Page 2 of State of Ruin

She does not smile at me, but her fingertips hover lightly on the sides of my fingers to hold my hand in place as she stamps the back of my hand. It feels like foreplay, and I stare at her downcast eyes in astonishment as the rubber brands me with my second stamp of the evening. She takes as much care with it as she did with every step of our drinks.

“Thank you, sir,” she says, docking the stamp on its ink pad and glancing up at me again. “What’s the name, please?”

“Voss.”

I watch her face as if it’s a book written in a foreign tongue. Nothing.

Seriously?

“One moment, please.”

She types my name into the keypad and prints off a receipt, laying it in the leather check wallet. I sign with a flourish and add a hundred as a tip. I can only blame desperation to prolong this admittedly underwhelming interaction for what I blurt out as I slide the check wallet back across the bar.

“Do you ever work upstairs?”

Upstairs means the Playroom, where the good stuff goes down. And while there’s technically a bar up there, that’s not what I mean by work.

A quick shake of her head as she files away the signed receipt. “No, sir.”

The blood rushes to my head in a violent wave at what feels like stepping off a cliff edge to my death. It’s a bad idea on every level… but fuck it. “Do you ever play upstairs?”

Our eyes lock for a beat, and hers widen.

I’ve shocked her.

Good.

God knows she’s fucking shocked me.

But then her full, perfect lips with their subtle pink lipstick purse together with what looks an awful lot like distaste.

“Absolutely not, sir.”

It’s officially my first ever brush-off in a year of membership, and I don’t like it.

Not one little bit.

CHAPTER 2

Elyse

Do I ever play upstairs?

Such a stupid question, asked by a stupidly wealthy man who probably does nothing but play. Play is not a word in my vocabulary unless I’m hanging out with Fleur, and even then it feels more like duty dressed up as play. I don’t mean that it’s not fun, or it’s not a pleasure, but I indulge in play as a form of caregiving, I guess. The playing isn’t about me but about her—it’s about all of us making sure that her childhood is as carefree as possible.

It’s not about me being carefree. Honestly, even the idea of that feels laughable these days.

You’d expect that for guys like Sinclair Voss and Felix Wolff and their buddies, being carefree is literally all they have to do. So it’s kind of funny that when Sinclair asked me if I played, he looked anything but carefree. He’s kind of intense.

And yeah, I knew who he was when I asked for his name, even if I’ve never seen him in here before.

Of course I did.

Every woman in the club knows who he is, but it’s called having some self-respect—something the beautiful blonde lady in the silver dress who was all over him at the bar might want to remember. She’s every bit as hot as him—and tall, too. If I had legs as long as hers, my modeling career would be a whole different ball game. She’s gorgeous. I wish I could remind her of that. But she’s currently ignoring her own friends and staring at him and his friends as they drink their Old Fashioneds, and she looks super sad. I don’t get how you get to be as hot and wealthy and shiny as her and still feel like guys hold all the power. It really, truly sucks.

I’m not trying to deny that he’s hot. Denying Sinclair Voss’s hotness is like being a climate change denier or a flat-earther: downright wrong. But, while I may now share the same airspace as guys like him and women like his sad bar buddy on a regular basis, it doesn’t mean I have anything else in common with them. I’m here to make their drinks, stamp their hands, and make as much as I possibly can in tips before I catch the PATH home.

As my coworker Pixie reminds me, I’d make a lot more in tips if I flirted more. I know she’s right. Pixie should run a Teachable masterclass in flirting for tips—and she does a lot more than flirt. She definitely plays upstairs, if you catch my drift, even though she’s bar staff and not one of the designated hosts who service the members of Alchemy.