My breath hitches in my throat, burning with the threat of bile rising.
I could havequit.
Nash tricked all of us.
This whole time, I could have been free.
For four years, I’ve...
“Even if that weren’t the case,” Eric joins in, his hand settling around my waist. He pulls me closer to him while he speaks, as if he can feel the thoughts racing through my mind. “We wouldn’t let anything happen to you. You could work when you wanted and focus on your cosmopoly stuff.”
“Cosmetology,” I correct him with a soft chuckle. “This is...Eric, I can’t just—”
“It’s all you know now,” Colt interjects. “But it doesn’t have to be. If you’re happy there, say the word and we can drop this discussion right now. From what I’m told, though, you’re not happy.” He scrolls through his phone some more, then hands it to me again. It’s another sheet of legal crap, but it looks at least a little bit different from the last one. “This is our employee contract for bottle service at Club Vision. No sex, you keep every dollar of the tips that you earn, and if anyone touches you in a way that you do not enthusiastically consent to, Davis has my full support in handling that however he deems necessary.”
“They’ll take care of you,” his wife tells me with an empathetic smile on her face. “No one deserves to be stuck in a place where they’re being hurt.”
I catch a glimpse of Colt’s hand dropping to his wife’s knee, giving it a gentle squeeze. Is that how she wound up using a cane? God…
“I’m prepared to offer you a twenty thousand dollar sign on bonus,” Colt offers, and my heart shoots up into my throat, “as well as full access to our legal team at no cost to you, so that they can look over any documents for you before you sign them.”
I look to Eric, who flashes me a smile and a supportive nod. He knew this was on the table. He’s been planning this with his friend. This isn’t just a job opportunity they’re offering me – it’s freedom. It’s the ability to take back ownership of my own skin and sayno.
“Can that offer extend to some of my friends?”
I shouldn’t push it.
That was a mistake.
“Not a problem, Sugar,” Eric tells me, without even a breath of hesitation. “Bring them in.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that,” his friend says.
“I’ll tell them tomorrow, then.”
•
The city is surprisingly quiet as I walk with Rowan down the sidewalk; a little bit slower than I’m used to, but she seems to struggle a little trying to keep up with my normal pace. I follow her lead until we round the corner into a massive salon, and I let out a laugh.
“Is he serious?”
“Deadly,” Rowan answers me, pulling her phone from her purse to show me a text message from Eric.
Davis:Tell her to get something Sophia colored. Anything other than that blonde shit she obviously hates.
I cackle, putting a hand over my mouth.
“We have his credit card,” Rowan adds with a shrug, “so get whatever you feel like, and pile on the treatments.”
“Think he’d like it if I showed up with neon rainbow hair?”
“I mean, it wouldn’t be blonde,” she laughs.
When we make our way to the receptionist’s desk, Rowan tells the person working that we have an appointment under ‘Davis.’ He must have been up for hours, between making this appointment and planning all of this shit with his friend. I don’t think he even had time to sleep.
We’re first taken to a set of massage chairs to get pedicures; I didn’t even know that he knew what a pedicure was. Actually, he still might not. There’s the entirely-possible chance that he saw the word ‘pedicure’, thought it sounded fancy, and told the salon that we wanted to get them done.
