster towards the exit and disappearing out of sight.

  I breathed deep. One night. What's the worst that could happen?