by KB Winters
Whatever the case, it was apparent that Bennett and Ryker had both left lingering effects on both of us in their wake and as I watched Tori slink off down the hallway—I couldn’t help but wonder if they’d ever realize the damage they’d done.
Chapter Five
Everlie
The call came in the middle of a ballet class, and it wasn’t until afterward that I got a chance to listen to the voice mail. I was immediately surrounded by little ballerinas as I started to cry, tears of joy rolling down my cheeks as I listened to the message the second time and bolted to my desk to jot down the information.
“Ms. Harmon?” Gina, one of my students said. “Are you all right?”
I nodded and finished writing down the information. I hung up the phone, set it on my desk and marveled for a moment at the note I’d scribbled out. I turned to Gina and the rest of the five- and six-year-olds gathered around me. “I’m great sweetie, thanks for asking. I just got a call back from an audition that I went on a couple of days ago!”
The little girls burst into cheers, bouncing and clapping. I laughed at their excitement, my eyes filling with tears again at their glee. Gina, stopped jumping and looked up at me, her face creased in earnest thought. “Ms. Harmon, does that mean you won’t be our teacher anymore?”
“Oh, no, no, honey, I’ll still be here,” I assured her, stooping down in front of her and the rest of the girls who had stopped to listen to my answer. “I don’t even know if I have the part yet—but don’t worry, I’ll find a way to still be your teacher, too.”
They burst into cheers again and I joined in, dancing and cheering with them, thinking the world would be a happier place if everyone celebrated life like six-year-olds.
* * * *
“Tor! Tori!” I burst into the apartment after fumbling with the locks on the front door, distracted by my excitement. “Tori, are you home?”
Tori popped out from the hallway, wrapped in a towel, with a seaweed green mask coating her face. “What’s up, Ev? Is everything okay?”
I smiled and nodded. “Yes! I got a call back—they want to see me again!”
It took her a moment to register what I was telling her. “Oh! For the ballet? Wow! Congratulations, Ev. No one deserves it more!”
“Thank you!” I flopped down onto the couch, only to jump back up moments later. “I don’t even know what to do with myself! It’s like I have this little bright spot in my mind and I can’t think of anything else.”
Tori smiled and tightened her grip on the knot of her towel. “Well, I say we go out and celebrate! Let’s take advantage of your restlessness. I’m betting you could find a man who could turn that energy into one hell of a night.” She winked and turned away, her mind obviously made up, and returned to her bedroom.
I laughed and I rolled my eyes. Leave it to Tori. However, I had to admit, getting out and burning off some of the excitement wasn’t a bad idea—granted there was no way in hell I was going to go home with some random guy I met at a club. But, maybe a little flirting and dancing wouldn’t hurt. The rest of the pieces of my life were finally clicking into place—which made it easier to open my mind to other possibilities for the future. In any case, it had to be better than online dating. I’d scanned through a few different sites and hadn’t been impressed with the results.
Then again, that had probably been due to the fact that every picture, profile, and message I’d received had been immediately run through some kind of Ryker-filter inside my head.
I went down the hall to get dressed, wanting to pick out my outfit before Tori could burst in and insist on dressing me. I slipped into a short black skirt, a turquoise colored halter top, and a pair of low heels. Tori appeared as I was putting the finishing touches on my natural looking makeup, and gave me a disapproving once over. I held my hands up before she could say anything. “I don’t want to hear it, missy. This is what I’m wearing.”
She pouted at me. “Can’t you at least put on some decent heels…those things look totally grandma.”
“Nope. I’ve been doing ballet moves all day, my feet are tired and aching as it is, I don’t need to shove them into stilettos just to make you happy.”
Tori opened her mouth to protest and I started to slip one shoe off. “I’ll take them off and keep them off…”
“All right! All right! I give up! Let’s go.” Tori tugged at my arm and pulled me out of my bedroom.
Tori took me to one of her usual haunts, I’d been there once before with her, and as we were ushered inside, she explained that one of her fellow dancers did DJ gigs on the side, and pointed her out as we went deeper inside the club. The music was loud and pumped through my veins, vibrating me from the inside out. Tori screamed over the music to see if I wanted a drink, but I shook my head. I wanted to dance. Tori looked surprised, but pulled me out onto the crush of the floor before I could change my mind and retreat to the bar on the opposite side of the large space.
The floor was packed full of sweaty, writhing bodies, everyone cheering and hollering over the music. Tori got swallowed up as soon as she started shaking her curvy hips, a pair of guys flanking her and bumping on her from either side. She threw her head back and let her hands wander freely over both of the men. This was her element, and only then did my surroundings register with me, and I started to shrink back towards the bar. Before I could spin around, I bumped into a solid wall of muscle. I looked up to find a broad shouldered man towering over me. He smiled down at me, “Hey there!”
“Sorry!” I hollered over the music. “Going to the bar!”
“Let me take you,” he offered, flashing me another smile.
I looked back, over my shoulder, but couldn’t see Tori. “All right.” I let the tall man lead me to the bar, and when we were finally off the floor, the music dissipated enough to where we could hear each other. “I’m Everlie.”
“Taylor,” he replied, offering me his hand to shake. We got to the bar, he asked what I wanted, and ordered both of our drinks. We chatted over our drinks, exchanging the basic information—occupation, likes and dislikes, and what brought each of us to Vegas. Taylor was a twenty-six-year-old car salesman, in Vegas on a bachelor party weekend for his best friend. He pointed out his so-called wolf pack, and I laughed, realizing Tori was the center of all their attention as she’d managed to get up on a platform and was shaking what her mama gave her for the entire crowd.
“Let’s get back out there,” Taylor said, not waiting for my reply, before grabbing my hand and leading me back to the dance floor. I was still watching Tori out of the corner of my eye as she ate up all the attention thrown her way by Taylor’s friends. We got close to the rest of the group and Taylor started dancing with me, his dance moves far dirtier than I’d expected based on the smiling, charming man I’d met at the bar just moments before. I danced away from him, putting space between us, only to have him pull my hips back into him so he could grind himself against my behind.
I spun around and shot him a warning look. Then I put a little more space between our bodies once again, demonstrating how I wanted to dance. He looked up at Tori. “You should be up there too!” He screamed at me. “Here, I’ll boost ya.” He grabbed my hips and lifted me all too easily from the floor. His friends were chanting, egging him on, and Tori had turned away, lost in her own world, not seeing what was happening below her.
“No! No, please, stop. I don’t want to go up there!”
Taylor just laughed and kept lifting me up. I flailed my feet and wriggled, trying my best to get loose, but he was too strong. “Come on, don’t be a prude! Show off that ass!”
“No!” I kicked out and caught Taylor in the shin. He released my hips and I started running as soon as my feet were back on the ground.
“Hey, get back here you little whore!” Taylor grabbed my wrist and yanked me back. A jolt of pain flashed from my wrist all the way up my arm. “We weren’t done dancing yet! Come on, baby, shake it for me!”
In a flash of chaos,
a man launched past me and tackled Taylor to the floor. The dance floor erupted in screams as an all-out brawl broke out. Taylor was down on the ground, being beat to a pulp by the man who’d trounced him, and Taylor’s buddies sprang into action to defend him, attacking the man from behind.
Tori jumped off her platform and grabbed my arm. “What the hell?”
The man being attacked by Taylor’s buddies, stood and whipped around, delivering a blow to one man’s temple, and a kick to the other, knocking them both back. When he raised his head from the three men writhing on the floor at his feet, time froze as I found myself staring into Ryker’s bottomless brown eyes. “Oh my God!”
“What the fuck?” Tori yelled before I could fully react. “Are you stalking my girl?”
Ryker didn’t take his eyes from mine to acknowledge Tori. He stepped over the injured men, grabbed my arm and started walking me towards the entrance of the club. “Come on, Everlie, it isn’t safe here.”
“Ryker! What are you—how did you? Are you following me?” I sputtered, running to match his long, determined strides.
He didn’t answer, and when we made it out of the club, I pulled loose of his grasp and refused to take another step. “What the hell is going on? You can’t just show up out of nowhere, go all fucking Rambo, and then expect me to go with you— without getting my questions answered!”
“I’ll explain, but right now, we need to get moving. Those guys aren’t going to stay down forever.”
I looked back towards the doors of the club, halfway expecting them to burst out. When the door opened, I jumped, only to see Tori stalking out, pushing past a group of drunks on their way inside. She strode right up to Ryker and got in his face. “What the fuck was that?”
Ryker didn’t flinch when she threw a finger in his face, standing on her tiptoes but not coming anywhere near eye level. “Come on,” was all he said as he turned away and started down the sidewalk.
Tori started after him with no hesitation and I sighed, following after her. When we were a few blocks away, Ryker stopped and turned around to face us. I kept close to Tori, who looked like an angry tiger that had just been prodded with a stick. “Those guys were fucking with Everlie. I wasn’t going to just stand by and watch.”
Tori shifted her gaze to me. “What is he talking about?”
I kept my focus on Ryker. “I was dancing with this guy and he kept pushing it, getting too close. He was trying to put me up on the platform with you and saying…nasty things…until Ryker got there.”
Tori’s anger melted away and she wrapped her arms around me. “I’m so sorry, honey! How could I not even notice that?” She squeezed me tight. “God, I’m so selfish sometimes. Are you okay?” She pulled away, looking me over as though I’d been involved in the fight.
“Yes, I’m all right. It’s okay Tor, you were facing the other way. You couldn’t have known.”
Tori looked back at Ryker. “Well, it seems I owe you my thanks then. Thanks for having my girls back…stalker.”
Ryker nodded, and I was stunned to silence, not sure how he’d managed to cool off Tori’s wrath so easily. She looked back at me. “Do you want to go home? Or are you two okay?”
I couldn’t bring myself to look at Ryker. I wanted to know what was going on. Why he’d been at that club, how he’d seen me in the mass of people right as I’d been in trouble, and what he wanted now that he’d managed to wedge himself back in my life. Now that the danger had passed, it was impossible to ignore the bubble of happiness at seeing him again—as involuntary as it was.
“We’ll be okay,” I finally answered.
Tori smiled and turned back to the club, giving us a finger wave. “I’m going back to finish my night. You two have fun…,” she said, walking back down the path we’d just taken away from the club.
When she was out of earshot, I dared to bring my eyes to Ryker’s and asked, “Ryker…what is going on?”
Chapter Six
Ryker
I didn’t know how to answer Everlie’s question. I didn’t want to be talking to her at all. My body was still flooded with adrenaline, and it was all I could do to not wrap her in my arms, kiss every inch, and take her away from everyone. I wanted to inspect her, to make sure she was okay, and if there was even one bruise on her perfect skin, I’d hunt that douchebag down and personally kick his ass into next week.
“You know what, never mind. I don’t know why I even tried.” Everlie started to walk away. She stopped and turned back, to add, “Thank you for getting me away from those jerks.”
With that, she whipped around, her blonde hair flying in the breeze, and stalked off down the sidewalk. I jogged a few steps to close the gap, and reached for her. “Everlie, wait, please.”
She turned and my heart stopped at the glossy sheen to her eyes. “What do you want, Ryker? Just tell me. Please.”
“I want you, Everlie. I’m fucking crazy about you.” I stopped, hating the cheesy sounding line as soon as it passed my lips. It was the truth, but I knew how it must sound to her. She was convinced that I was some random, Vegas party boy, and there wasn’t anything I could do to convince her otherwise. I’d already blown through all my chances, and my hands were tied behind my back from saying anything else. Anything that wouldn’t make me seem like a crazy stalker.
Everlie’s eyes widened at my answer and a single tear slipped past her lashes. My hands urged me to reach out and brush it away, to feel her soft skin under my fingertips would be like heaven, but I kept them fisted in my pockets. “Why were you at the club tonight?” She asked. “I mean, Vegas is full of clubs. I’m finding it hard to believe you just happened to be at the one I was at, and you also, just happened to stumble across that guy putting his hands on me like that.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you, just popping out of nowhere like that. The truth is I have been following you.”
“What!” Her eyes widened further, and her eyebrows went so high they creased her forehead.
“After that last time we talked, I couldn’t get you out of my head, but I knew you wouldn’t like it if I showed up at the studio again. So, I cruise downtown sometimes, and I saw Tori and you tonight and wanted to see if I could run into you in a less obvious way…but when I heard you begging that guy to get off you, something inside me…just snapped.”
She stared at me, her eyes frantically darting back and forth between mine, trying to gauge my words, to judge them and weigh them. “Why?”
“Why? Because he had no right—”
“No, no,” she interrupted. “Why are you trying to see me again? I thought our last conversation was clear. I figured that by now, you’d left town. You didn’t move here too, did you?” A hint of a smile played at her lips and somewhere inside me, a knot of tension released.
“No.” I shook my head. “I didn’t move here. I’m still in town trying to sort out some things. Listen, Everlie, I know this is a long shot, but can we go somewhere together? To talk?”
She looked at me for another long moment, although the look in her eyes was less suspicious. After what felt like an enormous amount of time, she nodded. “I don’t know why I’m agreeing to go out with my stalker, but…okay.”
I smiled. “All right, but before we go anywhere, here,” I said, handing her my phone. “I need your number.”
She burst out laughing and was still shaking her head, smiling widely, as she dialed in her phone number and saved it to my contacts list. I hadn’t been able to convince Bennett to text Tori and ask for it. He’d said he didn’t want to shake that hive. Everlie handed me the phone. “Thank you. Okay, now we can go.”
We ended up going to a little cafe in a seedy part of town. It didn’t look like much, but Everlie assured me that they made mind blowing desserts. We took a table, and I let Everlie order for me, which she was happy to do, a little sparkle in her eye as she ordered half a dozen different pastries and two jumbo cups of coffee.
“That was fun,” she
giggled as the waitress walked away. “I normally stick to one treat, but what can I say, I’m in a celebratory mood tonight.”
“I’m flattered,” I teased.
She rolled her eyes at me. “Nice try. It has nothing to do with you, actually.”
“All right, all right. So what then? What are we celebrating?”
Everlie told me about her recent audition and the call back she’d received earlier that day. She was still chattering away, when the waitress reappeared with three huge slices of cake, two scones, and a chocolate cinnamon tart.
“That’s incredible, congrats. Cheers.” I held up my white coffee mug, careful not to slosh any over the edge as I brought it to Everlie’s in a mock toast.
We plowed through the desserts, our conversation revolving mostly around the desserts themselves, and other restaurants in the city she wanted to recommend—or that I’d recently tried. We hit a few snags where she wanted to know how much longer I was going to be in town, or where Bennett was, and I fumbled trying to answer without really answering. There were so many things I couldn’t tell her, and although I knew that eventually I’d have to come clean, I wanted to set all of that aside for the night and just enjoy having her back in my life again.
When we’d had our fill, I paid the tab, and let Everlie lead me out into the night. We were way off the Strip and I found myself enjoying the rustle of the wind and the lack of traffic sounds. “It’s nice out here,” I said.
“Mmhmm.” Everlie nodded. “I found this place when I was homesick actually. I needed to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city, and so one day, I left in the morning and just drove until I ended up here. It’s far enough away no tourists come here—it’s just the people in this neighborhood, the locals. It’s quiet and feels—I don’t know, more like home I guess.”