“Ah!” he growls.
Fuck.
Holding the baton in one hand and his hair in the other, I bring his head down hard on my knee for good measure, a sharp pain spreading through my leg.
I hate this part.
I squeeze his hair in my fist, holding his face up as I get close. “They don’t send me to handle you,” I tell him. “They send me to handle everyone.”
He wanted to close the door, and it wasn’t for a single good reason. I grew up being underestimated, because I’m not a man, and sometimes it worked, but it doesn’t anymore.
“Get the money.” I throw him off.
He lands on all fours, sitting there.
“I mean now!” I yell, kicking him.
He scrambles over to his desk, pulls himself up and digs in a drawer, taking out his container of petty cash. He opens it, but I grab everything, not even counting it.
“Fuck you, Aro!” he gasps.
But I take the baton and swipe it across his desk, knocking over his lamp and other shit. I crumple the bills in my fist and hold it up. “Don’t make me come down to this shithole again for this. Send Angel with it to the garage. You know the drill.”
But he always flakes on delivering it, because he’s hoping Hugo will just forget.
I stalk out, refusing to turn around but feeling the threat there like I did at all the other places tonight. Every step takes me closer to away.
I pass the girls onstage, stopping at Silver and stuff a few bills in her hand. “Share it, okay?” I whisper in her ear.
She gapes at the hundreds, a well-deserved bonus for the pennies he pays them, and nods. “Thanks. Are you okay?”
She must see I’m upset.
But I nod. “I’m fine.”
I keep walking, trusting her to share it with the others. She knows I’ll hear about it if she doesn’t.
I slip behind the curtain, entering the back room, and seeing some counting their cash, while others talk, text, and primp.
I see Violet Leon and come up behind her. She smiles and turns in her seat. “Aro.”
I bend down, kissing her cheek and feeling her mouth press against my face. Probably leaving a huge purple lipstick print.
I pass her a little cash. “Get him those dirt bike lessons for his birthday,” I tell her quietly.
Her son is nine. I’ve babysat him here and there over the years, like she did me when I was growing up. At forty-eight, she thought she was done raising kids, but her little surprise package is more work than his three older siblings.
But he’s a good kid. And he’s dying to take classes at JT Racing.
She gapes at the money. “Are you serious?”
I stuff the rest of the cash in my pocket.
“Aro, I can’t…” She shakes her head.
But I stand up again. “You better.”
It will make Luis’s year, and everyone has it hard enough. Let him have some fun.
She smiles, tears filling her eyes, but that’s about all I can take. Spinning around, I walk toward the back door, pushing it open.
But for a moment, I hesitate and look back over my shoulder to the two kids playing on the floor. Blocks surround them as their mom probably takes the stage, and I look outside to the motel across the lot. Cora Craig comes out of a room followed by a trucker who makes his way for his rig. She heads toward the club, fixing her clothes and with money in her fist.
I look away as she brushes past and then watch her rub her daughter’s head as she passes by.
And all of a sudden, I’m five again, except it wasn’t blocks. It was crayons and a mermaid coloring book.
I open my mouth, feeling the bile rise up my throat. I dash outside, letting the steel door slam behind me as I lean back on a stack of pallets. I drop the club and bow my head as I inhale and exhale.
My body shakes, and I can’t draw in a breath without feeling the sob crawling up my throat. Tears fill my eyes.
I hate her. I hate this.
I hate everything I see.
I turn around and fall into the wall, sweat dampening my body, and I close my eyes, trying to let the nausea pass.
But instead, I open my eyes and look up.
The night sky, black and wide, spreads with stars above, and I see Mars, the brightest object tonight. I like Mars. More than all the planets, because it has the most possibilities. People will go there someday. Maybe someone who’s my age now, and I’ll see it online.
I breathe in and out, imagining the sky looking back at me and wanting to be something worth seeing.
My blood cools a little, my shoulders square, and I stand up again, calm.
It always helps—looking up. There’s only possibility. The view is never worse.