“Is that Aiden?” Mam asked.
“Yeah.” My heart squeezed painfully as I watched the images start to play through. He stared toward the stage while he spoke with Bootneck, but I couldn’t hear the words; there was no sound, just a video taken from strategically placed security cameras that had obviously been wired into the light fittings and up in the corners of the room.
Candy appeared on camera, her hips swaying, and stopped in front of the guys.
My lip curled. “That’s the stripper.”
Mam sniffed haughtily.
After a quick conversation, the guys got up from their stools, and I looked on, my throat burning painfully as Candy burrowed herself under Pagan’s arm.
“Feckin’ slags,” Mam muttered. “Both of them.”
The guys walked off with Candy, who seemed very happy with herself.
I couldn’t believe her audacity, especially since I’d been speaking to her earlier in the night and actually thought she was a nice girl. She knew I was with Pagan, but it still didn’t take her long to slide under his arm as soon as he crooked his finger at her.
He was the one cheating, not her, and he’d get the brunt of my anger, but she knew all about me and still didn’t hesitate to stab me in the back. I’d always given the club girls and the strippers the benefit of the doubt—well, except Saskia—but Candy had proven it was a mistake on my part. I loved Zara and Roxie, and that wouldn’t change, but I wouldn’t be so naïve again.
Not that it mattered now, though; Pagan could be with whoever he wanted.
“Is that you?” Mam asked.
I refocused on the video, my heart starting to race as I looked down at my own shocked expression, my arm reaching out to grab hold of the bar. The sick feeling from the night before washed through me, and I swallowed the bile rising in my throat.
“Yeah,” I breathed, watching closely as Roxie appeared at my side. After a couple of minutes, we walked away, the cameras tracking us as we left the club.
My forehead furrowed. “I don’t understand why he sent me this. Is he trying to rub my face in what he did?”
“I’m confused, too, love,” Mam agreed, her eyes glued to the phone. “But he must have a reason for...” Her voice trailed off, and she said, “Look.”
My eyes lowered back to the screen, and I froze as Pagan came back into view, but that time, alone. He leaned against the bar, checking his phone for a few minutes before pocketing it and ordering another beer.
My throat went dry.
“Well, there you go,” Mam said, her voice matter-of-fact.
My eyes darted up to meet hers, and I rubbed my suddenly clammy palms on the legs of my jeans.
Mam took one of my hands and patted it lovingly. “He didn’t do the nasty with a stripper, love.”
“He was going to,” I protested.
Her eyes softened, and her mouth lost the hard, judgmental twist that had tightened it since I told her what (I thought) had happened. “Sometimes it’s the things you don’t do that count for more. Now, I’m not saying it was right, and I’m not saying he wasn’t a fecking eejit, but he obviously had some kind of epiphany and came right in the end.”
My insides burned because this was so typical of me. I saw Pagan with another woman and didn’t wait around to get the full story. Instead, I’d let myself spiral and put myself through a night of tears and heartbreak for nothing.
Was he wrong to go off with her?
By my standards, he was, yes, but by his standards, it was murky.
Roxie had explained the night before how the Kings didn’t see themselves as committed until they actually committed, so Pagan going off and then changing his mind was probably not that deep, at least to him.
I still didn’t like it; he touched her, and she kissed him, but seeing that video showed me that she moved in on him and he’d pulled away, and I had to admit, I’d done worse with Kieran. Now I knew how he must have felt walking into the bar and seeing me all over another guy, and he stayed around to hash it out with me.
I couldn’t say the same.
There was a big ol’ murky grey area to this because he did go off with her, so I had to ask myself, was the intention there? Or should I just remember that even though he may have initially screwed up, he didn’t actually go through with it?
