Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 138315 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 692(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138315 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 692(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
This was what I was thinking when Sylvester and I walked in the back door and down the dancers’ hall.
I wasn’t thinking about fun when I heard the voices coming from the main room of the club.
I hesitated.
“Everything cool?” Sylvester asked when I did.
I stared at the open door to the club, hearing Ryn’s voice, and Lottie’s, and in the midst of thinking I’d turn right around and text Ian, asking him to tell me when the club was empty so I could rehearse, another thought invaded my head.
This thought being it was time to grow the heck up.
These were my friends.
And I’d done them wrong.
I needed to fix that or face the consequences if I wasn’t able to.
Because, just like Axl didn’t deserve me sending him very public mixed messages about where I was at with him, my girls didn’t deserve me acting like a twelve-year-old who didn’t know how to handle her own emotions.
“Yes,” I said to Sylvester, though it was a lie. “Everything’s cool.”
Then I might have tossed my hair (just a bit), and forcing a lot more confidence in my movements than I was feeling, I strode through the door.
Ryn and Lottie were there, that I knew.
Pepper was too.
She was onstage in some leggings and a workout bra.
The other two were sitting side stage.
All eyes came to us when we showed.
And looking at them, I realized I saw them often, I avoided them all the time, and I missed them like crazy.
They’d done their work in trying to reach me.
It was again my turn.
So I walked right up to them.
They were all eyeing me, but mostly eyeing Sylvester and me.
I’d get into Sylvester later.
Priorities.
I looked right at Lottie.
“I’m sorry I didn’t go to Elvira’s. It was wrong and I knew it and I felt bad about it. So bad, you wouldn’t believe. But that night, my dad called me a whore …”
Gasps ensued, from all of them, with Lottie’s eyes narrowing and Pepper’s face getting red.
But Sylvester rumbled, “What the fuck?”
I ignored all this and carried on.
“No, worse than a whore because he says a stripper is a tease and at least a whore is honest about it. And I wish I could say that was the reason why I didn’t go. But it isn’t. At least not the only one. It was because I made myself so distant from all of you, and I didn’t know how to come back. And then that happened with dad. Also stuff was weird with Axl because I danced that dance for him and he wanted to talk it out and he scares me so badly, even though I want him even worse, I couldn’t go there. And then I got home to my house and Brett was there. And he got in my face about putting Axl off and fasting …”
“Fasting?” Ryn asked quietly.
I heard her.
But I kept going because I had to get it all out.
And it was now or never. Because further delays might mean I couldn’t sort the damage.
Since I decided it was now, I had to get it all out now.
“Then Brett took me out to dinner, and we made friends and then the next day Axl shows and he gets in my face …”
“What?” Lottie demanded.
I also heard that, but I kept on my bent.
“And he was right in what he said, but he wasn’t nice in how he said it. Then I got the phone call where the guy threatened to tie me up and whip me.”
“What?”
That came from all three of them.
I still persevered with what I had to tell them, but that time, it was because I’d be answering them.
“So I made the fateful decision to call Brett because it wasn’t that bad, just an obscene phone call. But, you know, shit happens.”
“Shit does happen,” Pepper muttered.
I looked to Ryn. “So that’s why Brett is picking me up at night. And he’s spending the night with me, sleeping on my couch, because he doesn’t want to take any chances. Which is good. But also bad, seeing as he was there this morning with me, having coffee on my deck, but he’d gone inside to figure out breakfast when Axl showed to apologize for getting in my face and then we started kissing.”
“Ohmigod,” Ryn breathed.
“Right on,” Pepper said.
“Then Brett broke it up because my caller is more of a stalker and he’d opened my mail and found the guy had sent me some hard-core BDSM stuff with some threats and …and …uh …”
I trailed off because none of them were looking at me anymore.
They were all looking beyond me.
I’d know why even before I turned because Sylvester greeted, “Yo, Ian.”
And Dorian, who, after I turned, I saw was standing behind me, replied, “Yo, Sly.”
But he did this scowling at me.
Another full confession: in the beginning, I had serious problems with Dorian mostly because he was utterly gorgeous. The most beautiful Black man I’d ever seen. And I know some might have an issue that I included the modifier of “Black” in that, but before I saw Axl, he was just the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.