I followed him, practically chasing him down the hall, struggling to keep up with him in my high heels.
“Hey,” I said as we passed by the door where I’d seen that girl crying. “What was the deal with that girl?”
“What girl?” Colt asked.
“The girl who was crying in there.”
He stopped dead in his tracks and looked at me. “What are you talking about?”
“There was this girl in there.” I gestured to the room. “She had a big welt on her face, and her hair was chopped off. She was crying.”
Colt’s face darkened, his jaw twitching. And then he laughed. “Nice,” he said. “You had me going there for minute.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you almost had me believing you.”
“It’s true,” I said. “I saw her. She was crying and there was a man comforting her. She looked like she’d been beaten up.”
Colt stared at me for a long moment and then finally he said, “I don’t know anything about that. And this is my club. If something like that had happened, I would know about it. I’m not sure what you think you saw, but I’d be careful about spreading rumors.”
“Are you saying I’m lying?”
“I’m saying it didn’t happen.”
“So you think I’m making it up.” But even as I was saying the words, I didn’t get the sense that he thought I was lying at all. I had the feeling he knew I was telling the truth, and yet he didn’t want to admit it for some reason. Was that what he was fighting with Mick about?
“I think maybe you’re confused about what you saw,” Colt said.
I started to protest, but something told me to keep my mouth shut. Part of it was that I didn’t want to piss him off. But part of it was something else, something I’d learned over the years. If someone was acting like they didn’t want to talk about something, there was a reason. And if you pushed them to talk about it, you became the enemy. The person began to blame you for whatever horrible thing they were avoiding, just because you wouldn’t shut up abut it.
So I stayed quiet as I followed Colt through a door and into a huge open room. The walls were painted a dark red, and the perimeter was lined with mirrors and vanities. The carpet was a black and white zebra print, and two huge wardrobes stood at the far end.
“This is the dressing room,” he said. “It’s where you’ll get ready.”
I nodded, and kept following him as he moved into another hallway that led out into the main part of the club, the part I’d been in earlier when I came in for my audition.
Jessa was behind the bar, drying glasses, and she looked up when she saw us.
“Oh, good,” she said, giving Colt a huge smile. “You’re here.” She didn’t even acknowledge my presence.
“I’m here,” Colt said. He motioned for me to sit down at the bar and so I did. There was a picture hanging on the wall in a black wooden frame, of a man and a woman. They were sitting at the bar in Loose Cannons, but the bar looked shiny and new, not like it looked now, with the wood scratched up and the paint fading.
“Who’s that?” I asked Colt.
His jaw twitched. “My dad.” His voice was low, gravelly, almost threatening.
“And that’s your mom?” I asked.
He ignored me, instead walking behind the bar and over to where Jessa had pulled out an iPad, with what looked like an excel spreadsheet open on the screen. When he got to her, she wrapped her arms around his waist and slid her body against his. “I missed you,” she said, kissing him on his neck.
My cheeks went warm and I averted my gaze.
So that was why Jessa hated me so much. She was Colt’s girlfriend. Well, she didn’t have to worry about me being any kind of threat. I wasn’t interested in Colt, and even if I was, there was no way I was any competition. Jessa was beautiful – long blonde hair, icy blue eyes, her body tan and taut under the leather vest she was wearing. I wondered why she didn’t have to wear the outfit I was wearing. But maybe Colt wanted to keep her more covered up since she was his girlfriend, didn’t like the thought of all those skeezy guys staring at her.
I felt an irrational flash of annoyance and something else (jealousy?) move through my body. But it was silly to be jealous. Of what? The fact that Colt had a girlfriend? I’d just met him.
And just because he’d seemed to like looking at me in my tight little outfit didn’t mean anything. What man didn’t like looking at a girl in a tight outfit?
What about back in his bathroom? When he said he would help you forget? Had he just been messing with me, like when he almost kissed me back in the office? I swallowed my disappointment and grabbed a bottle of water that was sitting on the bar and took a sip.