Drop Everything Now (14 page)

Chapter 18

Later
that week, after I’d worked the 10-10 shift, completely missing any homework time and barely seeing Mom, I caught a ride back to my place with Rob, who had the night off and was just hanging around the Starr waiting for Cara’s shift to end.

“Oh, that’s weird,” I said when I saw Bryan’s silver truck parked in its usual spot. “I didn’t know he was off tonight.”

“I didn’t either. We’re almost never off on the same night.” he said. “Hey! Maybe he wanted to surprise you!”

I gave him the side-eye. “Did you know something about this?”

He made an X across his chest. “Nothing,” he said in a dead-solemn voice. “I swear.”

Well, if Bryan wanted to surprise me, I wanted to make it worth his while. In the five weeks since I’d been there, I’d stashed away most of my cash tips in an envelope inside the Gideon’s Bible in my nightstand drawer, portioning out $150 for rent every week and a little bit every couple of days to do some grocery shopping for me and Mom. But I’d also collected a couple things for myself—a cute blouse here, a skirt there, and a couple sets of very lacy, very see-through lingerie. Bryan and I typically tore each other’s clothes off in such a frenzy that I either hadn’t had the time to put it on in the first place or he hadn’t noticed it, but maybe tonight could be different. I smiled to myself as I thought of the white lace set I’d step into—deliciously innocent and sexy all at the same time—and what his reaction would be. Maybe I’d even give him a strip show of my own.

I fumbled in my bag for my key ring and held it in my fingers for a full ten seconds before remembering—I’d given my key to Brian so he could pick up my dirty laundry again.

Good thing I actually liked Bryan’s place better anyway. I smiled as I reworked my plans. I didn’t have access to my cute lingerie now, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t have a really good time anyway. I shuffled over to Bryan’s door and gave it a couple good, hard knocks, then leaned back against the metal railing.

I waited ten seconds, then thirty, then a minute. Nothing.

I knocked again, this time speaking at the seam of the door. “Bryan? Ry?” Maybe he was asleep or in the shower. I wouldn’t mind it if he came to the door in just a towel. Not at all.

That was when I heard him moan. He only did it once, but it was loud and low and dragged out—almost exactly like it was when we…

Oh, shit.

I knew what my brain was thinking, but after the five weeks I’d known him for, the majority of which I’d spent screwing him silly, I just didn’t believe that Bryan would be in there with another girl. We’d had too many genuine moments for that, and besides, Cara had told me he wasn’t that kind of guy. Never had been.

“Bryan?” I tried again, praying to God it wasn’t what I thought. “It’s Andi.” Another deep groan came from inside, but this time it sounded distinctly like pain. That filled me with even more terror than the thought of him being in there with some other girl. Had he been mugged? Robbed? In a car crash? His car looked just fine.

Finally, the doorknob turned. “Hold on, baby,” he said, his words dragging and ragged. “I’m coming.” When he opened the door, his face was drawn, fallen, like his best friend had just died. He wore only a bathrobe and held it together in front of him gingerly with two fingers.

My eyes went wide. “Are you okay? What in the hell happened to you?”

My voice broke on the last word. I couldn’t help it; it was so clear from his voice that he was in agony. He turned around and shuffled back toward his bed where four pillows were stacked against the headboard. There was a drink and—weirdest of all—a bag of frozen peas on the nightstand. When he turned around and sat on the bed, his face twisted like it was the most unbearable pain he’d ever felt, and a strange half-moan, half-growl rumbled out of his throat.

“Help me lay back. It was tough enough to get up.”

I was starting to full-on panic now. “I’m sorry—you still had my key. I didn’t even know you were supposed to be home tonight. I was surprised to see the truck here. Are you sick or something?” I helped move his legs up onto the bed. When I dropped them, he sucked in a sharp breath. “Seriously,” I said, unexpectedly winded from the effort. A six-foot-one guy with all that muscle evidently weighed a whole hell of a lot. “Tell me what happened, Ry.”

He looked at me with the biggest, saddest puppy dog eyes ever. “You would hate me if you knew. You wouldn’t even want me anymore.”

The words twisted my heart and made it sink into my stomach. I couldn’t stand watching him like that without knowing what had happened for a single second longer. “Bryan,” I said, more harshly than I meant to.

I was about to ask him one more time when, sheepishly, he eased back on the pillows and pulled the bag of peas off the nightstand…and held it to his crotch.

I gasped, clapping one hand to my mouth and then the other. My voice was muffled, leaking out from between my fingers in steamy, hot breath. “Holy shit, Bryan. What happened to you? Did you get in a car accident? Did someone beat you up?” I rushed over, sitting beside him, and even the slightest movement on the bed made him wince.

“Not unless you count ‘me’ as ‘someone.’”

I cupped his face in my hands, checking it for bruises. “Seriously,” I barked. “Tell me.”

“You’re not going to like it.”

“You know what I don’t like?” I asked as I sat up straight, staring at him. “Not knowing what happened to you that put you in this much pain.”

“It was…work.”

My eyebrows furrowed in confusion. I hadn’t seen him at the Starr that day, and it was too early for him to be at the Smitten Kitten. That job didn’t start until 11 p.m. “Was it at rehearsal? Did you land on it funny?”

He barked out a short laugh, then winced again. “You know, that would be a whole lot easier of an explanation.”

“This is not funny at all. Tell me.”

“Just…promise you won’t get mad. I’m only going to tell you the truth because…” He raised his eyes to mine, and that same flash of emotion I’d seen on the very first day we met was there, clear was day. “Because I care about you so much.”

My breaths quickened. That was the kind of talk that would typically have me straddling him and tearing my shirt off, but obviously that was not a great option right now. “Okay.” I said, folding my hands in my lap. “What happened?”

He blew out one more breath. “Well, remember two weeks ago, at the Kitten? When you were on stage with me?”

“Yes.” I held back a smile. The truth was, I would never, ever forget that night. That was the night that part of me, a part I’d been holding back for so many years, finally broke free.

“Well, Kat was watching. She’s always watching, you know. And she’s always looking for new business opportunities.”

“Sure,” I said. I still couldn’t see where this was going for the life of me.

“The club’s not the only business she runs,” he said. “I mean, it’s all part of the same business, but she also contracts guys out for parties. Sorority parties, bachelorette parties, bored-rich-lady parties. The guys go, collect, do a private strip for the ladies, and come home.”

I didn’t like where this was going. The strange jealous feeling cropping up inside made my breaths short and my heart stutter around in my chest like a crazed hummingbird. “What did they do to you?”

“Andi, I swear. It’s no touching still. Not a single one of them touched it, okay?”

“So what
happened
, Ry?”

“The private strips pay the most if they’re virgin strips—meaning a guy’s first time.”

“But it’s not your first time. You’ve probably stripped hundreds of times at the Kitten.”

I knew what he was going to say before he opened his mouth again. “It’s my first time doing a full strip.”

A deep sense of horror washed over me. I knew Bryan—or, rather,
Ryder
—was a stripper, but I’d been operating on the assumption that he was teasing and pleasing only, never, ever doing a full strip. Something about other women seeing his dick, being close enough to touch what my hands had caressed or lick where my tongue had been… It was just. Not. Okay. At all.

I looked away and counted slowly to five, trying to keep my breathing even. “I still don’t understand what happened.”
Don’t be mad, Andi. He’s not your boyfriend. You were just sucking and fucking and having a good time. You never made any promises.

My brain knew it, but I realized in that moment, my heart definitely did not believe it.

Bryan’s voice was low, a little shaky. “When you do a full strip, they don’t want to see a limp dick. But, you know, when you’re dancing for money, it’s work. It’s not easy for the guys to. So the guys who do a full strip…they use the pump.”

I closed my eyes, trying at the same time to envision and block out the idea of a pump that makes a guy hard.

“Rob said to pump it until, like, pain level three, right?” Bryan continued. “But I figured, I’m a big guy. I could use a little extra.”

I shook my head again, my eyes still closed.

“Well, I got it up for the show, but it hurt like a motherfucker the whole time. When I untied it—”

“Untied it?” I asked, my voice growing high-pitched and hysterical.

“Yeah, you have to sort of…tourniquet it off at the base to keep the blood there.”

I squeaked and covered my mouth with both hands.

“Andi, please. You’ve gotta understand.” I blew out a slow breath. “It had these red splotches on it. At first, they were really small, but then they got bigger, and now it’s…like…bruised.”

We sat together for three quiet breaths. My eyes slowly drifted down to the bag of peas. “You don’t want to see it,” he said softly.

“No, I don’t want to see it. But holy shit, Bryan. What made you do this?”

“Like I said, it was good money.”

“You weren’t making enough money?”

He looked away, and that look I was recognizing as shame flittered across his face. “I heard from Chris last week. It had been months. Half a year at least. But he’s in trouble again, and this time, it was bad. The guys he fell in with were threatening to do really bad things to him. To my mom.”

“What kind of guys is he falling in with? Business guys?”

Bryan sighed. “Sort of.”

“But you were
saving
,” I said, my voice shaky. “To do the realtor thing.” We’d talked about it a lot over the last few weeks. He’d invest in his own realty business—or maybe just his share in one—to support a career over the long haul. It was his big dream of leaving the stripper life, having a normal job that didn’t make him get naked and stay up all night. In my most euphoric moments, I’d envisioned us living that life together.

“I hadn’t saved enough. Not nearly enough to cover this one.”

“Oh,” I said softly.

“Anyway, now that plan is shot to hell. I can’t work again for at least a week. Maybe two.”

I scooted on the bed beside him, gingerly, trying not to move the mattress too much. I laid my head softly on his shoulder and reached over his waist to twine my fingers with his. At first, I didn’t know what I thought of the whole situation, except for two things: one, there was nothing I could do about it now; and two, I was still magnetically attracted to him. Not only his body—clearly, the most useful part was out of commission for the time being—but his presence. Even though it was a pretty shitty circumstance, the fact that Bryan had done everything he could to help his brother resonated with me—probably because I had given up an entire life just to be with my mom.

“Did you call him? Tell him you can’t help out?”

“Yeah, I did,” Bryan said softly. “He wasn’t happy, but what can he do?”

At that moment, a heavy fist pounded on the door.

“Bryan! Seriously, motherfucker, open up!”

I sat bolt upright. “Is that him? Chris?”

Bryan’s head fell back against the wall for a second, and he sighed. “Yeah. I’d recognize that high-ass voice anywhere. Shit.”

When he started to move his leg off the bed, I gripped his arm. “No, no way. You stay right here. Don’t you move. I’ll get it.”

“Andi, wait, I…”

But I was off the bed in a flash and wrenching open the door before he could get the rest of the sentence out. I hadn’t exactly dealt with that many people that sounded as pissed as Chris did, but then again, I wasn’t a tiny little thing and Bryan had never mentioned that he was dangerous. Just…moody.

Chris’ eyes stared down into mine, bloodshot and crazed. “Who the fuck are you?” he spat. “Are you Bryan’s little fuck buddy? Nice to know that he’s in here getting his rocks off while I’m about to get fucked over a barrel by a bunch of thugs.”

“Jesus, Chris, language.” Bryan called from inside the room. “You have no right to talk to Andi like that. And don’t call me a motherfucker, you know I hate that.”

“Oh, yeah, you’re the good boy. Mama’s favorite can’t be called a motherfucker, no way.”

“Look, I know you’re pissed. But you need to calm down. Andrea’s here, and she didn’t ask for this.”

Bryan spoke with measured, practiced words, and I glanced back to see his face etched with pain. How many times had he had to deal with shit like this? More importantly, why did he put up with it? If there was one thing Mom always taught me about the company I kept, it was that anyone who swore at me wasn’t worth my time. Needless to say, Chris wasn’t making a great first impression. I stood in the doorway with my hands on my hips, my body rigid, glaring at him.

“Oh, fuck buddy has a name, huh?” he snarled. “Must be getting serious.”

Shakily, Bryan stood up from the bed, dropping the bag of peas on the floor. It sounded like watery slush by now. “Okay, that’s enough, asshole. Just because I don’t have all the money you need does not mean you can barge in here and insult my girlfriend. It’s your mess, and this time, you’re gonna have to get out of it.” He shuffled over to Chris and, somehow, stood up to his full height, which was about four inches taller. “Don’t come back here. Do you understand? I’ll call you if I can come up with the cash, but considering that I basically broke my dick trying, it’s unlikely.”