That explains a few things.
My memory is fuzzier after that. Did we hang out at the club until closing? How did I get home? I hope I didn’t do anything too embarrassing. Especially if Blue was there. I didn’t even want to think of how I looked when he walked in on me in the VIP room, clothes twisted, body held down. No hint of the confident vixen persona I used onstage.
“Don’t think about that,” I mutter.
I keep my eyes closed as I sit up, partly from lingering embarrassment and partly because I’m worried I might throw up. I make my way to the bathroom by feeling along the wall. The room is small and familiar. I’ve only lived here a few years, but it’s the longest I’ve lived anywhere.
I leave the door open and shower in the dark, with only the faint light from the room itself to light the way. After standing under hot spray for ten minutes, I feel almost human again.
By the time I leave the bathroom with a towel wrapped around my body, I’m fully awake. There’s still a lingering headache, but I’m guessing that will stick with me all day.
At least I don’t have to work tonight.
I freeze at the sight of something small and square and black on my bed. I don’t recognize it, but it was clearly in bed with me while I was sleeping. I inch closer, my heart in my throat because I can already tell what it is.
A wallet.
I just don’t know who it belongs to. Or where I stole it. Or how. But why…oh, I know why I stole it. Because I’m a thief. Some of my earliest memories are of hiding in the closet holding a tube of my mom’s lipstick while she tore the place apart looking for me.
Who was I kidding? She was looking for the lipstick, not me.
The habit had continued even when she’d died. Stealing shit from other kids was a great way to get beat up in a group home, and it was only by latching myself on to the biggest, baddest boy I could find—by giving him my body so I’d have his protection—that I survived. I don’t even mean to steal. In fact, I despise doing it. But I don’t always realize it until after the fact, when I’m left all alone, holding something that doesn’t belong to me.
I clutch the towel like it’s a goddamn lifeline and stare at the wallet. I wish I could throw it under the bed and pretend I’d never seen it. Instead I force myself to sit though I’m still two feet away from the small square of soft-looking leather. It’s so intimate, a wallet. Money, identity. So intimate that people wear it on their body. And that’s what I stole.
My stomach lurches, and this time I can’t hold it in. I run for the bathroom again and barely manage to grasp the edge of the bowl before hurling inside. The towel falls down around my knees, and I’m naked, chest heaving, stomach clenching, staring into a swirl of stale liquor and my own acid.
My legs are shaky as I stand up and brush my teeth. It’s not a great start to my day—and it’s only going to get worse. Because I’ll have to find whoever that wallet belongs to and return it. There was a time I wouldn’t have done that. I would have actually used the cash and then tossed it. Or later, when I started to hate what I’d done, I would drop them in the same place I’d stolen them, hoping some good Samaritan would call the person up to come get it.
God, it had been so long since I’d stolen anything. Six months. I’d hoped it was over.
I couldn’t put it off any longer.
I approached the wallet like it was a snake—and it was, coiled to attack, teeth filled with venom. I knew exactly what had driven me to steal last night. I’d been so freaked out by that customer. And then Blue…
He’s wearing me down without even touching me. Without even hurting me.
Just knowing he’s there, biding his time, makes me clench.
I slide my forefinger into the fold and flip the wallet open. And there, staring up at me, is Blue. My heart pounds. He isn’t smiling. It looked more like a military ID than a driver’s license—he was intense, intimidating. Threatening.
Without meaning to, I take a step back. Away from the thing I stole. Away from him.
This is so much worse than I’d expected. If it had been some random guy on the street, I’d have to worry about how to find him. If it had been a customer at the club, I’d have to worry about whether Ivan would find out. But Blue? He was the worst of all. I knew exactly where to find him, and I suspected he wouldn’t tell Ivan.
No, he wouldn’t want Ivan to know. Blue would rather punish me personally.
I’m already in enough trouble. Really I shouldn’t make this worse. But curiosity drags me back to the bed, back to the clues about a man I’d once loved, about a boy all grown up.
He has a couple hundred in cash. I never see him spend money at the club, not on drinks or on girls. Even though the bouncers are pretty good guys, they’ll take an opportunity for some fun when it happens. Not Blue.
I wonder what he does spend his money on.