prologue
I shouldn't be here.
Not only should I not be here, but my bank account is going to hate me in the morning for this spur-of-the-moment indulgence.
I'm supposed to be across town interviewing at a strip club as a bartender, because the bills are piling up, and I'm still hitting a wall in the industry I spent my life training for. But I don't have it in me. Not tonight.
I can't stoop to serving a bunch of lecherous men stale beer in a dive bar with an attached stripper pole and a stage. I can't do it.
Even I have standards.
Plus, my bartending experience is limited to serving the frat boys on a Tuesday night in the little deli and bar joint down the road from the local college. They don't expect much, and there's only like ten of them that even come in.
Instead, I chanced across a flier in the coin-op laundromat today while I was cleaning my one good outfit for the interview, and made a split-second decision that I know will change the trajectory of my life forever.
As in, it's likely to make me homeless. But I need a night out. I need to breathe again.
And I can't do that in my shitty apartment, or the coin-op down the block, or in a dive joint on the wharf filled with men who don't understand the word no and stare at your tits while they leave shitty tips—or no tips at all.
So I'm here, at a high-end bar where the drinks are likely to cost me an arm and a leg, sitting on a stool at the bar with a sigh and a promise to myself to limit myself to one drink.
I'll have one drink and then I'll go home.
As I sit down, the woman next to me turns to watch my arrival, and I flash her a friendly smile, though it's just a mask. I don't feel very friendly, or happy, or charitable with emotion. I'm dead inside, thanks to that prick. Life is slowly circling the drain.
“What are you having?” she asks me as I raise my finger for the bartender, and I can't help but blink slowly and stare at her like she's lost her mind. "My treat.”
I can't believe my ears. “You’re buying me a drink? But you don’t know me.”
“Because I can.” She frowns. “It’s because I see something familiar in you.”
“Like you think we’ve met before?” I eye her with suspicion. I don't know this woman; I know that for certain. So either she's pulling my leg, or she's hitting on me. And I'm in the mood for neither. “I don’t know you, and no offense, but I don’t swing that way.”
“Oh, god, no, I don’t mean that!” She's laughing at my misconception, and I cringe inwardly.Way to go, Denali. You're not that hot.“I meant there’s something in your eyes that reminds me of me, a long time ago.”
“The world beat you down, too?”
She's not smiling anymore. "Once or twice, yeah. Life has a funny way of kicking you when you’re down.”
That's a sentiment I can understand. “Life’s been kicking me a lot lately. Think I might be bruised in places I didn’t even know I could bruise.”
“I’ve been there before, life being what it is and all.” She lifts her beer bottle and gestures at the one the bartender holds out for me. “Here’s to hoping things start looking up for you soon, yeah?”
“Thanks,” I mutter, taking the beer. It's fancier than I normally drink, but if I'm not paying, I might as well enjoy this drink, right? “Here’s to hoping things even out for me soon. I can only take so much more bad news.”
Eyes dancing with curiosity and sympathy turn on me. “Wanna talk about it?”
Staring down into the beer bottle in my hand, I scowl, because I don't, not really, but at the same time, I do. “Not much to say. A man I thought I could trust fucked me over, no surprise there. And when I did the right thing and turned him in, he made sure it was me who suffered.” My hair forms a curtain between me and the rest of the world. “Now I’ll be lucky if I ever find another job in the entertainment industry.”
“What do you do in entertainment?” She's perked up now, and I don't know what it matters to her, but I tell her anyway.
“I used to manage social media for an actor whose ego was the size of a small planet. But he doesn’t like to be told no. And if you dare to defy him, he’ll ruin you and make it look like it was all your fault in the process.” Boy, did he ever.
Men like him are a dime a dozen, but I was thankful I only had to work for one before I learned how to pick them out. Unfortunately, that was one too many.
“Some men abuse the power they let go to their heads.”
“Well, he wasn’t too bad to deal with until he tried to take what I didn’t wanna give."Like my virginity."All of a sudden, the nice guy act disappeared, and I found myself without a joband blacklisted in the industry.” I huff in aggravation, taking another sip of the quickly-warming beer.. “All because I didn’t wanna fuck him. Go figure.”
