Page 20 of Swallow Your Sorries

On closer inspection, I recognize a lot of faces. A quarter of them belong to male Beaulieu Academy students, those left in town who haven’t blasted to the south of France or the Hamptons just yet.

“It looks like shit,” Bae says matter-of-factly.

“The plague’s probably hiding amongst the mice and fleas in the walls, ready to infect us all,” Zedd says.

“Egregious,” Étienne adds, still tapping away.

Getting more than a few words out of Étienne is like drawing blood from a stone. Unless you’re his stepsister.

Hmm, so the assholes are back and my pity train is long gone.

Good.

“It doesn’t seem to bother them,” I say, adding a sprinkle of positivity. “Keep supplying them with free, cheap shots tonight and they’ll black out enough to not notice.”

“You’ll have to add in copious amounts of pussy to turn them blind,” Zedd says, eyeing the few females prowling around.

Three of them are bartenders who came with the shitty club when Hale and I bought it last week. From the looks of it, they’ve been employed here since the wallpaper’s installation.

I swipe a shot from one’s serving tray as she saunters impressively in six-inch scuffed heels. Henrietta or Rie Rie for short, she’d told me earlier when Hale and I got the keys.

“Pray she didn’t pour that herself.” Hale winces, eyeing the clear concoction. “You know she has cataracts.”

A gagging sound alerts us to the corner where Rie Rie places the empty serving tray on the head of a retching patron. She probably mistook him for an end table. As he falls back onto a moth-eaten, mustard couch, the tray falls with a metallic clang into the vomit.

“Look, I’m all for vintage,” Bae says, watching Rie Rie disappear behind the bar. “But this place and the staff have slid into antique territory. When do renovations and the new hires start?”

Both Zedd and Bae’s gazes bounce between Hale and me at the last question.

“Don’t look at me,” I say, downing the shot. It’s water, but at least Rie Rie remembered to salt the rim this time. I can taste remnants of vodka, however, so I assume Clementine—not her stage name apparently—in the kitchen isn’t having much luck with the dishes either. “I’m a silent partner. Hale’s the mastermind.”

“Why do you even need a partner?” Bae asks. “Why not just open another franchise of Pierrot’s?”

Hale hails from a long line of strip clubs. Well, not that long. He’snew money, thanks to his mother’s entrepreneurial spirit.

Even I study Hale at Bae’s question because it’s a question I’ve asked him before. The name is already well established. His mother wouldn’t charge him a dime to open another franchise, and her lawyers would handle all the paperwork while her Pinterest would handle the decor. All pretty boy Hale would need to do is show up and attract the groupies and wannabes like flies to shit.

“We’re eighteen now, boys. Time to make names for ourselves independent of our families. You think I need Mum lauding her contributions to this place over my head?” He asks, arching a brow. “No, thanks. This is all me, with a little help of course.” He gestures towards me with his drink.

That was the same bullshit answer he gave me.

We all know he wants to distance himself from his family’s reputation. The problem is that clubs are what Hale knows. Even his ballroom dancing career started because of his mom’s nightclubs and her colourful staff that practically raised him.

So how did he plan to make his club so much different from Pierrot’s? A lack of poles aside?

Or is it just a stepping stone? A fast cash grab to go onto something more refined?

Refinery is what he’s after and it’s what Zedd’s bloodline has had since the fifteenth century.

Zedd’s signature shit-eating grin cracks his lips as he turns to me. “Bart doesn’t know about this, does he?”

“Why would I involve my father?” I ask, licking the salt off the shot glass’ rim.Fuck it. I felt dead already. What’s a little dysentery? Besides, I’m desperate to wash the bloody metallic taste still coating my tongue from when I’d bit it. “The money doesn’t come from his accounts.”

There’s a long pause and I flinch internally as sympathy dances across everyone’s faces, including Zedd’s. Even Étienne manages to spare me a glance.

“And what better way to honour that money than to double it?” Hale says, raising his arms and lightening the mood. “It’ll be nearly exclusive to the triad.”

The triad is composed of three elite schools within a small radius. Beaulieu Academy for Performing Arts, Ennox Prep, for Science and Technology, and Bradley, for blue-blooded boys, not to mention the neighbouring university. The club’s stationed almost at the centre.

---