Dance For Me (30 page)

              Dominic nodded but didn’t give a shit. When Drew reached out his hand Dominic reluctantly shook it.

               “Dominic.”

               “Oooh, tight grip. What do you do Dominic?”

             “What does that have to do with anything?”

            Dominic hadn’t seen this new club before. It was completely dark when they walked in the tinted glass doors. He followed Drew through another set of doors. The room was blaring with darkened green, yellow and blue lights. Dominic’s eyes grazed every surface. This was an actual nightclub, not a lounge. Drew walked Dominic to the bar and ordered Dominic a drink while Dominic looked past crowds of people, trying to recognize her face.

          Drew handed Dominic a bottle of beer and again asked what his occupation was. He went on to offer Dominic a position at the club, explaining they could use a guy of his stature to man the doors. Drew made it sound good and the supposed pay made Dominic think twice. But then he saw her all haloed out, glowing white like snow. She was wearing a white A-line wig and thickened lashes with pale lips. He left the beer and Drew at the bar and slowly walked closer to Hope, but kept a safe distance from the crowds. He watched her for a while and when he couldn’t anymore, he curled his hands into fists again. 

            He was drained of everything but the adrenaline his heart pumped out by the second. Sound was drowned out by the thumping of his heart.

           Hope was about to walk up on the platform when someone stopped her. She turned around and saw Michael standing there with a smile. He asked her to hang out with him and friends in the VIP longue. She looked him up and down. She was head over heels for this guy at one time and now, she couldn’t understand why. He wasn’t looking like he used to. She declined. He grabbed her wrist gently and told her she looked “amazing”.  She figured her was on to the fact she moved on. Again she declined.

 Hammer was watching from a few feet away and it burned him to see Hope acting the way she was. She was a feisty one and it was time he put her in her place. Hammer stormed up the steps after Hope. She backed away from Hammer who didn’t care they were on the platform. He grabbed her again and started shouting in her face.

           Before anyone knew what was happening a large fist went smack into Hammer’s face. Dominic hit Hammer so hard, he actually saw the back of Hammer’s head. Hammer turned his head back round to face Dominic, his nose gushing with shiny red liquid. Hope didn’t know how to react. Michael was speechless too, hand over his mouth. Dominic grabbed Hope’s hand and dragged her through the noisy crowd. The place was so wild only the people up front saw what happened. Big Mike and Tony were on their tail so rather than stop to take the elevator, Dominic ran down corridors, Hope at his heels. They ran passed confused expressions and second-lookers, down all the stair ways leading smack dab in the center of the building. Hope tried to keep up with Dominic but she wasn’t as quick as him. She felt like a fool running though the place like they were fleeing a crime.

           Once outside behind the Lucky Star, amongst rows of cars that shined like colored aluminum, Hope went off on Dominic demanding to know what was wrong with him. Strangely she had an enhanced consciousness of her surroundings. The night was really warm and the stars were brilliant. The air was clear and the city was heaving with life. She was elevated to skyline heights but he was about to blow it any second.

         “Are you crazy?! Are you crazy?!” 

            Dominic opened his truck door and reached for a sweater but she refused to take it.

           “You can’t be out here like that, showing off everything.”

           “Who are you?!” she shouted. “You just cost me my job!” She put her hands over her face. ”Why did you do that?”

          “I won’t let anyone shout in your face like that!”

         She ran her hands over her head. 

          “What am I going to do, I’m fired…”

          “You won’t be fired,” he promised. 

          “You punched my boss in the face!” 

            “I’ll make sure you don’t lose your job. Will you just listen to me?”

            She pulled herself together and breathed in. She couldn’t believe this was actually happening.

            “I made a mistake.”

            “Oh Dominic, it’s too late for the ‘I made a mistake’ speech.”

          “She lied to me Hope. She lied about everything. You believe me? She actually had in abortion. The kid wasn’t even mine. She cheated on me first.”

           Hope looked at him, her mouth agape.

          “I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was doing what I was supposed to.”

         “So once again things go wrong and you think you can come running to me? What am I, plan B?”

          “You know it’s not like that.”

          “You think you can go around punching people in the face?”

           “No.”

          She didn’t want to look in his eyes because she knew she’d feel it and right now, she couldn’t afford to feel it. She didn’t want those feelings to come flooding in, sweeping her off her feet. She leaned against his truck and took her shoes off instead.

             “Put the sweater on, you’re practically naked.”

             “Hope.” A third voice called out. Dominic and Hope looked up and saw Drew walking toward them. Dominic took a few steps forward but Hope stepped in front of him.

                “Don’t,” she whispered, looking up into his face for the first time. He was in kill mode, his eyes on Drew.

               “It’s cool,” he said to Dominic. In his hand, Drew had Hope’s silky cover up.  “Here honey, put this on.”

               Dominic’s expression totally dropped. One more word and he would charge Drew.

                “All right, all right, calm down.”  Drew looked at Hope who slowly turned away from Dominic and stared at the silk wrap.

                “Go on, take it.”

                 She reluctantly reached for it.

                 “Now about what happened back there, I understand. Hammer had that coming.”

                 Hope secured herself in her wrap and looked from Dominic to Drew.

               “I’m not real sure about what’s going on here, but I know you’re not a boyfriend, right?” Drew smiled and looked at Hope again. “This isn’t the guy that showed up last night, the one you left with?”

               Hope didn’t say anything. Dominic had a feeling he was referring to Shane.

               “Don’t worry, no one’s going to call the cops or anything. Let’s just talk this out.”

                 Dominic squinted at Drew.

                 “This is between Hope and me.”

                He slid his hands in his pockets and smugly smiled at Dominic.

               “I can see there’s no reasoning with you while you’re in this…state. Why don’t you go on home, maybe you can talk it over in the morning. Hope?” Drew reached out his hand. Hope stared at it for a moment. Dominic looked from the extended hand to Hope.

               “Come on Hope, get in the truck.”

                “Hope?” Drew wiggled his fingers around motioning for her to take it. “Remember everything we talked about? Don’t throw it all away for some guy.”

                Dominic stepped forward but again Hope stopped him. He wanted to bust passed her hands on his chest, instead took this opportunity to be close to her. He took her hands in his and lowered his face, force pulling her against him. She could feel a rush coating her from the inside out. It could be one of the hardest feelings in the world to resist but she could manage.

                 “It’s done.” 

                  Dominic wasn’t sure if her eyes were watery or just super glossy from the makeup and lights. He carefully pulled her wig from her head, taking off the nylon with it. Her hair bounced off her shoulders and rolled down her back. 

                   “We’re not done,” he said, dropping the wig. “We haven’t even begun.”

                     She shook her head.

                     You fucking broke my heart.

                     “Hope, listen to me-“

                     “Let go,” she said to him when he grabbed her hand.

                    Drew put his hand down to his side. Glenna jogged out of the building in an aqua silk wrap, bearing legs. A breeze blew through her hair as she stood standing there, watching this drama unfold.

                   Say it!! 

                  He wanted to say it; this is what he’d come here for. It was on the tip of his tongue urging to roll off but he was too BITCH to do it under the current circumstance.

                 Hope turned around and headed back toward the building with Drew.  Dominic couldn’t think further than this. There was a concrete wall blocking his view, like he couldn’t see what tomorrow would bring. He hated himself for letting her walk away and started punching the side of someone else’s car. He stopped when fresh blood dripped from his knuckles. He held up his hand, glistening blood streaming down his forearm. It wasn’t his good hand-he wasn’t stupid. 

“Yeah, I’m stupid,” he mumbled to himself, crumbling inside, completely left in ruins.

            Dominic got in his truck and hated himself from the inside out. All over again life was shitty. Does the cycle ever end?

 58... Righting things wrong

    Hope listened to Drew’s idea of condolence;

    “I mean if this guy meant so much to you, you wouldn’t have been running around with that other guy right?”

 Hope pressed her lips together. They stepped out of the elevator and the rest of the one-sided conversation consisted of money. Back inside the thumping club, Hope’s eyes wandered the room. She headed up the stairs to the powder room. 

                  “Are you all right?” Glenna asked, coming in after her.

                 Hope opened her locker and took out her purse.

                 “I don’t know what I’ve been thinking all this time. I’m such an idiot.” Hope slammed the locker shut and stared Glenna in the eyes. “He’s perfect but it scares me.”

                 Glenna licked her lips.

                  “You’ll never really get over it if you let him get away,” she mouthed. 

                 Hope turned around and headed out of the powder room. Her heart was going crazy as she made her way down the stairs. Hammer was sitting at the bar with a paper towel held to his nose. Tony and Mike were at either side of him, apologizing for having not been around. Like a watchdog, Drew was near the exit. He saw Hope hurrying toward him through slashes of psychedelic colors and tried to slow her down.

               “Fuck you Drew.” Hope looked him in the eyes while she said that and was out the doors. She hurried to her car, barefoot in her silk wrap. She started up the car and sped off. She was driving fast, tapping the steering wheel, her brain bouncing around in her head. Suddenly the lights dimmed and the car was weightless.

                “No,” she said, panic setting in. “No no no!” The car rolled a bit and stopped. She tried starting it but it was completely dead.

              “No!” She grabbed her purse and rummaged through it for her phone. She was so nervous she couldn’t dial the numbers correctly. “Damn it!” She threw the phone on the ground and then picked it up, popped the door open and locked up. She took her time dialing his number and then put the phone to her ear. He wasn’t answering. 

              “Okay,” she said to herself, looking at her surroundings. It was dark and open. When she looked behind her she could see the strip but it was so far away it looked like a dazzling yellow line on the horizon. She was half naked with a thigh high silk rap and no shoes. She tried calling him again but no answer.

                 “Don’t do this…” She hugged herself tight and then remembered why that was a dumb move. She stood straight and let her arms fall to her side, headed up the dark road. It took forty minutes to get there and by the time she did, she wasn’t nervous anymore. Screw it. She walked up the pathway; his car was parked in the driveway right in front of the garage. She stepped up on his porch and rang the doorbell.

              The door opened while Hope waited in anticipation. “Don’t let him hate me,” she prayed. The porch light went on and he looked as surprised as she’d ever seen him.

               “Hi,” she said, her arms wrapped around herself again. “I tried calling you. You wouldn’t answer.”

              “Uh,” he rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “I lost my phone.”

              She wasn’t sure if he was lying or not.

              “I just came by because-“

             He poked his head farther out the door.

              “Where’s your car?”

             “It broke down.”

             “It did? Where? Did you walk here?”

            “I don’t know…yeah I left my car about a half hour walk from here, maybe more.”

             “And you were calling me…” he said, putting two and two together. “I’m sorry.”

            “Anyway, can you step out for a minute?”

             He stepped out and closed the door behind him.

             “I have a couple friends over.”

              Hope headed down the pathway, Shane followed.

               “You really walked all that way?”

            “Yeah, it’s fine.”

             “That sucks,” he said, putting his hands in his pockets. 

              She faced him. He was looking back at her waiting for her to get to it.

              “I’m really sorry about…everything.”

              They heard a loud hum and the garage door rolled open, exposing the fluorescent room where some guy she’d never seen before and two girls were sitting in chairs. There was a moment of really awkward silence as the realization of what she’d just interrupted hit her. Marisol was standing over Shane’s turntables. She wouldn’t take her eyes off Hope and Shane, and was acting all cocky too.