Better When It Hurts (Stripped 2)

She shakes her head. “For what? The crowd’s too fucked-up tonight. It’s not worth it.”

That’s a lie. It’s always worth the money to work a crowd that’s hot. Even if it’s a little dangerous. Fuck, this job is always dangerous. That’s why we show up night after night, because it’s worth it.

She’s staying for me, because she knows I don’t want to be alone right now. How does she know that? Why does she care? Even though I know we’re friends, it’s hard to trust that. It’s hard to believe in it.

“How’d you know to come find me there?”

I can’t read the look she gives me. “Blue.”

“Oh.” I shiver. “He handled the guy who messed with me. Can you give him a tip out from my stash?”

Tip outs are money paid to the bouncers and other staff members for helping us. Like if the DJ cuts you out of the lineup so you could work the floor longer or if a waitress brings extra drinks around to get a client spending. The client wouldn’t exactly tip the staff extra for their service—they especially wouldn’t tip a bouncer for throwing them out. So the girls say thank you with cold hard cash.

Curiosity fills Candy’s blue eyes. “You can’t do it yourself when you see him?”

“I don’t want to see him tonight.” Or ever, but that’s hoping for too much.

Hoping for anything is too damn much.

“Then don’t. Blue isn’t going to stop doing his fucking job because you didn’t pass him a twenty.” Her smile is sly. “In fact I don’t think he’s going to stop watching over you like a hawk no matter what you do.”

I shiver. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

The Grand doesn’t have mandatory tip outs per night. It’s optional. The owner, Ivan, is a scary fucking dude—but he’s fair. For that reason and many others I won’t strip at another club. Even so, we still sometimes tip the staff for going above and beyond, and I definitely want to pay Blue for what he did.

I don’t need to owe him anything more.

She shrugs, one slender shoulder rising and moving the pale pink silk ruffles of her bikini top. “Why are you so sure he hates you? From where I sit, it looks like he wants to fuck you.”

“What’s the difference?” Hating. Fucking. They’re the same thing. I swallow hard, forcing down my fear. And my desire. There isn’t much difference between those two either. “We have history.”

“Oh no, honey. You can’t tell me that and then just stop.”

I sigh. “It’s not a pretty story.”

“Those are the best kind.” She pats my feet, and I scoot them out of her way so she can curl onto the couch next to me. It feels good, having her close, feeling her body heat. Comforting.

I was never the girl with a bunch of friends in school. I got moved around too much for that, foster home to foster home, wearing clothes that didn’t match and didn’t fit. I learned early on that if a boy liked me—if the toughest, meanest boy in the school liked me—then no one else could touch me.

So I learned to make that boy like me however I could. Until Blue.

“He was in one of my homes. My foster homes.”

Candy says nothing, just strokes my ankle lightly, her gaze on the empty dressing room we can see from the sofa. Maybe she knows it’s easier to talk if she isn’t looking at me. I wonder what secrets she’d have to tell if I stopped looking at her.

My throat gets tight as I think about those first days when Blue showed up. I’d been scared of him. Turned on by him. Confused by him. And by the end, he’d made me the happiest I’d ever felt then or since.

“I got him in trouble,” I whisper.

“What, like you told on him?” Candy’s words are challenging, almost mocking, but her voice is soft—like she knows. She knows that whatever happened between us, it was more than pulling pranks and sibling rivalry. “Was he doing something bad and you told someone?”

“No, just the opposite,” I say, my voice thick. “He didn’t do anything wrong. But I said he did. That’s why he hates me. Because of me, because I lied, he got sent away. And one of these days, he’s going to pay me back.”

Chapter Three

I guess it’s an acquired taste because by the second glass of this stuff, I’m feeling really good. I’m almost floating; that’s how good it feels. Though maybe that’s because of whatever pill Candy gave me.

That stuff should just be…breakfast. I should have it every morning and go through the rest of my day like this, seeing beautiful things everywhere. Even the crack in the wallpaper in front of me looks beautiful. The corner of this sofa cushion with stuffing poking out looks beautiful.