When it came time for the final set, I was so tired I thought my knees might buckle before I made it to the stage. But you don’t get to be Waylon’s number one without learning how to fake it: how to move like your bones are made of champagne, how to arch your back just right so the crowd loses its mind, how to sell pleasure when all you want is oblivion.
I padded down the blue-lit hallway, mesh costume biting into my skin. Every heel-click echoed off the tile like a countdown to something. I reached the wings and stood waiting for my cue, listening to the DJ shout my stage name into the roar of a Friday night crowd. It was packed—wall to wall bodies, sweat, and noise, the stink of beer mixing with perfume and old lust. The air hit my bare arms like a slap.
“Showtime,” I whispered to myself, and stepped into the light.
The glare of the spotlights burned away the world for a second. Then the crowd snapped into focus: dozens of faces, most of them leering or hungry, all of them trained on the body I was about to turn inside out for their entertainment. I took myplace by the pole, smiled like my life depended on it, and let the music take over.
First twirl: slow and easy, hair flying, one leg hooked high to show off the mesh and the glitter. Money rained down almost immediately, dollar bills and twenties and even a couple of fifties, all of them just paper and sweat. The DJ had picked something sultry, bass-thumping, the kind of song you could get lost in if you didn’t care who was watching.
I cared. Because tonight, someone was.
Halfway through my first rotation, I caught it: a flash of blue-black, a familiar silhouette in the far back corner, just outside the reach of the strobe. My heart lurched, and for a second I lost the beat. Jess. He was here, and every nerve ending in my body snapped to full alert.
Don’t fuck this up, I told myself. You get one chance.
I locked my eyes to the mirror behind the bar, used it to scan the crowd while I danced. He hadn’t moved, but I could feel him watching—so intense it made the air crackle. He wore a black t-shirt and jeans, nothing flashy, but he stood out like a wolf among sheep: still, patient, dangerous. The men around him hollered and shouted, but he didn’t even twitch. He just watched, and it made my skin burn.
I went through the motions—spin, split, drop, arch—every move a reminder that my body wasn’t really mine. I let the routine take over. At the bridge; I pulled off the top with practiced grace, tossing it to the edge of the stage where it landed on a pile of money. At the breakdown, I bent at the waist, hands flat on the floor, ass to the crowd. The room lost its mind. A shower of bills hit my calves and thighs, sticking to the sweat there. I reached back, grabbed my own flesh, gave it a squeeze. I looked over my shoulder and caught Jess’s eyes, just for a heartbeat.
They glowed wolf-dark, full of something between anger and longing.
I wanted to run off the stage, wrap myself around him, beg him to take me away from all of this. Instead, I finished the set. On the last count, I did my signature move: a slow, teasing look over my bare shoulder, then a kiss blown to the darkness. The crowd howled, men pounding their drinks and girls throwing napkins and cash.
An usher ran to the stage, collecting all the cash.
I bolted for the wings, not daring to look back. My hands shook so hard I wrung them together to try to calm them. I took a detour through the service hallway, where Kenny the bouncer was waiting to walk me back to my room.
“You were on fire tonight, Harper,” he said, grinning his gap-toothed smile. “Waylon’s gonna be proud.”
I forced a smile back. “Thanks, Kenny.” He’d been nice to me, once, when I first started. I remembered how he used to bring me donuts during rehearsal, before Waylon got his hooks all the way in.
The usher moved around us and handed the cash to Kenny.
He walked me down the hall, money in hand, stopping only when we reached my dressing room.
“Darlene wants to see you,” he said, voice dropping. “She’s in the office. Probably about your take.”
“Okay,” I said, fighting the urge to collapse. “Just give me a minute.”
Kenny nodded and left. I closed the door and braced both hands on the vanity. My chest heaved, lungs fighting for air. I stared at the girl in the mirror and tried to remember how to feel anything other than terror and shame.
Jess was here. This time he’d seen everything. He’d watched me sell myself to a crowd of strangers, strip down to my skin and act like it didn’t matter. He got the entire show, saw what Iwas now—a whore in a pretty package, a wolf with her teeth filed down to nubs.
My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I pressed them to my face, breathed in the scent of sweat and stage makeup, and tried not to cry.
Someone knocked at the door. I straightened up, wiped my eyes, and put on my best “nothing to see here” face.
Darlene walked in, a stack of envelopes in her hand. She was one of the only humans who worked here, a fifty-something with hair dyed pink and a face like an old cartoon bird. She didn’t like me, but she kept it professional.
“You think if you ignored me I’d go away?” The scowl on her face made her even uglier. I just stared at her. “You’ve got a VIP tonight,” she said, not bothering to hide her disdain. “Big spender. Wants you in the champagne room at midnight. Don’t fuck it up.”
I nodded and gave her an emotionless answer. “Okay.”
She set an envelope on the table. “Waylon’s orders.”
“Is he back?”
Darlene snorted. “Not ‘til tomorrow. But he’ll know if you don’t deliver for the client.” She lingered a second, like she was waiting for me to break down or complain, then rolled her eyes and left.
