Page 2 of Broken Valentine
“Yeah, anytime, kid. You sure you're okay?”
“Yeah, I'm good. I've dealt with my fair share of creeps over the time I've been here. What's one more?”
“Doesn't make it any better. You know where to find me when you need me.”
Before I can respond, I’m interrupted by an over enthusiastic Luca stepping between us. “Look at you, E, being the big hero. Will you be my savior next?”
Ethan chuckles, stepping away from Luca's flirty touches. “Sure, if it's needed; and I'm hardly a hero. It's all part of the job.” He points to his badge that reads security. “I better get back to my door. You two holler if you need me, even though I’m pretty sure Luca, here, is scarier than I am and can take care of himself.”
Luca studies Ethan as he walks away, biting a cherry off its stem. “Have you ever seen a more perfect ass? I swear, one day I will get that man to come home with me without me having to ask.”
“And I swear, if you keep eating all my damn cherries, I’ll be sending your ass to the store on your break,” Tucker shouts from beside us.
Luca rolls his eyes. “Oh, lighten up, T. How many of these men actually ask for a damn cherry in their drink anyway?”
“More than you think. Aren’t you due to go on soon? I sure hope it won’t be in that.” Tucker’s gaze roams up and down Luca’s body with eyes full of judgement when they land on his pink shiny shorts.
“Excuse me, but it’s not the outfit that makes the tips. It’s me and all my sexiness. Pay attention, T. You may learn something.”
“I highly doubt it. Now, shoo, get away from my bar. Your awful taste in clothing is killing my vibe.”
Luca’s about to turn around and give Tucker a piece of his mind until his eyes fall to something else instead. “Hubba hubba. Check out Mr. Sex on a Stick who just entered the club. Why slide down poles when I can slide down him.”
I laugh, rolling my eyes, about to tell Luca to stop exaggerating until my gaze lands on a man who nearly has every bit of oxygen leaving my lungs. Mister tall, dark, and handsome is laughing, surrounded by other men who I didn’t even notice at first because compared to him, they’re nothing but background noise. His eyes brighten the more he smiles and, even though they’re as dark as night, they have a glow to them. With the bit of scruff on his face and that navy sports coat, his looks are the perfect mixture of rugged and elegant. His friends push him toward the bar and his gaze falls on me, causing my body to go still. I can't tear my eyes from his, and luckily his friend getting his attention breaks the trance we were lost in.
I disappear to the back dressing room, feeling the need to get away from the alluring stranger who has my heart racing a million miles a minute. A hand falls on my shoulder as I push through the dressing room door. “Hey, what in the world happened to you back there? I kept calling your name and it's like you were somewhere else.”
When my gaze lands on Luca, his hands are on his hips and there's a small amount of concern laced in his eyes. “Are you getting enough sleep? I know you said the other day you hadn't been sleeping well. I sure hope Tony isn't the cause of it.”
I run a hand through my hair, not wanting to tell Luca about my suspicions involving Tony sleeping with his secretary because I'm not ready to hear the I told you so speech, and I want to make sure it's actually true before I endure that kind of torture. “I'm sleeping fine and things with Tony are fine.”
He sighs, seeming unconvinced. “There goes that word you like to use that I'm not sure you know the meaning of.”
“What word? You didn't come back here to give me some vocabulary lesson, did you?”
Grabbing the fairy wings from the rack behind me, he slides them over his arms and runs his hand through his platinum blond hair. “I came back here to finish getting dressed, but now that I'm here, I might as well remind you that you are no longer allowed to replace how you really feel with the word fine,” he says, giving me a stern look, shaking his finger.
That's when I finally notice the pink and silver eyeshadow covering his lids and the shimmery glitter highlighting the corners of his eyes. His makeup is flawless and it's the one thing he's been most passionate about, aside from dancing. Luca loves playing someone different on stage. I always go on as myself while Luca becomes whoever he’s decided to be dressed as that day. Today he’s a woodland fairy named Aris who will annoy the hell out of my boss when he sprinkles fairy dust all over the stage. I grab my lace jockstrap sitting on top of my bag on the chair behind me. “But that’s how I feel. If I say I’m fine, then that means I'm fine.”
“I don't believe you. I think you're full of shit. Actually, I know you're full of shit because of the bags under your eyes, and how you practically sleepwalk yourself on and off stage. At least you're awake enough when you're dancing.”
I roll my eyes. “You're over exaggerating per usual. I've been working extra shifts since I have to cut back when spring semester starts in two weeks.”
“You're going to kill yourself one of these days. What are you going to school for again, to be an astronaut?”
I laugh, slipping behind the changing curtain to slide down my golden shorts that snap down the sides, making it easy to yank them off when on stage. I add my gold lace jockstrap underneath. “I told you a hundred times, an aerospace engineer.”
“Better you than me.” He walks toward the door and I follow him, slipping on my gold pumps. I did my makeup on the bus on the way here, dusting my cheeks with bronzer and gold. I grab my golden silk hat on the way out. It hangs off my head, completing my sandman look. I don’t get into character the way Luca does, but I do love dressing the part. I hide behind my costumes in hopes it will keep people from recognizing me, such as someone I know from outside the club. Especially someone from class.
I love dancing and sometimes I even love my job. There's something about being on stage in front of a big crowd with bright lights following my movements that has my body vibrating. But dancing in a strip club has only ever been a temporary thing. At the end of the day, my heart is still set on building spacecraft as well as creating and improving designs. Ever since my mom placed my first toy rocket ship in my hand on my sixth birthday, I’ve been enamored by the fascinating design and the idea of something I helped create going up in space one day. After that day, every picture I drew for my mom to place on the fridge was some form of spacecraft in different shapes and colors.
My thoughts are chased away by the loud music. I try not to search out the handsome stranger from before but fail. Luca is already walking on stage, getting ready to dance to some remix of “Dancing in the Moonlight.” I'm too focused on searching for the stranger from earlier that I'm not paying attention to my own surroundings and slam right into a strong, hard chest. When I glance up to apologize to the man I collided with, my eyes are met with a pair of familiar dark ones. The same ones I was too busy searching for to watch where I was going in the first place. “I'm sorry, I need to pay attention more to where I'm walking.”
He laughs, and the skin wrinkles around his eyes and that's when the specks of gray in his hair become more apparent under the club lights. “Yeah, I guess that would help, wouldn't it? I like to think we end up right where we belong though.”
“Are you saying being chest to chest with a stranger was destiny?”
He laughs again and this time it nearly drowns out the song around us. It's the only thing my ears want to focus on. “I'm sure there are worse places to be.”
