Page 10

Mindy

“What do you think of these for the bachelorette?” Dahlia holds up a magazine.

“They look amazing.” I try to hold back a yawn. It’s been a long few weeks. My bank account loves it. My body not so much.

Get into the game. Your friend is excited about her upcoming wedding. “How are you blending the guys and the girls together?”

She shrugs. “Maverick just wants to stay with me the whole time. I’m thinking we just do dinner and a theatre show on Saturday evening. But all of that doesn’t sound exciting. What would you do?”

Me? How would I know? I’ve only ever thought about marriage in a theoretical sense. “Um. I don’t know. Probably something silly, like a bar crawl with funny dares.”

Dahlia’s eyes light up. “That sounds like fun. It would kill Maverick’s brain.”

More like he’d kill someone for looking at his wife.

“Hey.” Adonis walks up.

And my mind turns to mush. Beautiful. He’s truly beautiful. It’s got to be a boss thing messing with my mind because Maddox makes me feel giddy inside. The knowledge that these men are completely off-limits makes them sexy.

“Are you two coming to dinner tonight?”

No. But I dream of going occasionally. Then I realized that I’d make a fool of myself and go dancing instead. “Sorry, Dahlia and I have plans.” Well, more like Dahlia, Maverick, and I have plans. But who cares about being the third wheel when I get free access to Maverick’s club? I’ll dance, drink, and forget all my problems for a little while.

At least until I have to go to work tonight.

But now isn’t the time to worry about work. There’ll be enough of that later while I’m trying to stay awake on the cab ride back to my apartment.

***

Time for fun!!! I log out of the call system and grab my bag.

“Mindy, can I talk to you for a moment?” Adonis approaches my desk like he was waiting for me.

Am I in trouble? There’s nothing that comes to mind in the last few weeks. I haven’t been late once, even though pulling myself out of bed hasn’t been easy. “Sure.”

He closes the door to his office as soon as we’re inside. “I’m concerned about Dahlia.”

Huh? Dahlia? She’s literally beaming with joy. “Why?”

“After that stalker caused her to have a breakdown, she’s been pulling away. Not doing anything with people at work.”

That was hard on her. Adonis is such a wonderful boss.

“I’d like for you to encourage her to start doing more work events. She needs to be able to rely on us for her mental health.”

Is she masking pain that I’m not noticing? A therapist would have a field day with me right now.

“Can I rely on you to help?”

Before or after, I melt inside at your thoughtfulness. “Of course.” It’s definitely the untouchable kind boss thing that gets me every time.

***

“How do I look?” Dahlia asks for the nine hundredth time. “Maybe I should change.”

If she changes, I’m going to have no time at the club before I have to leave for work. As it is, it took an hour to get her into the limo. “You look amazing.”

“I’m not showing too much?”

Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. She’s literally showing a quarter inch of cleavage and three inches of her thigh. I have shorts that show more skin. That reminds me, I should bring them on my beach trip. “You look amazing.”

“How are you so confident?”

Me confident? I’m standing next to a woman wearing a thousand-dollar dress—it seems Vex talked her out of the thrift store mini-skirt and into something designer—in a ten-year-old thrifted sparkly outfit with shoes that I fixed with nail polish yet again. “The truth is, most people don’t care what you’re wearing. They care how you wear it.” Mom taught me that years ago, and it’s never failed me. “Stand up straight. Hold your head high. Remember, they’re people too with all their own flaws. No one cares about yours unless they’re jealous of you.” I can almost hear Mom saying that with her cigarette hanging from her fingertips, covered in scarlet lipstick. People always looked at her. And it was never to complain about the quality of her outfit.

“And what about them staring for other reasons?” Her voice takes on a quiet fear.

If you’re me, you remember to kick them where it hurts—also a skill I learned from Mom—and yell. “That’s what you have Maverick for.”

And Dahlia’s back to grinning. “When did you go to your first club?”

When I was eight. But no one wants to hear the truth. “I’d sneak in as a teenager with my fake ID.” Though no one checked for that where I went. They all knew me. There weren’t a whole lot of clubs by my boarding school. Hanging out with the rich kids had some benefits.

Dahlia’s eyes go wide. “I wish we were friends back then.”

Do I wish the same? My friends from school are pretty amazing. But it never hurts to have another friend. “Me too.”

“We’re here.” Dahlia dances in her seat as we approach the rope where Vex waits.

Is it possible that he looks angrier than ever? That man terrifies me, and she’s smiling like we’re approaching a puddle of cuddly puppies.

I just can’t.

***

An hour ago, I was dancing and drinking some of the best drinks of my life. Now I’m cleaning up after snakes. The world is weird right now. Mom’s last boyfriend would say something about cognitive dissonance. I’m just going to go with weird. “You understand weird, don’t you, Hot Dog?”

She’s sliding across my shoulders as we wait for her neighbor Sweetie to finish soaking.

All I get is a tongue flick for a response.

Not that I need someone to talk to at one in the morning when I’m slightly buzzed, but not even close to tipsy. Watching two people in love is as sickening as it is sweet.

They have me completely convinced there is such a thing as love. How can there not be when a man like Vex dotes on a woman? He stayed by her side every moment of the evening, catering to her every need.

Men like that aren’t real. At least not for long.

“You’re here awfully late.” Canyon walks in.

“I could say the same for you.” Slowly, so as not to jostle Hot Dog, I stand up.

“Night shift security is my excuse. What’s yours?”

Um. “This is my job.”

Canyon leans against a shelf. “I’m pretty sure Maddox didn’t require you to come in at one in the morning to work.”

“Where’s the flirty Canyon?” This is why I prefer talking to snakes than to people.

“Oh, I’m still flirty. I’m just a bit confused by the eye makeup, slight smell of smoke, and liquor.”

Smoke? Maverick’s club is nonsmoking.

Why do I—Pyrotechnics. They shoot off small effects during the show. It’s none of Canyon’s business where I was. “You seem to be very confused. Almost as confusing as the tan you now have. Did you go on a beach vacation?”

He tips his head to the side. “Something like that.”

“You really should invest in sunscreen. Cancer doesn’t look good on anyone.”

Canyon chuckles as the timer goes off.

Hot Dog needs to go back into her cage so I can take Sweetie out. That’s the hard part of the job, putting away my little friends.

“You aren’t going to answer me, are you?” Canyon stays where he is watching.

“Nope.” Would I even answer Maddox? Probably not.

Hot Dog slides into her nice, clean cage.

I lift the lid off of the soaking bucket, and Sweetie’s head pops out. He’s a bright orange corn snake with a good disposition, but his shed hasn’t finished coming off, so he’s flying blind and a bit grumpy.

“Don’t you try to bite me, mister.”

“Do you always talk to my snakes like that?”

Maddox! I spin around to find him standing at the doorway in the back of the room. The one I thought was a supply closet of some sort. “Um. Mostly.”

What happened to my nice, peaceful night?

“Why are you here so late?”

Do all the men around here ask the same question? My eyes move to where Canyon was standing to find him gone.

Strange man and his disappearing act. “You said I could set my own schedule.”

“I did. But this is a bit late.”

“Am I not allowed to work this late?” The edge in my voice is probably hard to miss. One of the bad things or good things about me drinking is the lack of caring about what people think that comes along with it. Maybe I shouldn’t have had that fourth drink.

Maddox stares at me silently for a moment. “You’re allowed to work when you want.”

“Then I better get back to it.” I give him an eyebrow raise and wait for him to leave me in peace.

“You look tired.”

It’s one in the morning, of course, I look tired. It’s not like I work the night shift. Between dancing and walking the dogs, I’ve probably logged twenty miles today and been up since stupid o’clock. I’m tired, buzzed, and now a little grumpy. “And?” It’s not like you’re sleeping in that fancy suit.

Does no one sleep around here?

“Continue then.”

Like I wasn’t already planning on it.

Maddox turns and leaves the room. Maybe he’ll turn out to be grumpy and I won’t have a huge crush on him. Next time, I need to get an ugly boss inside and out.

“Life isn’t easy is it, Sweetie?”

The grumpy snake tries to get away as I remove his shed.