I lift an eyebrow and pin the hand on my arm in my gaze.
She drops it.
“I’m asking you to come back.”
“I’ll pass.”
“Wait.” She reaches out again but then thinks better of it and steps back. “Look, it doesn’t matter what I think because the boss wants you, so you’re in. I was instructed to come get you, so please, it could be life and death if you don’t come back with me.”
“Dramatic much?”
“I’m not kidding.”
I narrow my eyes on her. “That doesn’t sound like it’s my problem.”
Okay, I don’t buy for a minute that her life depends on me bartending at that club, but even I don’t want someone to die for me.
I need the job. It’s not like I have any other offers banging down the door of my crappy motel room.
“Please,” she says, huffing out a breath as she pushes her hair over one shoulder. She actually looks a little frazzled.
I’m enjoying it too much.
“Fine, I’ll come back.”
She nods once and turns to walk back to the club, her head high, her hips swaying back and forth in that tight dress. She’s getting plenty of looks. One guy whistles.
She doesn’t even bat an eye.
Madam Loveland pushes through the door to Rapture, and Scarlett’s head comes up. She offers me a beaming smile.
“You’re back!”
“Hey,” I reply with a little wave. “I guess fat girls aren’t so bad after all.”
“I told you, you’re not fat. You’rehot,” Scarlett says with a wink.
Is she hitting on me?
Unlikely.
But I smile at her before following Loveland through the door I went through earlier. Rather than stopping at her office, she leads me to another room resembling a swanky locker room. It’s nothing like what you’d find at a gym. The lavish color theme follows inside, and there’s even a water feature, like something in a spa.
“Am I getting a massage?” I ask with a smirk. “This is … different.”
“You can stow your things in this locker,” Loveland says, opening a top locker for me. There’s a clean robe inside, I guess in case I want to take a shower later? That’s nice. “What you’re wearing isn’t our standard requirement for our bartenders, but it’ll do for tonight, I suppose.”
“I can wear jeans and a T-shirt from now on,” I assure her and watch as her face transforms into something horrific as if I just told her I’d play Christmas music in July.
“No.Absolutely not. Don’t you know anything about this place?”
“Actually, no. Because I went from being told I’m too fat to work here to being escorted to a locker. I’ve never even seen the bar.”
She sighs, closes her eyes, and pinches the bridge of her nose. “This is an elite sex club, Lisa.”
“Lulu,” I say, correcting her, and then feel the blood leave my face when her words sink in. “Wait. Asex club?”
I immediately have visions of a sea of bodies, gyrating and making noise, and bodily fluids, and I want none of it.
