Page 63 of Crush's Fall

Trip nodded. “Is this about the employees from Heat? Heard you were working with Butterfly to get them taken care of and stuff.”

Lucifer nodded. “Didn’t know I was working with Butterfly, but yeah, essentially.”

Trip chuckled. “Well, you’re working with Butterfly. Now, ya know.”

“I don’t mind. I like Butterfly. Might drive Bullet insane, but that’s just the cherry on top.”

“If you treat Butterfly well, you’d be surprised what that would do for your relationship with Bullet. That man is obsessed with his woman.”

Lucifer raised a brow. “Aren’t we all obsessed with our women?”

He watched as Trip’s eyes unfocused, and a grin grew on the man’s face, proving his point. Trip was most definitely thinking about Darlin’ and enjoying whatever visual that brought to his mind’s eye.

“Exactly,” Lucifer said and stood, ready to get back to work.

Crush

At three o’clock, Crush was sitting in her seat at the table when her club filed into church. She wanted to have church earlier in the day, but Kitty had been the only waitress scheduled at the diner and couldn’t get away. As much as the club came first, Crush would never put a business in a tough spot for a meeting that wasn’t an emergency, so they worked around things.

When everyone was seated, she pounded her fist on the table to bring church to order. “Okay. Heat. We own half but haven’t acted like it. That needs to change.”

The murmurs of approval sounded around the table.

“First question: Do we want to have a strip club, or do we want to switch things up?”

“Is this connected to the list you wanted me to put together for Lucifer?”

Crush looked over at Pumps and nodded. “Yes. He’s going to ask them about suggestions for improvement, what was working, and what wasn’t working.”

Pumps nodded. “Why can’t we build a space big enough to have Heat on one side and something for us on the other? I mean… let the Howlers run Heat. It’s lucrative, and we have a good number of loyal regulars, but there’s enough property out there for a bigger building. We could start a new business on the other side or… I dunno.”

“No, I like where you’re going, Pumps,” Pinky commented. “There has to be a market for something geared more toward women or other people who aren’t into the strip club scene.”

“Burlesque,” Ginger suggested. “Or at least theme nights.”

“Yesssss,” Kitty pointed at Ginger and nodded. “I like that.”

Crush smirked. “So, you’re saying I have to go head-to-head with Axle and demand we have our say? Oh, darn.”

Pinky chuckled. “I know that will break your tender heart.”

“Is a vote necessary?”

Crush was not surprised when half of the table flipped her off, and the other half said,No,in unison.

“The other issue… we need to figure out a way to resume the classes that were offered at the club. How difficult would it be to set them up somewhere else?”

Kitty shook her head. “Not difficult at all. As long as we have the poles, we only need a day to install them. The rest is just buying the mats and equipment and finding a space big enough.”

“Would the free space on the other side of this floor be big enough?”

At Nails’s question, Crush looked over at Pumps and waited for an answer.

Pumps shrugged. “Might have to split the classes into small groups, but we could make it work. I could talk to Trip about installing the poles… or maybe Dragon. He’s the one who installed the ones at Heat.”

“You won’t be talking to Dragon about shit,” Kisy uttered and sent a glare down the table at Pumps.

After rolling her eyes, Pumps replied, “You can’t tell me who I can speak to or who can speak to Dragon. He’s a grown man.”

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