by Opal Mellon
Sean scanned Club Blue for Justin, looking first to the bar, where Justin liked to hover because of his penchant for seeking out free refreshment. Justin was an incorrigible mooch. Not that Hope would take fault with him for it. He made the women there too happy.
Justin was indeed at the drink bar, and when he saw Sean his pretty boy face lit up with recognition. He smiled and shook his head.
“Where have you been stranger?” Justin reached over the bar to slap Sean on the shoulder. “It’s been boring around here without you.”
“I kind of doubt that, since apparently I was the most boring person here.” Sean frowned.
“That’s the whole point. There’s no variety without our lead boring guy here.” Justin grabbed what was probably his fourth cranberry juice of the night and moved to down it when Sean leaned across the counter towards him.
“Whoa boy,” Justin said, pulling back. “Don’t tell me you came back just to—”
“Shut up. I need to talk to you.”
“Well, maybe you should check out my schedule with Hope, I don’t know that she allows man on ma—”
“Argh. Idiot.” Sean turned for the dressing room and motioned for Justin to follow.
“I don’t know, I fear for my virtue.” Justin followed.
Sean was suddenly not missing the club as much anymore.
He explained the situation when they reached the back of the dressing room.
“She what?” Justin leaned back against the bureau. “She’s bringing a date here?”
“Yup,” Sean said. “I know that’s awkward, but it was the only way.”
“Isn’t her date going to be weirded out?”
“I was hoping he didn’t have to know. If she doesn’t tell him, he’d probably think it was a normal club right? Given the male to female ratio.”
“I suppose,” Justin said. “I’d never thought about what a normal guy would think coming in here. He’d probably never guess this was an escort club, just because he probably doesn’t even know they exist.”
“Yeah.”
“I have to admit though, I’m a bit hurt. I mean, you only ever come back when it’s something about Nicole.” Justin pouted.
“Shut up.”
“Rude.” Justin looked back towards the club. “I wonder if we should tell the other guys.” He turned back to Sean and Sean noticed for the first time that his hair was just a little too long, and was hitting his collar, and that there were slight dark circles under his eyes.
“You doing okay man?” he said. “You look tired.”
“Finals,” Justin said.
“I didn’t know you were in school.”
“I know. No one ever guesses. Probably I look more like a model than an engineer.”
“You’re studying engineering?”
“Yup.”
“Nice.”
“Don’t change the subject. You weren’t concerned about me. You are concerned about Nicole though. I need to know what’s going on if I’m going to help.”
“The guy,” Sean said. “His friend works out at my dojang. Well I guess maybe not that good a friend, because he came to warn me about him.”
“He what?” Justin sat up and pushed his hair behind his ears. “About what?”
“Says the guy is bad news,” Sean said. Adrenaline rushed back at the memory of the conversation.
“What kind of bad news?” Justin asked, rubbing the tops of his arms.
“Okay first of all, this is all hearsay.”
“How much do you trust this student?”
“Enough that he wouldn’t mess with me. But beyond that he’s not very mature. I don’t know that I trust him enough to know truth from rumor.”
“And what did he say?” Justin’s face was hard, and no longer looked girly. Sean could see the same tightness he was feeling reflected in him, sort of a rigidity stemming from resisting adrenaline. He felt bad that Justin would be sharing in the unpleasant experience of feeling able to neither fight nor take flight, despite very badly wanting to do one or the other.
“Apparently he put his last girlfriend in the hospital.”
Justin remained silent. Sean looked to the side, then out towards the door. Justin followed his gaze and seemed to follow his thought process.
“And he’s coming here tonight?”
Sean nodded.
Justin sighed. “I’ll think of something. We need to get out there in case they come in.”
“Yeah,” Sean said. “My thoughts exactly.”
Sean frowned and sagged against the bar. Justin nudged him.
“Dude you need to relax. Mingle, or something.” Justin shoved him forward, out of the shadows and into the main room, where the eyes of a dozen women lit on him with amusement. “Earn your keep.”
Sean glared back at his betrayer, but straightened his tie and walked forward, smiling at the most innocuous looking group of girls. Now to try and remember names. He looked around the group and the faces swam and blurred before him. It wasn’t because they were customers, it was because he was generally bad with faces and names, mainly due to his long running obsession with Nicole.
“John, where have you been?” one of the women, a short redhead with pretty, artificial cherry red hair that was cropped at her chin, said. She looked up from her game of Scrabble. “We’ve missed you, right girls?”
A chorus of nodding ensued. Sean looked over his shoulder and mouthed ‘help me’ to Justin. He would know all the names. He was the pro here.
“Sorry, been busy with my other job,” Sean said.
“Yeah,” Justin said, sidling up beside him. “He’s a karate master in his other life.”
Sean glared. “I’m not.”
“Aw, you aren’t?” Another woman, a curvy brunette with boy-short hair said. She pursed her lips. “Cause that would be hot.”
“No.” Sean sighed. “I’m not in fact, a karate master.” He could explain the different between Karate and Tae Kwon Do, but it would probably bore them to death.
“Sorry, but John has been gone so long he’s probably terrified to ask your names,” Justin said.
So Justin made casual introductions and the two of them settled in to watch the Scrabble game without much offense on the parts of the women.
Sean was more aware than ever before of the door only ten feet away, directly in front of them. The hairs on his neck did a tiny salute each time he thought he heard footsteps outside the door, even though he figured he was probably insane for thinking he could hear that with all of the chatter in the club.
The brunette, who was called Sam, laid out the word ‘slut’ on the Scrabble board, and the other women laughed and commented on its appropriateness.
Justin countered with the word ‘man’ in front of it, and an argument over the veracity of his word ensued. Sean could not have cared less. He’d rather have played pool, not that anyone asked him. On another night he would have enjoyed getting a rise out of Justin by telling him that if manslut was a word, it probably had the name Justin next to it in the dictionary. Tonight all he could think about, see, and hear was the door.
Finally, while he was glazed over and scolding himself for not being able to pay attention to anything but the door, he saw it move almost imperceptibly, then open all the way. First he saw Nicole, her face bright, her curls gelled into perfect ringlets in a halo around her face. Cheekbones that caught the light, full lips that were glossy, coffee perfection. She wore a little black dress that hit her knees. She looked so good. It made him ten times angrier when her date appeared behind her through the door.
The man hadn’t yet been proven to be a woman beater. He had been proven to get Nicole to dress up nicer than Sean had ever seen. Unforgivable. Sean wanted to give him a taste of his increasingly faster tornado kick. He felt a light tap on his sleeve and finally realized Justin and the girls had been trying to get his attention.
“Come on John, you have to be the tie breaker. Manslut, good or no?” Dawn, the one
with black hair, asked.
“Yeah. You call it.” Justin winked at Sean and sat back with arms folded.
Sean pulled his eyes away from the door.
“I guess Justin would be more of an expert on mansluts than me.”
Justin shoved him off the couch.
“What the—”
Justin stretched out his legs on the couch where Sean had been sitting. “This is my couch, therefore only my friends can sit here. Friends do not include people who call me a manslut.”
“Who other than a manslut, would use the word in Scrabble?”
“Ouch,” Justin said. “What an insult to Samantha, whose word I merely supplemented.”
“I’m not offended,” Samantha said. “You can sit on our couch if you want.”
Sean looked at the couch, which already seated three women. Justin had one more on the couch by him on the other side of his legs.
“I don’t think there’s room.”
“I can sit on your lap,” Cheri, the redhead said. “You can sit here.” She stood, and he realized that if he wanted to blend, this would be a good way. At least he trusted that he could control himself if the woman on his lap wasn’t Nicole. He sat, and Cheri sat on his leg.
“There isn’t much room in here, eh Nick?” The man from the beach walked over to them, his arm around Nicole. “Mind if we take that armchair?”
Sean looked at Justin, who sent him a warning glare.
Justin nodded to Ben. “Make yourself at home.”
“Thanks.” Ben sat, and tried to pull Nicole onto his lap, but she merely sat on the arm of the chair. “Aw, come on.”
“No thanks,” Nicole said. “I don’t want you to have a dead leg by the end of the night.”
“Thoughtful of you,” Ben said. He put an arm around Nicole’s waist and looked like a crab holding something in its claw.
“Nicole, introduce us to your friend,” Justin said
Ben stared at Justin. Sean didn’t blame the guy. Seeing Justin for the first time was a bit confusing. The man wasn’t threatening so much as man-pretty. It kind of messed with your head.
Ben surveyed the women with disinterest, and then turned to meet Sean’s eyes. Ben’s face seemed to turn a shade paler as their eyes locked. Sean tried to convey with only his eyes that he would readily kill the man if he hurt Nicole in any way. That he wouldn’t hesitate to rain down on him with crushing force if he broke her heart. That he would end him if he broke anything else, on anyone here.
Ben turned back to Nicole and whispered something in her ear. He laughed and she looked confused.
Sean’s thighs tensed under his hands.
“Something wrong?” Cheri asked.
“No,” he said.
“Relax handsome,” she said. “He’s got nothing on you guys.” She leaned in to whisper in his ear. “Who brings a guy to a club like this anyway? One that’s not gay, I mean.”
Sean flushed, embarrassed for Nicole and the way people saw her because of his suggestion. A quick look around the room showed that Ben was easily out of his element here. The men here were all varying shades of gorgeous, and tall, and built. Ben was pale, average height, average looks. Pointy nose. Smallish eyes. And his clothes, which were probably pretty preppy outside of the club, were completely eclipsed by the fashions of every other man in the room.
Sean supposed by the pallor he’d inspired in the other man that he was probably the most intimidating. Good.
“And that’s Sean, I mean John,” Nicole said.
“Which is it?” Ben said. “Sean or John?” Ben’s eyes locked with his again, their only distinguishing feature a slight coldness that Sean met with heat.
“John,” Nicole said, fidgeting. “Right?”
“Can’t you even remember your friend’s name?” Ben said. He laughed and tightened his arm around her.
Nicole’s head dropped a couple degrees and Sean could have stood up and slapped him for it. But Cheri on his lap made that a bit difficult.
“They sound similar,” Justin said. Nicole looked at him and smiled.
“We’ve missed you around here Nick.” Justin winked.
“I missed you too.”
“Other people call you Nick?” Ben said. “I thought you hated it.”
“I do,” Nicole said, trying to stay atop the arm of the chair and not be pulled onto Ben’s lap. “That doesn’t stop them, just like it doesn’t stop you, I guess.”
Sean vowed not to call her Nick again.
Nicole wanted to leave. Making Sean jealous was not turning out to be worth another date with Ben. She was starting to think the story Sean told her wasn’t that crazy. She wished she had just been straightforward. Why hadn’t she just told Sean she wasn’t into Ben, she was into him? Instead, she’d brought Ben here to embarrass her and everyone else, and would probably have to leave and ask for Sean’s help anyway.
She’d hoped to just watch a bit of manly jealousy and prove that Ben was totally harmless, if a bit slimy, and call it a night. Instead, she felt like she was being crushed a little more each moment, like a leech was sucking her life force out. A leech named Ben.
She turned to watch Sean in his seat, looking more comfortable than she would have guessed with a pretty, short redhead in his lap. That should be her. He turned and smiled at her. She loved the way his shirt fit over strong pecs. Loved his tie and the way it matched his eyes. Ben made him look even taller and more handsome by comparison. But the key was that Sean was a good man. And Ben, as Nicole was observing from the way he treated everyone from the waitress, to her friends now as he sneered at them, was probably not. Some kind of transitional upgrade from the other men she’d dated, but not all the way there yet.
“Sorry if my date smells like fish,” Ben said, and Nicole looked up at him with tension in her face. Oh no, that crease between her eyebrows was going to be so deep by the time she was old enough to forget all of this.
The rest of the group stared at Ben in various states of mouth hanging open, eyebrows raised, narrowed eyed shock.
“She insisted on ordering the fish, even though I warned her that at Tony’s it’s particularly fishy.”
Nicole’s cheeks burned and she was grateful for her beautiful dark skin that would keep her embarrassment to herself. She looked down at her legs, then over to Sean’s face.
She had intended to just look up at him quickly, for a second or two, but when she saw his expression, she couldn’t look away. It was everything she’d hoped for and more. His mouth twisted up at the corner. His blue eyes were extra blue, vivid, and narrowed. A vein stood out on his forehead at either side of his temples. He chewed his own teeth and glared at Ben.
She felt familiar warmth that she was beginning to associate with Sean’s presence spread out to her fingertips and toes. She would be safe tonight. It would all be over soon, probably, and then they could talk.
“I like my date to order whatever she feels like,” Sean said. The redhead on his lap, who Nicole wanted to kick off and finish off with a boot in her butt, smiled up at him.
Ben looked less amused. “I guess then they can’t blame you if it tastes awful. Even if it does make them smell.”
Nicole glared at him. “On that note, I’m going to the bathroom,” she said.
“You want me to go with you?” Cheri asked.
“Sure,” Nicole said.
Cheri stood up and walked with her, and one of the other girls, one with black hair with purple streaks, stood up as well.
Sean kept his eyes on Ben, who watched women walk away. Justin shifted nervously on the couch. Sean was glad that Justin was sitting between them. Someone who was somewhat neutral.
Ben turned back to Sean and Justin. “What kind of club is this anyways?”
“Didn’t Nicole tell you?” Justin asked.
“No,” he said. “She just said it was an exclusive club for members.”
“I guess she didn’t want you to know then,” Justin said, smiling. “I guess,
as her friends, we’ll leave that to her.”
“Are you saying it’s not a normal club?”
“No, I’m not saying that,” Justin said. He leaned back with his arm over the back of the couch, looking almost feline, long and golden and relaxed. It was probably his style of intimidation. “I’m saying that I don’t think this is the type of place where we take kindly to people insulting our friends. Even as a joke.”
Sean looked at Justin and nodded his approval. He watched Ben and felt like a bear watching a fish in the river.
“You haven’t said anything,” Ben said, glancing at Sean. He leaned forward and touched his fingers together in a tent shape. “You sure like to look at my date, though.”
Sean narrowed his eyes on him and looked back to check if the women had already gone into the restroom. The blond friend was sitting on his other side and was completely interested in talking to Chuck, who sat on the floor cleaning up Justin’s Scrabble game. The best word had been ‘supermanslut,’ apparently.
“Are you slow?”
Sean snapped his head back to Ben. He cracked his knuckles in his lap, not to be menacing, but to keep himself from flying at him.
“Are you?” Sean said. “I just don’t think you’re worth talking to.”
“Whoa there big guy.” Justin shook his head at Ben. “I’m sorry about my friend here. He can be blunt sometimes.”
“Why don’t you just shut up?” Ben said to Justin.
Sean started to rise in his chair but Justin turned to him and glared.
“Alright,” Sean said. He looked sideways at Ben. “I’m sorry. To be honest, I’m jealous. Nicole doesn’t date just anyone.” Sean figured letting the other guy feel superior for now might placate him.
Justin chimed in. “Yeah, she’s rejected him tons of times.”
Ben stared at Sean, the beginnings of a smirk on his face. His eyes lit in a different way than they’d been since he’d come in.
“I wouldn’t say tons of times,” Sean mumbled.
“That makes sense,” Ben said, sitting back and picking at the buttons on his blue shirt. He pushed his fine brown hair off his forehead.
“Are you thirsty?” Justin asked Ben. “Nicole must have forgotten to offer you a drink.”