Page 114 of After Midnight

A smile lifts the corners of my lips as I step through the employee door into the club. It’s dark, and everything is clean, ready for customers and dancers to arrive tonight. For now, though, it’s just me.

My eyes find the stage. The pole looks unassuming, not catching any lights, and no bills are strewn across the floor. Without making the conscious decision to, I find myself drifting around the tables dotting the floor, then climbing the stairs to the main stage. Slowly, almost reverently, my fingers wrap around the pole. I can’t count the number of times it’s held me up, kept me safe, given me a way to express myself.

Maybe now it can help me make one of the biggest decisions of my life.

I peel my T-shirt off over my head and drop the fabric to the stage, then kick my sandals away. Dressed in cotton shorts and a sports bra, I take a steadying breath. Then I grab the pole and start to dance.

No music. No watchers. No sound but the AC and the whisper of the chrome as it spins.

Memories wash over me: laughing with the other dancers, learning how to walk in five-inch stilettos, kicking that one guy in the face when he tried to grab my ass while I was onstage.

As I twirl, I find myself smiling. My heart feels full. Much like my condo, this club has been home to me. It’s given me the stability I needed to build a life for myself. It bought my Jeep and my home. It’s what helps me put money away for retirement and save up for Ri’s tuition.

And now it’s here as a new door is opening, offering me the opportunity to try something new.

I flip upside down on the pole, using my thighs to hold myself up, and I let my hair and hands brush along the empty stage as I spin.

Now my memories show me Seb, that fist night I saw him, the way he watched me from across the crowded room. Back then, he was a stranger, someone I hoped to score a private dance with and nothing more. So much has changed since then. Now I know what he looks like when he cries. I know that when he says he’ll do something, he’ll actually do it. I know what type of man he is under the dimples and faded T-shirts.

He’s someone I love. And even now, my whole body misses him.

I wish he were here. I always wish he were here.

My smile fades. I twist my body around on the pole, righting myself, then slowly lower my toes to the stage. And for a minute, I lean my forehead against the pole, and I breathe.

As my chest rises and falls with heavy breaths, my heart beating from the exertion of dancing, I ask myself the one question that I’ve yet to truly answer: What do I want?

Instead of trying to control the outcome, I let my heart answer. And it does so with such conviction that it almost takes my breath away.

Slowly, I open my eyes. And I see Caliber for what it really is: a moment in my life, a place that helped make me who I am. But it’s not the end of my journey. My adventure has barely begun.

Still gripping the pole, I whisper to the empty club, “Thank you. For everything.”

My movements are slow as I put my T-shirt and sandals back on. Then I walk off the stage, and this time, I don’t pause to look back as I step through the employee-only door.

In the dressing room, I walk to my locker, and I still don’t find any hesitation in my bones as I start to remove items: a pair of silver heels, a few jars of glitter, a makeup bag, a hairbrush, a stick of deodorant. I peel the pictures of me and the other dancers off the locker door, being careful not to bend or tear them. And when the locker is empty, I take a breath and close it with a final click.

Then I look around the room, and I smile at all the memories I’ve had here. I’m going to miss it. I’m going to miss the friendships I’ve made, the camaraderie I’ve built. But I don’t want the comfort of this life to keep me from stepping into a new one. I don’t want to be afraid.

My eyes are misty as I shove all my items into a plastic bag I found on one of the vanities. And the bag is surprisingly light as I carry it out of the dressing room and into the hallway, like maybe the burden of leaving something behind is mostly a heaviness of perception. Because as I step back outside into the blazing sunlight and stifling heat of Las Vegas, I feel a lifting of my chest, a softening of my shoulders.

I’m not running away. I’m just stepping onto a new path.

And this path is going to lead me back to the coast, back to the smell of the sea, back to him. But more than anything, it leads me to a new version of me. A version that I’m building out of what I want, and not for anyone else.

I climb into my Jeep, and I look up at Caliber’s dark sign one last time. Then I start the engine, and I leave without any tears in my eyes.

chapter 55

Sebastian

REMI IS TALKING A MILE a minute, and I don’t think she realizes that I’m not saying anything—not because I don’t have an opinion on the pole placement or the studio name or what color scheme she should go with, but because right now, I think she’s more beautiful that I’ve ever seen her.

Her hair is pulled back and clipped out of her face, she’s wearing a gray T-shirt and yoga pants, and she doesn’t know it yet, but she has a smudge of blueberry on her bottom lip from the muffins we ate in the Raptor on the way to the studio.

As she talks, she walks through the studio, gesturing over here and over there, carrying a clipboard, a roll of blue tape, and a measuring tape. She measures out the space, marks potential pole placement on the floor with the blue tape, then jots something down on her board. Then, finally, she looks over at me, brow furrowing.

“Are you even listening?”