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Pax trained his eye on them, ready to move quickly if there was a need but Jason was right. Whoever Randy was, he was a gentleman. One hand stayed wrapped around his drink, and the other never left her shoulder.
Things stayed mellow for a while, but a night at Aubergine wasn’t complete without their signature performance of “Shine Bright Like a Diamond,” and apparently no performance of Shine Bright was complete without Diamond herself.
Before either of them could stop her, she rushed the stage, and took her place in the very front, belting out the chorus at the top of her lungs. To their credit, none of the other dancers batted an eyelash at her unexpected and unusual performance. They continued as usual, dancing around her as if she wasn’t even there, paying no attention to the fact that her very unusual dance moves were completely off sync with theirs. When she turned her back to the crowd and starting twerking, Jason lost it.
“Strike three, princess. It’s been nice knowing you,” Pax heard Jason mutter under his breath.
Then he turned. “Get her off the stage. Let her sleep it off, and send her on her way in the morning.”
He was already barreling to the stage when he heard Jason call after him. He turned, just in time to catch the keys hurling towards his head. “We’re going to need her personnel file to cut her last check and write a report.”
“Got it.” He didn’t bother pointing out that it made more sense for Jason to do that, since he was apparently going to be spending the rest of his evening babysitting a drunken diva. He knew his friend well enough to know when not to push a point. In one fell swoop, he scooped her off the stage mid twerk, and threw her over his shoulder.
She didn’t scream, or argue or demand to be put down as he would have expected. To his amusement, she laughed, and squealed like a child. “Weeee!”
She continued like this as he made his way across the casino and down to the offices. She never once questioned where they were going, which Pax found worrisome. He was around Aubergine enough that she probably knew who he was, but really, he could be anybody taking her anywhere in this state, and she wouldn’t have argued. That made him sick to his stomach.
With one hand positioned across her back holding her in place, he managed to wrestle the key into the door of the personal office, which was closed at this time of night, and over to the file cabinet. She wasn’t making any noise whatsoever now, and Pax wondered if she had passed out.
Thankfully, the file folders were organized first by their stage names, or he wouldn’t know where to look. He suspected that underneath all the make-up and glamorous costumes, she looked like your average girl next door with long legs and a nice rack. Jason wasn’t too picky. She probably had a plain name like Jane, Mary or Molly, or a horrendously ill-fitting one like Agnes or Gertrude. It took him only a minute or two to find the correct file, as they were arranged alphabetically, and he left the office without opening it. There would be time for that later.
Right now, he needed to get her to bed. She was becoming a dead weight across his shoulder, and the casinos were huge. He had already carried her at least a mile. He was grateful that the offices weren’t too far from the small block of rooms Jason kept for his dancers. Her room number, 1402, was plastered across the front of her file with her stage name.
He passed by a smaller bar, and a few shops before she started moaning. He assumed she was doing so in her sleep, until she began pounding on his back with small tight fists. “Let me down! I’m going to be sick!”
It was all Pax needed to hear. He quickly set her to her feet, and steered her towards the back of the small bar they had just passed, hanging on until she was safely in the ladies’ room. At first he could hear her violent retching. The sound turned his stomach, even though he knew it was for the best.
He listened for a few minutes, making sure that she was okay, and when the retching and gagging stopped, he leaned against the wall to wait.
He had been there for about twenty minutes, watching as large groups of women in tight micro skirts, tube tops, and stilettos went in and out. Diamond still hadn’t come out.
“Excuse me, miss.” He caught the arm of a girl who was coming out of the restroom alone. “Did you happen to see a blonde woman in there, wearing a white dress? Is she okay?”
She sent him a withering stare that let him know that the only reason she wasn’t decking him was that he was still wearing the official Aubergine Security T-shirt he had worn while bouncing, and pushed past him without answering.
He had no choice but to go in, so that’s what he did. Bracing himself, he shoved the door open, and strode in like he owned the place, because technically, he did.
He spotted her right away. There was a couch against the wall opposite the full-length mirrors, and Diamond was sitting in the center of it, with a group of scantily clad partiers crowded around her. That wasn’t out of the ordinary. This was Vegas after all. It was the rest of the scene that made his heart stop in his chest. She was holding a small flat mirror, with a thick white line of powder across its surface, and holding a rolled up dollar bill to her nose, while the other girls cheered her on, and tried to instruct her.
He was nearly blinded with rage, but he managed to keep it in check as he scooped her right out from the middle of the group, without breaking up the circle.
“Oh,” she whined prettily, from her spot over his shoulder. “But, I was just about to have some fun!”
“You have had more than enough fun for the evening, trust me.” Every ounce of his being was fighting the urge to sit down on the couch and pull her over his knee for an honest to goodness ass whooping, audience or no. He would never, as much as he wanted to, without an agreement of consent.
“Hey, mister.” A pint size pixie of a woman in a skintight leopard print dress, and way too much eye makeup, stepped in front of the door. “Put her down! You ain’t her daddy! She is a grown ass woman!”
Pax sighed. The woman barely stood above belly button height to him, even in her three-inch heels, and he would totally find the situation laughable if he wasn’t so pissed off. “You’re absolutely right, I am not,” he emphasized, pointedly correcting her grammar, “her daddy. What I am though, is the owner of this fine establishment. So either you shut your mouth and move out of my way, and then leave, or I will call the cops and tell them you’re giving out drugs in the bathroom.”
Her eyes got huge, and she quickly moved out of his way. He should call the cops anyway, but he wasn’t going to. He had enough to deal with at the moment.
Thankfully, Diamond had stopped protesting, and fallen back to sleep, and the rest of the trip to her room was without incident. Using his master key card, he entered, frowning as he stepped over several empty pint bottles on his way to the bed.
He deposited her in the middle of the bed, checking to be sure she was breathing, and then tilted her head up and checked her nostrils for any signs of the tell-tale white residue. He was fairly certain he had gotten to her in time, but he needed to be sure. Finding nothing, he was appeased.
For the first time that night, Pax got a good look at her face. With light blonde hair that was almost white, and light blue eyes, the name Diamond fit her. He had seen her before, but she was wearing a lot less make-up than usual, and the majority of what she had been wearing had already worn off. She had perfect heart shaped lips, and, if he said so himself, a perfect ass that was downright spankable. It was a shame this was Aubergine and not Rojo. Instead of being fired, he would take it out of her hide. On stage, in front of an audience.
An idea began to form in the recesses of his brain, and he quickly dismissed it. Or at least he tried to. He really shouldn’t be considering it—but he couldn’t help but think that when she woke up, she would be jobless and homeless. Still, it was completely of her own doing, and he really didn’t need to be taking on a girl with this many issues.
If it wasn’t for what Jason had said about her, he would have stayed until she woke up, fired her, and sent her on her way. As it was, he couldn’t help but open her file. Turning it open to the first page, he read her name, and did a double take. “Holy crap!”
