The man behind me pushes me into the crowd.
“Hey, what are you—” I look into the face of Oscar, another one of the bouncers at the Grand. Shit.
“Blue won’t be happy you’re here,” he says, too low for me to hear. I have to read his lips. It’s easy because I already know what he’ll say. Of course Blue won’t be happy to see me. He’s never been happy to see me since five years ago. That much will never change.
We’re almost to a door at the side—the dressing rooms?—when I tear myself away from Oscar and look back. Blue is still onstage, but he isn’t looking at the crowd. He’s looking at me, his body terrifyingly still. For once our roles are reversed. He’s the one in the spotlight, and I’m just a girl looking on.
I wonder if he feels powerful now. I wonder if he feels safe.
I wonder if this is why he stepped into that ring tonight—to kick other men around in a way that’s socially sanctioned and almost legal.
A girl in a bikini top and short shorts wraps herself around him, and just like that the spell is broken. Oscar drags me into a room that turns out to have lockers and benches. There’s a couple making out in an open shower stall, but Oscar bangs on the lockers with his fist and they make a run for it, half-dressed.
“Stay here,” Oscar says grimly.
Then I’m standing alone in a room, waiting for a man. Just like every night of my goddamn life.
Chapter Six
There are no other exits.
I know because I check the entire locker room after Oscar leaves me here. I’m sure he’s standing guard at the only way out. There are three shower stalls with only bricks dividing them—no doors or curtains for privacy. The urinals are also out in the open, up against the wall. Lockers line the other two walls with benches made of scarred wood and dark metal.
The door slams open, and Blue strides into the room. A burst of sound follows him in the seconds before the door swings shut. I shrink back against the lockers before I can help it. That doesn’t stop him. It doesn’t even slow him down as he steps right into my space, just inches from my face, still breathing hard.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” His eyes are still wild from the fight, violence and victory mixed together.
I try not to flinch. “I wanted to…to talk to you about something.”
“How did you know I was fighting tonight?”
I’m not going to tell on Candy, even if he’ll figure it out as soon as he sees her here. Instead I bite my lip and try to remember the speech I was going to give him. “Congratulations?”
That wasn’t it.
He shakes his head. “No, Lola. This isn’t one of your little games. I’m not one of the men you can lead around by my dick. Not anymore.”
And then I do flinch, because the reminder of our past is too painful not to. “I’m not trying to lead you anywhere,” I whisper.
His lips curve into a cold smile. “No? You brought me here, didn’t you? Just you and me and the rest of the world locked out. You made that happen.”
Something pricks my eyes—tears. No no no. I can’t possibly cry in front of him. I don’t know why I’d cry at all. This is my life. I’m long past wishing for something different, aren’t I? I look down at the concrete floor so he won’t see me struggle.
Of course he doesn’t accept that. His fingers—sweaty and gloveless—lift my chin. “Why’d you come here, Lola?” His voice is suddenly lower and strangely seductive. Maybe that’s how fucked-up I’ve gotten, that cruelty turns me on. “What do you want?”
My fingers fumble as I pull the wallet from my back pocket. It’s still warm from my body as I hold it up. “This is yours. I stole it. I—I took it by accident.”
That wasn’t what I’d meant to say at all. I’d meant to explain the situation like it happened—that I’d woken up with the wallet in my bed. That I had no memory of it, but obviously there had been a mistake. I’d taken nothing from the wallet, no harm no foul.
Instead I’d stuttered like I was thirteen again, stealing everything I could slip into my pockets, confessing to my foster dad before he whipped me with his belt.
Blue takes the wallet from me, his expression speculative. It’s almost as if he’s never seen it before, even though I know it belongs to him. I rifled through his things, touched the stone-faced plastic image on his license. And he knows I invaded his privacy that way, just like I invaded his pocket when he brought me home.
He tosses the wallet onto a bench behind him, dismissing it. His hand lands on the locker beside me, blocking me in. His eyes meet mine. “You still steal.”
“No,” I say, but his wallet calls me a liar. Naturally he’d remember the worst thing about me. I’d helped him remember. “Not anymore. Not usually except…I must have been drunk or something.”