Page 31 of Catcher's Lock
“For the record,” I say, and this time I don’t help as Gem twists painfully to retrieve his bag from the back seat, “I think this is aterrible idea.”
“Noted.”
“You look like shit.”Lie. “And you’re still hurt.”Truth. Although I’m not sure why I care. He ignores me, climbing out of the truck and swinging the backpack over his shoulder.
“If you’re heading back to the house, I can snag a ride home after,” he offers, leaning on the roof with a grin that tells me he knows exactly how good he looks, bruises, cuts, and all.
With some stripper?Acustomer?
No wonder he keeps getting his ass beat.
“I’ll pick you up.”
“Aww. You gonna wait up for me?” He sounds way too happy about the idea, so I reach across to yank his door shut and peel out of the parking lot without responding. Maybe if I clip a toe, he’ll have to sit in the dressing room all night.
Since his shift won’t end until at least 2 a.m., I have six hours to kill. Plenty of time to drive back to my mom’s, watch TV, even catch a couple hours of sleep if I want.
I drive around in circles until the images in my head get too loud for even the Saturday night traffic and my loudest playlist to drown out. For another hour, I hide out in a deserted diner, drinking rot-gut coffee and debating calling Hannah to talk me off the ledge. But my sister is an unreliable narrator when it comes to me and Gem, irrationally optimistic for reasons I don’t understand and haven’t totally forgiven.
Rachael is better at rage and revenge, but she’s also less than three hundred miles away and completely capable of showing up on Mom’s doorstep tomorrow at the first whiff of drama.
Eventually, I give up and head back to the club.
Unlike the tired, vaguely apologetic vibe of yesterday afternoon’s hallway, the main room is lavish with crude luxury and surprisingly packed. The crowd is mostly women—at least three that I can see wearing bachelorette sashes and tiaras—but there are men too. Most of them are older, tucked in corner tables,but I spot a brightly colored group of six or seven closer to my age, glittering with confidence and eager lust.
Gem is nowhere to be seen, and my gut clenches over what that might mean. Maybe he hasn’t gone on yet. Maybe there’s some back room where he’s entertaining a high-end customer.
Maybe it was all a front, and he’s halfway to Mexico with a pocket full of drugs.
Coming here was a mistake. No matter what I find, it’s going to hurt, and I promised myself I was done bleeding over him.
I find an empty seat at the long bar, and I’m halfway through my second beer when the MC announces Gem’s name. Hisrealone, of course—because why would he need a stripper alias when he’s already named after something precious and coveted? I ruthlessly smother the small triumphant part of me that’s glad he didn’t use “Quill.”
Don’t. Look.
The slow opening beat of “The Chain” by Fleetwood Mac pours from the speakers, and something sharp twists in my belly.
I don’t know how he guessed I’d be here, but the message is unmistakably clear. As the hook in my gut drags me around to face the main stage, I can almost see his eyes glowing with reflected light from the movie screen that first night in Fort Bragg. I remember the visceral thrill of his fingers brushing mine, slippery with butter in the popcorn tub, and his words whispered into my ear: “This is totallyepic.”
Then the stage lights come up, and there he is, with his back to the crowd and his wrists in a pair of cheap plastic handcuffs. The pole cuts a line of Aurora-hued silver down his spine—an adornment rather than an obstacle. His short-sleeved shirt is a convict orange that no one should look that good in, and his legs are bare, like he’s ready to start a prison riot. More tattoos trailover his left hip and down his leg. Even from across the room, I can tell that he’s shaved smooth, and saliva floods my mouth as my gaze trails up to the barely concealed crease of his ass.
As the first lyrics croon over the sound system, his head falls to the side as he arches his back, cradling the pole obscenely between his ass cheeks. Sweat prickles from my hairline and trickles down my collar, and I shift in my seat, captured and caged by my own helpless desire.
When he tilts dangerously, catching the pole behind his knee in an attitude pose and tossing a brazen look over his shoulder, the audience goes feral. He grins, and I swear his gaze locks with mine over the crowd as he flicks his hands free of the cuffs and begins todance.
The song builds slow and heavy, the perfect soundtrack for seduction. At the first chorus, he rips open his shirt, leaving himself clothed in only swaths of iridescent ink and a black jockstrap that cups his cock and frames his ass with cruel perfection. He works the crowd and the pole with half-lidded eyes and rolling hips, and no matter how much more I know he’d be capable of without the hidden bruises and torn muscles, there’s no denying his magic.
This is not the frenetic kid I first met, monkeying up and down the pole in the corner of his parents’ tent. Nor do I spot any evidence of the desperate drive to prove himself that colored his teenage years and sapped all the joy from the art during his time at ENC.
This is smoldering charisma and innate talent, lazily embraced. Smooth and graceful, he moves like he’s underwater—my siren selkie, all grown-up.
Not only is it unfairlydevastating, but for the first time in years, he looks like he’s having fun.
By the time the song ends, I’m achingly hard andfurious. Theelastic straps of his jock are full of bills, handfuls more litter the stage, and at least a dozen women are calling for his attention. I down the rest of my forgotten drink and weave my way to the door, dirty and done.
Despite my resolve, I find myself back in the parking lot a few hours later, watching him climb into the cab of my truck.
“Didn’t think you’d be back.” He rolls his head to meet my gaze. “I saw you leave after my first set.”
