Page 13 of That Girl is Trouble

It takes a few moments to figure out what woke me. The banging on my door. The yelling from the stairwell.

I jolt upright and scoop her up, practically sprinting to my living room and then dropping her unceremoniously onto my couch. The girl is dazed and confused, tugging on the blanket left discarded on the cushion from last night when I twist my deadbolt and pull open the door.

“Fuck, Kat!” Jesse barrels in and drops to his knees in front of my couch. He swipes the pillow and blanket to the floor and pulls her into his arms. His tattooed fingers trace the marks on her face—the dark bruises and the cuts that look even worse this morning—and he shakes his head. “Thanks, man, for keeping her safe. For making sure that fuck paid for this shit.”

I only nod.

Safe.

Kat doesn’t look at me again. Her eyes bounce around the room, searching every inch of the space while she patently avoids me. She searches Jesse’s face, his black hair falling over his eyes, his hands as they wrap around her waist. But she doesn’t look at me. Because we both know that whatever the fuck we were doing in that bed wasn’t about safety.

5

I’m on Rayna’s shit list. That’s what my sister calls it—when someone crosses her, she adds them to some sort of list she keeps in her head. I’m not really sure what she does with it, but I imagine if Rayna has one, I’m at the top of it.

“Got no patience for drama, kid,” she told me, and I apologized about a billion times. How the hell was I supposed to know Axel fucking Donovan would show up here and pull that shit?

Apparently, being the reason the president of an outlaw biker gang roughed up the Garden’s favourite bouncer is a fireable offence.

I managed to convince her not to can me, but now I’m on probation. She sees that shit again, and it doesn’t matter how cute I look in fishnets and a plaid skirt. That woman will boot me to the curb and not think twice about it.

For the last week, I’ve been on my best behaviour, but Rayna’s sharp focus has been locked on me all night, and it’s starting to make my skin itch.

“Hey, baby girl. Come over here and have a seat on daddy’s lap,” a voice calls out.

I freeze, my eyes locking with some broad-shouldered twentysomething jock-type in a suit. His tie is loose, the buttons of his collar undone. His suited-up friends around him snicker as they take in tonight’s outfit—another short skirt, another tiny blouse.

I don’t usually make a lot of cash with these types. Despite the expensive suit jacket draped over his chair and the glint of the pricey watch shining from his wrist, men like this don’t enjoy paying for my time.

Finance bros in from the city. Trust fund babies spending a weekend at their parents’ mansion on the lake. These are the Friday fuckboys Rayna talks about. The ones who want me to sit on their laps, laugh at their jokes, maybe move my ass over their crotch a few times, and they want it all for free.

I don’t do free.

Weaving through groups of men and the few women who’ve tagged along with them, I make my way towards the table. Attention snaps to me as I pass. Hungry stares on my body, the feeling of them as heavy as if it were fingers caressing my skin rather than the heated gazes of strangers.

Those stares are more cumbersome than usual tonight. Maybe it’s because I’ve scanned the room more than I’ve meant to. Anticipation for the moment Axe comes back—when I get another glimpse of the tattoos that mark his skin, the dark hair he keeps short, that strong jawline he’s always got clenched. But really, it’s those dark eyes I’m most eager to see again. The harshness of his glare hiding the softness I know him capable of, the ice of them making my skin heat.

“Hey, there,” I say to Mr. Jock.

He tugs me into his lap, and I let him. Immediately, he drags his hand up my thigh.

“Careful,” I warn. “You’re not supposed to touch.”

No touching. I used to hate those words. They’d growl out at me in the dark, forcing me to still my wandering hands. Forcing me to stop my explorations of the hard chest beneath them. Now, though, the words give me a bit of a rush. The power behind them. These men can look, but they can’t touch. They can’t have me. And I like that. I like that I’m the one saying them now.

No touching.

Not all the girls who work at the Garden follow that rule. I hear them whisper about it sometimes. Getting paid to do more. It’s not permitted, obviously, or legal. But if they’re discreet, if they don’t make a big show of it, if it happens in one of the dark corners of Heaven, then it’s more of a don’t ask, don’t tell kind of thing.

“The Garden isn’t a whorehouse,” Rayna told me when I started. “We catch you with a dick in your mouth, and you’re gone. Don’t come to work high. Don’t get so wasted you can’t get through your dance. And don’t ever fuck a customer.”

The rules are simple, and they’re the only ones that’ll get a girl fired. And, of course, the new rule in effect. No big bad bikers with guns busting in here like they own the place and smacking around employees. Guess that one should have been obvious.

Mr. Jock lets his hand linger for another moment before moving it away. “Right. No touching. Always forget that rule. What’s your name, honey?”

“What’s yours?”

“I’m Jake.”

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