Page 161 of On a Fault Line

It’s a joke. Obviously. I’m barely at my own apartment, and he knows it. But that doesn’t stop his look of disapproval and anger from shining through his normally blank expression.

Sheesh.

Lighten up, dude.

Then I see a flash of money as Claire waves wads of cash in front of my eyes.

“You brought the whole bank, didn’t you?” Angie asks, giggling.

But when the men on stage catch sight of the money, all three make their way to our section and go to work.

Max sneaks behind Angie to give her a shoulder massage. Luke hops up on the table to do a gyration dance of some sort, in rhythm with the suggestive music blasting through the venue. I’m really trying hard not to look at him no matter how much eye contact he reserves for me.

And his smile…

Fuck, he’s enjoying this way too much. And I doubt I’ll be able to look at him again without seeing this image of him half-naked burning through my memory.

My eyes look for Sam as a distraction, finding him flying through the air and doing a flip. Then he somehow manages to lie across all three of our laps without hurting himself or us.

“Don’t touch them,” Collins warns, but I can’t tell if he is talking to us or the men.

He basically looks like he’s about to have an aneurysm.

Angie takes some money from Claire’s hand and stuffs some into the skin-tight shorts the men have painted on. Then Claire and I follow suit.

When at a strip club…

31

COLLINS

I still can’t believe I accompanied three wild women to a strip club and actually survived to talk about it.

I’ve concluded that there never will be a time in my life where I need to see that many men waving around their junk—for cash or not. Being deprived of that will be a sacrifice worth savoring.

And now I have to deal with putting back together Little Miss Humpty Drunkity.

At least I got her into the apartment complex, up to my floor, and inside the residence.

It wasn’t an easy feat at all. Apparently, when Penny drinks, she also gets oddly ambitious, thinking she can walk on her own.

Nope. She can’t.

Well, at least not until her body detoxes from all the fruity liquid she put in it.

“I, ah, feel like the floor is crawling…”

I see the color change on Penny’s face, and I know if I’m not quick, she’ll be puking on the both of us. I scoop her up in my arms and carry her into the bathroom, leaning her over the toilet as the first wave hits, crashing against the clean white bowl.

“Arghh…”

I gather Penny’s hair into one hand and rub at her back as another wave hits. And another. Her whimper pulls at my heart. Seeing her doubled over, looking small, takes me back in time to when I first saw her at Soulful Mind. She was a hollowed-out shell, coping with demons of the unknown then. While she got some answers when Mark Tanner was discovered, Penny is still trying to figure out how to move forward with her life while carrying around the burden of her old self.

Everyone has demons to fight. It’s just that some people do a better job at hiding it.

When Penny seems to have finished, I help her stand, flush the toilet, and then guide her to the sink.

“You feeling better?”

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