Looks like Arcane will be our competition, and I plan to blow them out of the water, if not just for the purpose of saying we beat Nash Montgomery at his own game.
The VIP area is set up decently, with each table given space away from the others and a couple of couches to offer more privacy, using the backs of the couches to act as a type of barrier alongside the fog machines running overhead.
The guys and I take our seats as our assigned bottle girls approach, three beautiful young women wearing matching navy blue lingerie sets and almost identical hairstyles; big, loose curls that fall over their shoulders.
Nash runs this place, and his other clubs, more at the end of illegally. In any other club, a bottle girl’s job is pretty self-explanatory: provide bottle service to clients spending the big bucks for a table, bring them drinks and kiss their ass all night while maintaining a perfect image of herself. Flirt if shewants to, to secure that tip money, but nothing explicit is expected of her.
In Nash Montgomery’s clubs, the bottle girls aren’t just bottle girls. They’re more or less working in an involuntary brothel. You take a job with him, you’re gonna be pimped out to the people at the tables upstairs, and you’ll be expected to act like you like it.
Let me be very clear – while I enjoy looking at these women, Eric Davis doesnotpay for pussy.
It doesn’t take the girls long to bring over the large bottles of various liquors that we ordered, and to my pleasant surprise, the shorter of the three brings over a chilled bottle of champagne, pops it, and gives me a grin.
I take the cue, leaning my head back and opening my mouth, and she delivers a generous pour of it, until I hold up a hand to stop her. She makes her way around the table to offer the other guys the same, and Colt is the only one who denies her – because he’s married and boring, now.
As the girls take their leave, I pull a cigar from the pocket of my leather jacket, clip the end of it and pop it into my mouth before holding up a lighter and starting a flame at the end. I have to give Nash some credit, as much as I don’t want to – this section is really well-placed. I can see everything that’s happening on the floor below us through the glass partition.
Leaning back against the couch, I scan the bodies on the lower level, watching as they gyrate and rub against each other, some of them close enough to fucking that it feels like I’m getting a free show, almost all of them too drunk to do it well. The guys are having a conversation around me, but all I hear is muddled nonsense while they speak.
“I’ll be right back,” I announce.
I smash the burning end of my cigar into the ashtray sitting on the table as I stand and straighten my suit.
“Where are you off to?” Emmett asks. “We were about to pour shots!”
But I don’t hear him. Not clearly, anyway. My eyes are locked on a head of dark, pin straight hair draped over beautiful tanned skin. I make my way down the glass, LED-lit stairs and climb over the retractable stanchions that keep everyone else out.
I don’t take my eyes off of that head as I shove through the crowd of bodies.
Normally, I would say things like, ‘excuse me,’ ‘pardon,’ or even ‘let me get past ya.’
Right now, the words coming out of my mouth are ‘move,’ ‘fuck off,’ and ‘out of my way.’
I could swear the crowd is tightening around me as I try to get through it, keeping my eyes on her as I push, shove, and slide my way through any gaps possible – making a few, if necessary.
“Noelle!” I shout over the crowd.
Of course, she can’t fucking hear me in here, between the conversation and the music, the bass of which is so loud I can feel it reverberating in my chest. I heave a few more people away from me, shouting for her again.
“Noelle!”
It feels like I walk a goddamn mile through this club before I finally get close enough to reach her. I grab onto her shoulder, maybe a little harder than I mean to, and pull her around to face me. My heart sinks when I’m met with brown eyes and a too-tall, confused-looking woman who is terrified to have been grabbed by a fucking stranger.
“Sorry, darlin’!” I shout to her. “Thought you were someone else!”
I pull out my wallet to hand her a couple of bills, jerking my head toward the bar to let her know it’s for her next round of drinks. My way of apologizing for grabbing her like that. I don’t wait for her to leave before turning and heading right back up those damn stairs to our table, where our lingerie-clad friends are pouring us another round of drinks.
I wrap my arm around the waist of the short one and pull her down with me as I plop back onto the couch, making her land on my lap with a loud giggle.
“What’s your name, darlin’?” I ask her.
“It’s Crystal,” she tells me.
“Well Crystal,” I pull my glass to my lips and take a long drink, “it looks like you’re mine for tonight.”
I can feel my friends’ judgmental stares – especially Colt’s - as I spend the next hour flirting with her, the two of us pouring drinks down each others’ throats. It was supposed to be a guys night out, but I honestly can’t remember a single guys night out that I haven’t left with a woman on my arm, so I’m not sure why they seem so surprised by this; especially when I’m not the only one here taking part.
Emmett and Logan find themselves a couple of girls on the lower level and invite them up to join us, and that’s around the time that Colt decides to call it a night and go back home. Being the only married one in our group, and the one who drinks the least, I’m a little surprised he even lasted this long.
