Page 1 of Lucky or Knot
Chapter 1
“It’s the glitter, that’s why I make more tips,” I explained, for the thousandth freaking time, and I couldn’t quite keep the snap out of my voice. On another night, the solid stack of cash in my hand would’ve had me in an unshakeable state of Zen. But not today. “Girls love shiny things,” I went on, trying to keep it light. It was that or start snarling. “They’re like corvids.”
“Cor—what the fuck?” Dominic glared up at me from where he lounged on the old leather couch in the corner.
Gross. Even in my current state of financial panic, I wouldn’t have sat on that thing bare-assed in only Dominic’s silver lamé jock strap for twice the money in my hand. I might be a stripper myself, and currently liberally dusted with iridescent sparkles that transferred to every surface in the most annoying way, but I knew what some of the guys did on that couch—like rubbing their sweaty naked asses on it, just to start with—and I had some standards, thanks.
We’d retreated to the locker room for a few minutes, both done with our first sets for the night. I’d wanted to stash my take so far, and Dominic had declared that he needed a break from entertaining the clientele on the floor, because it wasn’t worth his time. While he was being more of a dick about it than necessary, it had actually been a pretty slow evening. We’d had one super enthusiastic bachelorette party, the source of my pile of tips, but they’d moved on to other venues. Besides that, none of our regulars had come in, and on a Tuesday in mid-January there weren’t many conventions or tourists in town.
Nothing to write home about, in short.
If I’d been inclined to write home about my job at all. But my parents had a short list of occupations they consideredrespectable enough for a member of our family, and coating myself in body glitter to get groped by screaming drunk girls didn’t qualify. As far as they knew, I’d moved to Vegas to work in the accounting department of the Morrigan casino.
Of course, they also thought, in no particular order, that I’d finished the bachelor’s degree in economics that would’ve qualified me for such a job, that I’d paid off the wasted college loans they’d cosigned for with money earned from gainful employment and not borrowed from a loan shark, and that I would never in a million years have taken out a high-interest credit card so that my now-ex-girlfriend could get a boob job.
I mean, fuck, I didn’t even particularlylikehuge breasts.
If my mom found out the truth…it’d start with her tail twitching, something she could somehow pull off even in her human form. Her green eyes would get that feral gleam. A hint of fang—and then the storm would break, and she’d bite my head off. Not literally, if I was lucky, but then my dad would start in on what was left of me.
No, I had to avoid that at all costs. Being a fully grown thirty-one-year-old man and an alpha gave me no edge at all in that scenario. Neither of my parents had alpha magic, and they’d still kick my ass. Worse, they’d be so disappointed, and it’d break my heart. Even worse than worse, they didn’t have any assets except their house…
“What’s a cor-thing?” Dominic went on, startling me into blinking back to reality, the glare of the ceiling lights and the crumpled texture of the damp bills I held, the bass pumping through the walls and vibrating the floor. They had it cranked up to a level that seemed exciting for humans who’d been pounding shots, which meant more than loud enough for alpha shifter ears to be ringing.
But that was what I’d signed up for. What I had to do to pay my ever-mounting debts in a way that waiting tables andconstruction work and a brief stint as a delivery driver hadn’t accomplished. I ignored him and started to count again, the music and my edginess making it hard to focus.
He didn’t take the hint. “Tony? Hey, Earth to Tony! Is that slang for like, a drunk bridesmaid?”
Okay, what? That was enough to have me looking up after all. Over three hundred so far, and he’d made me fucking lose countagain.
“Slang for a drunk bridesmaid? Corvid? Does that sound like—why would I say ‘girls are like drunk bridesmaids,’ Dominic? Drunk bridesmaidsaregirls. It’s a whatchamacallit, there’s a logical fallacy in there somewhere.”
He glared at me, eyes glowing faintly golden, but it didn’t impress me much. See above: the silver lamé jock strap that had one of his perfectly shaven balls sort of sliding out the side in a goofy-looking way, not to mention how he was sprawled across that disgusting body-oil-and-spunk-tainted couch in a smelly locker room.
Plus, Dominic was only a werewolf. An alpha werewolf, sure, but anyone who said shifters didn’t have an interspecies hierarchy was trying to make our culture sound a whole lot more egalitarian than it really was. They should try walking into a werewolf bar and saying,Hi, I’m an alpha gerbil, see how that worked out.
Aside from the jock strap, Dominic might’ve been more intimidating than your average, or even above-average, gerbil.
But nah.
“We’re all alphas here, that’s kind of the point,” I gritted out. My claws itched at my fingertips, but I kept it under control. A year and change of working at Lucky or Knot had kind of burned out myother alphas need to be put in their placeinstincts. “Don’t waste your time.”
Dominic made a sound somewhere between a grunt anda scoff and then pointedly held eye contact with me while he pushed his errant testicle back into its shiny hammock.
I couldn’t help it; despite everything, I started to laugh. Dominic’s face went red and his eyes glowed brighter, and I gave up on getting a few minutes of relative peace and quiet. Back to the floor it was, where at least the bachelorettes wouldn’t stick their hands in their underwear while they stared at me in a pathetic attempt at displaying dominance—and would get kicked out if they did.
Anyway, I needed to make some bank this week, or that nightmare of my parents finding out about my situation would come true. Louie had called me earlier in the day, threatening to start calling them and harassing them for the money if I didn’t start paying up. He knew damn well that breaking my kneecaps wouldn’t accomplish anything, because I’d heal quickly enough to chase down his goons and beat the shit out of them before they could even get back in the car.
But if he got my family involved…
They’d sell the house to pay my debts. They’d feel like they had to. Which meant Louie had me by the balls.
Stashing the money in my magically secured locker only took a few seconds, and then I adjusted myself in my own faux-leather pants and headed out, ignoring Dominic grumbling behind me.
I had to brace myself before I opened the door from the back hallway to the main floor, and even so, the wall of sound that smacked into me nearly knocked the pleasant smile I’d plastered onto my face right back off of it.
In my absence, a few more patrons had trickled in. Like most all-male clubs, we kept the main floor female-only except when we had a pre-booked male group to fill it up, but the upper level had a few more men sitting there than before. One previously empty table held a wide-eyed, clean-cut trio in poloshirts, none of whom looked old enough to drink. But they must’ve been, because they’d gotten in, and our bouncers were good about checking ID.
Fuck, I really didn’t want to go flex my muscles and leer at kids. No matter how much I desperately needed the money, I’d feel dirtier than that couch. But the other guys besides me and Dominic who were on the floor were already pouring champagne and strutting their stuff and flirting. No one was performing on the smaller stage upstairs at the moment, either, so the guys up there only had their more distant view of Cassidy on the main stage to keep them entertained.
