“What else would there be, Lola?” His lids are lowered, his mouth set in a flat line. The displeasure on his face makes it clear how dumb my idea about a date would have been.
“Nothing,” I say, feeling sullen and hurt even though I know he’s right. He never promised me anything. Actually he did promise me things. He promised to get me back. And that’s what he’s doing. The disappointment shouldn’t feel like acid on my wounds.
“Then get in the fucking chair.” He nods to the far end, where I guess I’m supposed to sit. And be served food? His expression turns hard. “And take that fucking top off. I want to look at your tits while I eat.”
*
He made lasagna and warm breadsticks. He pours me wine. It’s the most romantic thing anyone has done for me. And through it all, my bare breasts make it painfully clear that this is not a date. This is not because he likes me and wants to please me.
This is for him—either to fulfill some fantasy of his or simply to humiliate me.
Maybe to him, those are the same things.
“How do you know Mrs. Owens?” he asks.
My gaze snaps to him. I don’t like him asking about her. I don’t like him even knowing about her. She’s personal. Far more personal than my breasts, which men see all the time. Hell, he sees them all the time, even if it’s only part of his job. “How do you know her name?”
One large shoulder lifts in a half shrug. “Simple to find out.”
“So you were snooping.” I can’t help but make a face. Emotion is showing weakness, and he is my kryptonite. “If a guy at the club did that, you would kick them out.”
Amusement flickers across his face. “Guess that’s a benefit of being in charge.”
My eyes narrow. “Speaking of that, why did you decide to work at the Grand? You knew I was working there.”
“Had to do something after I left the army.” His expression hardens. “I imagine it’s for much the same reasons that you work there.”
I snort, looking at the crown molding and modern chandelier above us. He was obviously doing very well, not counting pennies to make the mortgage. Strippers made a lot but supporting even a small house and medical bills was expensive. “I doubt that.”
Something shifts in the room, and in him—an alertness that’s too subtle to see. Only feel. “She’s not your mother.”
Foster kids learn not to share much about their pasts with whatever new foster brother or sister is around. It makes you vulnerable to people who have their own issues and may very well lash out. Besides, you’ll most likely get shuffled around soon.
I was pretty much the same, except with him. I told him how my mother had died, the way she’d braided my hair and let me play at her makeup table. I told him how my father had been in a motorcycle gang and gotten himself thrown in prison. So when she killed herself, I entered the system. There was one important detail I hadn’t told him.
“My mother was a stripper.”
Shock reflects in his eyes for seconds, so swift I wonder if it was even real. For half a second it looked like he cared. I expect him to ask if that’s why I strip, even though the answer must be obvious. So maybe he’ll just mock me for it, a verbal version of humiliation to match the nakedness of my breasts. I’m flushing, my neck and chest pink from embarrassment of what I’ve already admitted.
It’s not much of a legacy she left me. It’s all I have.
Instead he prompts, “So Mrs. Owens?”
He’s like a dog with a bone. And well, I’m the bone. “One of my foster moms.”
That alertness again. “After?”
After he left, he means. After I sent him away. After I lied. “Before. I would have stayed there longer, but she was already old. I was the last foster she had. They removed me after her official diagnosis.”
“Kidney disease?”
My hands clench. He’s done more than a little snooping if he knows about that. “Dementia was the main problem. She’d forget to go to the store, forget to meet my caseworker.”
So they’d removed me from the home, but no one had thought to help her. It was a wonder she’d survived as long as she had before I’d turned eighteen and found her. Though the heat had been turned off and rats had made nests. I’d gotten the biggest paying job I could find—at the Grand—and moved in to help her ever since.
She may not have been very capable by the end, but she’d genuinely cared about me. Don’t let them get you down, she’d tell me when I came home with bruises on my arms and a split lip. They can never touch you on the inside.
She didn’t know I sought out boys like that, ones tough enough to protect me. Even if that protection was just a twisted form of ownership. A dog with a bone—like Blue.
“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice soft enough to be sincere. His eyes hard enough to make me shiver.
“She’s doing fine.” Despite what the doctors say. “She’s stronger than they think.”