by KD Ellis
Except Shiloh, who also wore enough glitter to keep a craft store in business.
“The new owner will be stopping in to inspect the property, so don’t embarrass me,” Victor said before Teddy could slip into the dressing room. “No half-assing it tonight.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Teddy muttered.
“Wear the jock,” Victor yelled after him.
Teddy threw a hand up in acknowledgement before closing the door firmly behind him. It didn’t take long to strip out of the neoprene shorts and into a blue satin jock. He hated it—and not just because it cost twice as much as one he could buy in the store, since it had to accommodate his packer. At least the panties gave him an illusion of coverage. The jock left him feeling exposed.
Thankfully, he was a subpar dancer. Unlike Shiloh, who lived and breathed ballet, Teddy’s skills started—and ended—on a pole. It meant Teddy only ever got the platform nearest the bathrooms or the one near the darkened alcoves on the opposite side. Shiloh accumulated the majority of the gawkers near the center.
Teddy used the pole more for decoration than utility. He had a few tricks he used near the end, things he’d learned from Shiloh. Other than that, he ignored the pole and hoped it didn’t trip him.
He was near the end of his second set, hanging upside down and gripping the pole with his thighs, hoping not to fall and crack open his skull, when a voice from his past startled him into letting go.
He fell, every muscle clenching in preparation for a hard landing. Instead, he heard a curse before a pair of arms grappled at him and he struck a hard chest, the breath knocked out of him.
He’d swear it was Ian’s voice that had startled him from his routine, but that wasn’t possible. The last he’d heard from Mama Romero, Ian was an accountant at some firm in Chicago. Of course, it had been over six months since he’d spoken to her, and that was just because he’d bumped into her in the grocery store. He’d done his best to respect Ian’s wishes and stay away.
The arms around him tightened. Then he was shifted around so he could slide down the toned body until his bare feet landed on the sticky dance floor. He opened his eyes.
Ian looked exactly as he did in Teddy’s memories, but for a small, white scar that bisected his eyebrow, and an intensity in his gaze that had been missing before. His jaw was clenched, and as soon as Teddy’s feet were under him, Ian released him, like the thought of touching him a moment longer disgusted him.
“Teddy,” Ian murmured, confusion softening the hard lines of his face for a moment. Then they snapped back into place. “Following in your mother’s footsteps?”
“Mom never stripped,” Teddy cut back, flinching like he’d been struck. “And you left. You have no right to judge me or my life.” He brushed past Ian, not caring that he still had ten minutes left of his set and several more left of his shift. It wasn’t like working in a club was his first choice, or second. But it was the only job he could find that didn’t need more than a high school diploma and was willing to work around his other two jobs. He couldn’t afford to be picky.
Ian gripped his arm and tugged, forcing him to stop and face him. “You’re right. Just…what happened to college? I thought you were going into architecture.”
“Life happened,” Teddy muttered, pulling his arm free before crossing them, more on display than ever. “What about you? I thought you were living in Chicago.”
Ian’s face darkened. “It was time to come home.”
“Well, good for you.” The music changed from the seductive sounds of the dancers’ track to a more upbeat one, the lights over the platforms flicking off. “I gotta get back to work. I heard the new owner’s a bigger asshole than the old one.”
A choking sound echoed behind him and Victor cursed, “You little prick!”
Teddy’s face scrunched as he realized Victor had heard every word. At least it was the last day he’d be working for the sleazy bastard.
Victor hurried to make up for Teddy’s remark. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Romero. I promise the rest of the employees will show more respect to their new boss.”
It took a second for the words to click in his head. He narrowed his eyes at Ian. “New boss? You bought Nik’s?”
Ian’s lips quirked up, but there was no humor in the smile. “Surprise.”
Teddy hated surprises.
* * * *
Teddy paced his empty apartment, torn between anger, uncertainty…and a small dash of elation. Ian was back, and Teddy didn’t know what that meant for him. The rational part of him said that it meant nothing. Ian had left him. It had been four years since they’d spoken. Ian had changed his number and left without a forwarding address. Teddy had the same battered flip phone he’d had then, and the same dump of an apartment. If Ian had wanted to contact him, he knew how to get ahold of him. He hadn’t. So clearly, the fact that he was here—that he was Teddy’s new boss—meant nothing.
The smaller, more anxious part of him feared that Ian was here to punish him for not stepping forward all those years ago and speaking to the police. It wasn’t like Teddy could even hold it against him, since he felt the need to punish himself daily for the same damn thing.
And the stupid part of Teddy, the one that was ruled by the tiny corner of his heart that remained unbroken, hoped that Ian was back for him.
The rational part of him overruled that voice as well.
Teddy didn’t feel like being rational.
He pulled out his phone, hovering his thumb over Shiloh’s name in his contacts. He wanted to speak to someone and Shiloh was the only person he had left in his life. He hadn’t spoken to his mother since his twentieth birthday, when she’d shown up at his apartment, drunk off her ass, and left with the hundred dollars he’d had hidden in his cookie jar. That was back before he’d sold the cookie jar for an extra five bucks.
He broke down and pressed the button. He listened to the phone ring, and ring, and ring, before Shiloh’s cheery voice came over the voicemail. He hung up without speaking and collapsed back on the couch instead. A spring dug into his spine until he shifted.
What he needed was to think this through. Could he keep working at Nik’s if it meant he’d be working under Ian? And not, he thought, under him in the way I want to be?
Could he afford not to?
His debt to the cartel was larger now than it had been when he’d started. He could barely make the interest payments each month. It was all he could do to keep them off his back—and keep off his back for them.
The money he made in tips alone at Nik’s was more than he made at either of his other jobs. There weren’t many other bars in the city that would give him as many hours and, for as seedy as Nik’s seemed, at least he was never expected to ‘thank’ high-tippers in the men’s room, like he’d heard happened at some of the others.
Leaving Nik’s wasn’t an option, not without consequences too high to accept. He was just going to have to bury the attraction that had rekindled with a single glance and try to keep it professional.
“Well, shit,” he cursed.
He wasn’t very good at professional.
Chapter Eighteen
Ian watched the workers lay the final strips of paint along the base of the front door. He’d left the murals from the original building—a tattoo parlor, before it had become a small, seedy club—except to have them touched up in places that had faded or chipped. The walls that separated the old club from the abandoned storefront next door had been removed, and the stained, pockmarked linoleum had been stripped, replaced by gleaming hardwood.
The old bar, squat and short, had been replaced with a mahogany one that curved elegantly along the side of the club, giving the illusion of depth. Instead of three platforms for dancers, there were now six. They were narrower but taller, putting the dancers even more on display.
The grand re-opening was only three days away. Waiting felt like torture, but he’d waited four years. He wasn’t going to fuck everything up by getting impatient now.
He left the foreman to his work, reassured that everything was still progressing on schedule, and unlocked the door that lead to the upstairs.
When he’d told Mama he was coming back to Austin to stay ‘indefinitely’, she’d pressed for him to move back in. He knew she didn’t like having an empty nest. With him gone and Noa off at college, she was feeling lonely. But he couldn’t. There were too many memories, and he couldn’t afford the distraction—not to mention that the last thing he wanted was for danger to follow him back to his family. It wasn’t like he could change his name here and hope nobody recognized him. He had community ties—not many, but enough. It was what made him the perfect mole. He didn’t need to invent a cover story. He had one that didn’t need to be faked.
Instead, he’d spent two weeks in a hotel while they’d renovated the floor above the club into a usable apartment. It had two bedrooms, a large living space and a small but modern kitchen. It was far fancier than he needed, to fit his new image—that of a rich club owner with too much money. It wouldn’t be a stretch, by any means, for anyone who’d known him before. Before his brother had died and his life had taken a hard one-eighty.
Ian bypassed the kitchen and headed into the spare room. It was the first room he’d furnished. A weight bench sat against one wall, a treadmill on the other, and he’d screwed a pull-up bar in the doorway. A punching bag sat in the center. After taping his wrists, he let loose on the blue canvas, the strikes hard enough that he felt them in his bones.
Six weeks, and he still couldn’t get the frustration of seeing Teddy on a podium, practically nude, out of his head. Not just because Teddy looked sexier than ever—though he did, with the sapphire blue jock outlining the perfect globes of his ass, the muscles of his abdomen chiseled like a Roman sculpture, hair longer than Ian ever remembered seeing it. The honey-gold hair had fallen in waves over Teddy’s shoulders, soft and teasing, daring Ian to run his fingers through it.
It was only one of several reminders that the Teddy on the podium was not the same Teddy he’d left behind. This Teddy, in the moments before Ian had broken the spell and said something, had looked more comfortable in his body, even beneath the very obvious discomfort at being on display. The Teddy he’d left behind would never have worn makeup or had hair longer than stubble. The Teddy he’d left behind wouldn’t have worn gloss that drew Ian’s eyes to his pouty lips or nail polish that made his slender fingers look even longer.
And the Teddy he’d left behind wouldn’t have been caught dead in a bar.
He wondered what else had changed.
* * * *
Ian checked the liquor shelves for the third time. It had been four years since he’d tended bar, and he kept feeling like he was forgetting something. He needed this opening to go well. Ian shifted a bottle of top-shelf whiskey a few inches to the left.
“Mm-m, right there, Daddy,” a sultry voice purred behind him. Ian knew without looking that it belonged to Teddy’s mouthy friend Shiloh. Ian found himself wishing that the brat had been one of the ones to take his offer of severance pay. Instead, the spoiled boy had accepted the several smaller payouts spread over six weeks as an incentive to return once construction was finished.
Ian nudged another bottle into place before turning around. Shiloh straddled a barstool, scantily clad in a pair of pink suspenders attached to metallic silver booty shorts. Sometime in the years Ian had been gone, Shiloh had died his normally blond hair hot pink.
“Place looks nice,” Shiloh acknowledged, gesturing to the much cleaner, larger club.
“Hopefully the patrons agree,” Ian said, turning to watch the pair of bartenders carefully prepare their stations. Besides Shiloh, the other five dancers were still back in the dressing room, getting ready.
“You kept your best dancer. I wouldn’t worry.” Shiloh shrugged and slid forward, propping his elbows on the bar. “What do I have to do to talk you into a drink?”
Ian poured him a Coke and slid it over.
Shiloh bat his eyebrows but his eyes were more cunning than flirty. “Rum?”
“Not on the clock.” Ian went back to work, resorting to straightening the napkin dispensers. His eyes caught and held on Teddy as he left the dressing room.
Like the club, the employee uniforms had gotten an upgrade. Lycra shorts had been replaced by spandex—different colors of the rainbow for each day of the week. The look was just as skimpy, just as sexy, but hopefully more comfortable. Looking at Teddy in the tight purple fabric, he wished that he had picked uniforms that covered a bit more skin.
Teddy flushed as his eyes met Ian’s but didn’t stop his approach. He slid onto the stool beside Shiloh. Teddy snagged the glass from Shiloh and sniffed it. “No alcohol?” he verified.
Shiloh’s pout deepened. “Nope.” Teddy downed a swallow before sliding it back. “So, boss,” Shiloh turned back to Ian, “when do we get our assignments?”
“Hmm-m?” Ian had been too busy watching Teddy’s tongue clean drops of Coke from his glossy lips.
“Our assignments. For the platform?” Shiloh asked.
“Oh. Talk to Johnny. He knows your strengths.” Johnny had managed the bar for the past two years, according to Victor. Ian hoped he was as good as the previous owner claimed, otherwise Ian would be spending more time in the bar than he’d intended.
Shiloh nudged Teddy’s shoulder. “You’ll be on a platform then.”
“Fucker,” Teddy huffed and slid off the stool, heading toward the other side of the bar, where Johnny was quietly speaking with one of the bartenders.
Shiloh just chuckled, clearly not offended.
“They not get along?” Ian asked, watching Teddy walk away. He tried to tell himself that he was just curious, but he couldn’t help that his eyes drifted lower, down Teddy’s back to the firm ass highlighted by the spandex.
“They dated for a bit.” Shiloh shrugged and downed the last of his drink. “Johnny knows Teddy prefers the bar, so he puts him on the platforms whenever he gets the chance. Not that Teddy’s a bad dancer,” Shiloh hurried to clarify.
Ian frowned as he watched the pair at the other end argue. Teddy was clearly unhappy, and Johnny looked far too smug about it.
“I’ll have a talk with him.”
“Teddy?” Shiloh asked.
“Johnny. If Teddy doesn’t want to be on the platforms, then he can work the bar,” Ian corrected absently.
Shiloh laughed, the sound pulling Ian’s attention from the other end of the bar. He frowned. “Something funny?”
“Everyone’s going to know you’re boning if you do.”
“We’re not boning,” Ian immediately replied. The last thing he needed was that rumor spreading about.
“Then everyone will think you are. I mean, I guess if that’s what you want.” Shiloh shrugged but then his eyes narrowed critically, assessing Ian with a seriousness that Ian hadn’t realized he possessed. “You trying to win the pool?”
“What pool?” Ian had no idea what Shiloh was talking about or why who he was sleeping with was anyone’s business.
“There’s a bet going on between Victor and a few of the regulars. Who can bang the most dancers. Teddy’s the only hold-out.” Shiloh’s eyes grew distant for a second as he thought. “Actually, I think Johnny’s the only one who got that notch, and that was because he wasn’t part of the pool at the time.” Shiloh’s gaze darkened. “Though he certainly bragged about it enough after. Which was a pity, because now I have to hold out on him just
out of spite.” Shiloh sighed, staring at Johnny with regret. “Have you seen his arms?”
Ian felt a growl in his throat at the thought of someone trying to sleep with Teddy for a bet. It made him want to introduce the manager of his club to the end of his fist. He reigned the thought in quickly.
Shiloh bounced off the stool, hips swaying as he joined Teddy and Johnny in their maybe-an-argument. Ian watched the trio until it was time to unlock the doors and he had to concentrate on the club. Teddy wasn’t his boyfriend, he reminded himself as the first patrons entered. It wasn’t his responsibility to keep an eye on the younger man or worry about his relationship with an ex. He had a job to do.
* * * *
“Come on, Teddy. It’s not your first time on the platforms. I don’t know why you’re making a big deal out of it. Just do two sets, then you can hop back behind the bar.” Johnny smirked, the expression greasy. “You want the tips, right?”
“I’m not a dancer,” Teddy said for what felt like the thousandth time. He knew this was Johnny’s way of getting back at him for ending things—not because Johnny actually wanted to be with him, but because Johnny didn’t like being cut loose first. Though seriously, how on earth did Johnny not realize that telling Teddy on their third date that—how had he phrased it? ‘If you want to be a man, then maybe you should stop dressing like a bitch’—was not the best way to stay in his pants.
Two years ago, it might have been enough to make him reconsider what he kept in his closet. Now, his closet was extremely happy with the number of stilettos it held.
“But you got a great ass.” Johnny leered down at him. “So go shake it for an hour and then you can come hole up behind the bar again.”
Teddy sighed. “Last time, though, right?” If he saw that rat bastard Joey again, he’d be having words with him. The only reason Johnny got away with putting him on the platform so often was because the other dancer kept calling off.