I skipped over to him and kissed his cheek. “Thanks for making me look trashy, I appreciate it. You’re a good friend.”
He laughed and Poison tapped me on the shoulder, handing me an overcoat. “What about me? I’m the one who provided the trashy clothes. Without me, you’re nothing!”
I shrugged on the coat, buttoning it up and shoving a small notepad and pencil into the pocket before I kissed her cheek. “You’re a good friend too. Aren’t you going to wear a coat?”
“I don’t need one. You need one so that those guys will actually let us out of the house.”
“Good point.”
“We can hear you still,” Noah grumbled, his voice muffled.
“On that note.” Clarin yanked open the door, motioning us out. “Let’s go!”
“We wanna see the guy in charge,” Poison drawled, a piece of gum clenched between her teeth. I had no idea where she’d gotten it from.
I was seeing her in a whole new light, all of a sudden. She wasn’t simply insane; she went beyond insanity because her personality was too large to properly fit inside of her person. She was a Hollywood starlet moonlighting as a college kid. Clarin was several paces behind us with Cabe, and even he was playing a part. He had changed into baggy jeans and a collared shirt, his hair gelled back and his tattoos on glaring display. He and Cabe were talking quietly while Cabe multitasked on his phone. I doubted that the security guards would even check their IDs—they were acting so nonchalant, and both of them looked older than they really were. Not that it would matter; they had proper fake IDs, along with Poison. I was the only one without a history of sneaking into clubs.
Poison propped her hip against the side of the building as the security guard looked her over. He seemed to be completely enamored with her. Or at least, he seemed to be completely enamored with the precarious way her top clung to her chest, threatening to reveal everything at the slightest shift in movement. I knew that it was an illusion because she had tackled me on our way out the door as I attempted to sneakily switch my heels for a pair of flats. Her top had magical properties, because it hadn’t so much as slipped an inch.
“Oh yeah?” Security Guy asked, his eyes still focussed too far south. “What for? You lookin’ for a job, sweetheart?”
“Matter of fact I am,” Poison confirmed with a smirk. “So is she.” She jerked her thumb at me and Security Guy switched his attention from her chest to mine.
“Come with me,” he grunted, and I couldn’t help but smirk at his disappointed expression.
My coat hadn’t presented anything worth staring at, since it was still buttoned to my chin. I didn’t plan on taking it off until it proved necessary, and since Poison was Poison… I figured it wouldn’t be necessary until people got bored of staring at her, which probably wouldn’t happen for a while. We followed Security Guy inside, carefully weaving our way through the lingering crowd in the front section of the club. It was mostly populated by sparse groups of men, with a female laugh to be heard only in the distance, though I didn’t see any actual women.
“These are the people too drunk to be allowed inside,” Clarin whispered to me, leaning over the back of my head.
Cabe immediately yanked him away, hovering protectively behind me. It was an uncharacteristically aggressive move for Cabe, and I suspected that the atmosphere was already putting him on edge. Noah and Quillan had made a wise choice to stay out of our way for the night. We descended a staircase at the back of the bar area, where another two guards stood watching the rest of the room, and then suddenly I was standing in a strip club. I stopped walking immediately, my body locking up in unwanted tension, memories of my past life gripping me with determination, demanding their due recognition.
“I’m looking for a man.” The voice of my thirteen-year-old self echoed inside my head, and the topless waitress right in front of me faded away to make room for a face far more grizzly.
The security guard stared down at me, blinking several times as though I were an illusion. “What the hell are you doing here, kid?”
“Looking for a man,” I repeated. “His name is Gerald.”
“Is Gerald your daddy or your boyfriend?” the guard asked.
The other guard clutched his stomach and laughed loudly. “Ha!” He patted his stomach again and then set his shoulders back. “Well? The man your daddy or not?”
“Yes. Is he here?”
“Lots of daddies in there,” the first guard replied, causing the second one to laugh again.
“He’s tall and he has a belly like this,” I said, indicating the slight curve of a stomach in front of me. “Black hair. Last I saw, he had a black eye, too.”
“Last you saw?”
“Yeah.” I scuffed my sneaker against the ground, rolling the sole against the butt of a cigarette. “I threw a book at him.”
I wasn’t sure why I told them that detail… maybe I wanted them to take me seriously. They only laughed again.