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“You comin’, boss?”
I looked up, only to find Van and Joss staring in at me. I wiped a hand across my face, then rose from my chair. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m comin’.”
Glancing at my phone one last time, I read Kelly’s message once more, memorizing every sentence, every word.
Then I put my phone face down on my desk and went to the other room.
20
KELLY
Sometimes I feel like I don’t belong here. Like I’m not good enough, or that I’m only good for one thing. Ever since Rhys… I never felt that before. I never felt that way with you…
I stared at the screen of my phone, skimming back over the dozens of messages I’d sent Lee. In the month since I’d started texting him, he’d never responded.
Somedays I wondered if I was a pathetic loser. I’d watch the screen for hours, waiting to see when he looked at it. I’d wait with my heart in my throat as I watched those three little dots jump along the bottom of the screen.
But he never once texted back.
Somedays, just knowing he was there on the other side was enough. Knowing he was reading my words. That I was finally able to open up.
This was better than therapy to me. Easier, too, since he wasn’t sitting in a chair across from me, silently judging my life. I only had to tell him what I wanted to, what I could manage to let go of. When Lee was taking care of me last year, he gave me everything. He gave me too much. Now, I could give him a piece of me. And though I wanted him to read them, to respond to me, to be a part of my life, I’d let go of expecting it.
I tapped out, I love you.
The door to the locker room busted open and Leni stormed in, her high heels clacking against the tile floor and her hands gripping big wads of cash. It’d taken time to get used to the way the girls would come barging into the room with their tits and asses hanging out, but I had gotten used to it. I’d gotten used to doing it myself.
“You're on in five.” Leni’s scowl was the same as usual, like I was worse than the streaks staining the walls of the men’s restroom.
“I know.”
She rolled her eyes as she stopped in front of her locker and spun the dial of the padlock. I turned back to my phone, rereading my message before deleting those last three words.
I was pretty sure it would be a mistake to tell him that. Pretty sure not getting a response to that would be more than I could take.
Today was bad enough. I didn’t need more pain laid on my shoulders. I honestly wasn’t sure I could take it.
Better to stay in that dream where he might still love me than risk putting my heart on the line.
Leni scoffed before slamming her locker, and I took that as my cue to get moving. I shoved my phone in my backpack, grabbed my red feather boa, and locked up.
Roscoe was waiting for me outside the locker room, and the slow slide of his gaze over my body had me itching to grab my knife. Even knowing he was mostly harmless, I didn’t want to be alone with him. I knew he’d keep me safe from the clientele, but I wasn’t sure he’d extend the rules to himself if given the right chance.
His top lip curled up, the scar that split it in two more noticeable in the dim overhead light. “You’re late.”
“I’m right on time.” Just then, my music started. I flashed Roscoe a smile, then strutted through the room to the back of the stage and climbed the three stairs, making my way past the curtain just as I zoned out.
I didn’t like to spend too much time thinking about what I was doing. Instead, I let go. I let the music guide me, let the feel of my boa against my skin guard me against the hungry gazes that devoured my every movement. The bar in the middle of the stage’s apron was mostly cool to the touch, but I could feel the warmth left behind by Leni’s body as she’d wound herself around it the way I’d been taught to.
Each movement I made freed me. Until I was tossing aside my boa and spinning around the bar, giving the tiny fabric that held my breasts in place a run for its money.
Until I took it off.
There was always a moment, when I dropped my bra to the stage during my set, that the cheers that shook the room dragged me out of my head. This time was no different. For one horrifying moment, I was present on that stage. I could see the faces of the men sitting in their chairs—their legs parted, their paper money grasped in their grubby hands—each of them eyeing me like they’d like a chance to fuck me.
It made my own hands itch. Made me want to kick and scream, to run away and never look back.
It made the anger that lived deep inside of me come bubbling to the surface.
