Page 1

Chapter

One

ALEX

I am going to throw up.

I know this because I can feel the familiar ache building behind my ribs. It’s a slow and merciless tightening that starts beneath my sternum and works its way upward until my throat feels too small.

I have experienced it plenty of times before.

Before a date. Before going to the cinema. Even once before asking a professor for a recommendation letter, despite the fact that he’d already told me he would write it.

But it usually happens in much less humiliating places than the back room of a nightclub in Manhattan, where I am currently standing in front of a smudged mirror, dressed in a cropped shirt, a black bow tie and shorts that’s showing half of my ass.

I need to nail this audition. That is the only reason I haven't put my regular clothes back on and escaped through the window. I need the money, and according to Logan and Stacy, the tips from one night alone can cover my rent.

I am still not entirely convinced they weren't exaggerating.

Then again, I don’t know the type of people that visit The Bloodrot, but my best friends swear working here can change my life.

And that is exactly what I need right now.

Something to turn my life around. And most preferably something that doesn’t require me to sell a kidney or move back in with mom.

“You look fine,” Logan says behind me.

I meet his eyes through the mirror. “No, I don’t.”

He sighs from where he’s leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. “Okay. You look kind of nervous.”

“I look like I am about to give a presentation on differential equations.”

His mouth twitches. “Yeah, but that’s your signature look.”

“Fuck off.”

I push my glasses higher on my nose, but my fingers are trembling so badly and instead of adjusting them, I knock the frames sideways, leaving me staring at my crooked reflection. Beyond the door, the club is alive. Music pounds through the walls and I can feel the bass beneath my feet. Every few seconds, another wave of noise reaches us when someone opens the door at the end of the hall. Music, laughter, and a burst of voices. Then the door swings shut and everything becomes muffled again.

I don't belong here.

The thought has been circling my head since I walked through the front entrance, and it gets louder every time I try to ignore it.

I really don't belong here.

I belong at the library, where I can disappear between the shelves and lose myself in a good book.

I do not belong in a strip club where the walls are painted black and gold and the hallway smells like cigarette smoke, expensive liquor, and something metallic that I can't identify no matter how many times I breathe it in.

And I most certainly don’t belong on a stage.

But I don’t have another choice because the pile of debt waiting for me outside this club doesn’t care whether I am comfortable or embarrassed or one exposed ass cheek away from a nervous breakdown.

Just thinking about it makes my heart beat faster.

Rent is due in eight days, my credit card is maxed out, and mom’s medical bills keep increasing. I can’t even afford gas for my car. Then there’s the emergency loan I took out last winter because I was an idiot who thought one bad month would stay one bad month.

I tutor four students and work five days a week, sometimes six when I can pick up the extra hours, and somehow, I am getting further behind.