Page 12 of Shattered Veil

“See you ’round, Jay.”

I pressed my lips together tightly, and nodded. “Bye, Cas.”

Shawn and I walked on without a look back at Tommy, I genuinely hoped that Trevor would throw him out the back door and break his sunglasses in the process, and we shoved past the men who crowded the various other dancing stages as we made our way out of the establishment the exact way we came in.

The moment that we hit the chilly air of the outdoors, Shawn asked, “What the fuck just happened?”

“A lot,” I replied succinctly. “I’m gonna find a way to get Tommy fucking fired.” I pointed at Shawn accusatorily as our steps took us into the parking lot. “You had to take his suggestion. It had to be a strip club. It had to be fucking this one—”

“Okay, let’s back up,” Shawn interjected with a hand held up. “First off, I heard Tommy’s fingers crack—if he comes to work with casts on his hands, he could say that you assaulted him. I’m with you. I’ll fill out paperwork vouching for whatever you say, but getting him fired may be out of the realm of possibility with whatever you were planning since he’s injured.”

“I don’t fuckin’ care,” I griped. “I’ll make something else up. Management likes me. Whose side are they really gonna be on?”

“That aside,” Shawn continued, “who was that stripper?”

“Dancer,” I corrected him.

“Dancer. Who was that dancer?”

“Ah.” I glanced at him, saw that he was looking at me with raised eyebrows, and I spoke as if it were a question, “I don’t know?”

“She knew your name,” he remarked. “Had a little private conversation with you before she got off of you just as quick as she had hopped on. Called you Jay, not James—several times. You called her Cas.”

“We exchanged names when she jumped on my lap and started grinding on me,” I lied in a bitterly sarcastic tone. “Jay’s a common nickname for people whose names start with,” I gasped dramatically, “the letter J.”

“Come on, man.”

I groaned loudly, slowing my steps as I arrived at my car. When I turned to face Shawn and realized that he had no intention of letting down, I rattled off:

“My brother’s girlfriend’s old roommate? We had a…thing…a very brief thing a few months back.”

“Uh huh,” Shawn replied hesitantly. “You told me about her—Zoey, yeah?”

“Yeah. We called it quits; you know that. She’s dating someone new—that guy’s little sister? Is Cassie.” I threw a hand back toward the building. “Dancer Cassie.”

His eyebrows pinched together. “Oh. Are, uh—you guys even close?”

“Yeah.” I immediately corrected myself with, “No,” and then stammered, “It—it’s complicated. I don’t fuckin’ know.”

“From the look on your face earlier, you didn’t know she worked here?” Shawn guessed.

I laughed sardonically. “No, I didn’t know! I wouldn’t have come near the place with a fifty-foot-fucking-pole if I knew that!”

His head tipped to the side. “You have a problem with her being a stripper?”

“Dancer,” I corrected him for the second time.

“Dancer.”

I sighed. “I—no?”

Shawn smiled. “You don’t seem very confident in that answer.”

“I’m not.”

“What’s the deal, Jay?” He asked and waited for me to respond. I couldn’t find it in me to do so, and he finally deduced, “Oh, you’re into her.”

I rested my backside against the tailgate of my car. “She’s driving me fucking insane.”

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