Page 61 of A Brother At My Back

“I’m sorry, Alan,” I called after him and he raised his hand and waved me off over his shoulder. My heart sank.

“He’s not mad at you, Tiff. He just wants the cops the fuck up out of here. We don’t want them sniffing around for any reason.”

“I know,” I said gently and felt guilty as hell. Alan had always been good to his girls. He’d never expected a cut of our extracurriculars, just the ten percent house’s cut of whatever we walked off stage with. He knew this life was hard for a lot of us, and while Sugars looked shabby and careworn, the rest of us understood this was the isle of lost toys. For some of us, like me, it was the only place left to go.

Alan was a decent guy, his only major rules were that we had to practice safe sex if we decided that the extracurriculars were for us. None of us were required to turn tricks to be here, although most of us did. Alan simply looked the other way, for the most part, on that. He didn’t condone it, for plausible deniability where the legalities or lack thereof were involved.

The other rule was his cardinal rule: none of us could be on drugs. If he found us on something, or we brought anything into his establishment? That was it. There were no second chances for that one. Still, there was always one or two that were dumber than a box of rocks on that one and would test the theory. Those of us loyal to Alan, who understood just how much he did for us, didn’t hesitate to dime a stupid bitch out to him when it came to either of those rules.

He ran a clean place, both figuratively and literally, despite the flesh-peddling that went on here.

“What are you doing?” Nik asked and I sighed, slightly frustrated at the pulling I was doing on the skin of my face.

“Getting the mask off,” Zeke said. “More sympathetic. You only got a couple more seconds, babes, and they’re gonna be at the back stair. Looks like Alan’s taking them the long ways.”

“Okay, okay, okay!” I hissed through gritted teeth and got the lace the rest of the way off, working my jaw and scrunching my eyes, resisting the urge to rub it.

Nik was frowning at me and tipped my chin, whisking a thumb over some of the hurt with a super light, almost-not-even-there touch.

“Usually I have a solution to help me get that off,” I explained and he opened his mouth to say something but was cut off by the door opening, and Alan escorting a couple of uniformed officers into the office.

“You the bouncer?” one asked Zeke and Zeke scowled.

“How could you tell?” he asked wincing and moved his jaw back and forth with his hand to it. He didn’t have to pretend much to look pained.

“Who are you?” the second cop demanded of Nik and I tried not to roll my eyes or throw up my hands. It was typical that they would ignore the woman in the room. I’d dealt with it more than a few times before with the local police. This was good ol’ boy country and as sexist as it got.

“I’m her boyfriend,” Nik answered them and any irritation I felt completely fled.

I settled in for the slow grind of their ‘procedures’ and the fact that they weren’t really going to want to get involved with the trash essentially taking itself out. That was how they always treated these kinds of situations with people like us. From the cop’s perspective, it wasn’t the first time they’d had trouble with a dancer’s ex-boyfriend showing up, nor was it the first time they’d responded to one of our bouncers getting into a scrap with one of our patrons. It didn’t happen super often, but it happened often enough to be considered ‘normal’ for an establishment like this one.

Of course, all it took was the stereotype to get something like that labeled as ‘normal’ for a place like this, which was sad because even though it was rundown, it was rundown because Alan made sure we got our fair share which left little to actually do any renovations with. Really, it was barely enough to keep up with necessary repairs.

“You have a restraining order against this guy?”

I missed the question, or really that they were finally addressing me and it took Nik shaking me a little for me to come back to the room from inside my head.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Restraining order? You got one?”

“Yes, I’m sorry. They gave me a five-year one, it doesn’t expire until next year.” Which, honestly, he would have still been in prison had the system kept him in but that had been a bridge I was going to cross when I came to it.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a copy of that protective order handy, would you?” the other officer asked, bored.

“Actually, I do. It’s in my purse downstairs.”

Both cops exchanged a look and then really seemed to look at me for the first time. I turned my face into the light a little better and one of them frowned.

“Could you go get it for me?” he asked and I swallowed hard and nodded.

“I’ll come with you,” Nik said and the first cop, who was being an asshole, frowned and said, “You’ll stay right there.”

“Why?” Nik asked. “I didn’t even get here until after the nob was gone.”

“Because I said so, and I’m not done talking to you yet,” the cop snapped.

“I’ll go with you, ma’am,” the second, nicer, cop said.

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