Page 49 of Gigi and the Gym Rats

And that’s all the difference.

The rain is now coming down faster, but I just keep going, cold water soaking through my clothes to my skin, squelching in my shoes. They are sneakers. I didn’t dress up. Didn’t expect Ronin to turn up, not after the couple of times he stood me up.

I should have taken the hint.

Should have remembered our deal, not asked for more.

Stupid, Grey, so stupid.

You come to the big city with your dreams and all your belongings packed in a duffel bag and think you’ll just find the doorway to the rainbow and be saved?

You got another think coming.

My footsteps bring me outside Ronin’s building. I look up at the windows. I don’t even know which one is his. It bothers me that I know so little about him, that I’ve never even been to his place.

I make myself move on. Last thing I need is to have Ronin look out the window and happen to see me standing there like an idiot.

At first, I had thought sex with him was a bad idea. What if I got attached? What if I liked being around him too much?

Too late for that now.

I keep walking in the rain, until I find an entrance to a seedy bar. With dim steps leading underground, a red, flickering sign of a pole dancer and titties, the sound of raucous laughter and faint music wafting out, it has to be seedy.

That’s what I need. I guess. My feet are already leading me down before any conscious thought comes into play. I’ve tried. I’ve been careful, or so I thought. Got a job, rented a room, and convinced myself that fucking Ronin was just a release. That I didn’t need more.

I find a stool at the bar and order a beer. Then I order a whiskey. It burns my throat. It’s a good burn. It warms me up and I feel cold to my bones. At least nobody here comments on the puddle of water I’m leaving on the floor.

The cold goes deeper, though. Ronin kept it at bay for a while but now it’s back to claim me.

Call me Grey Snow.

I chuckle to myself, and I bet I sound a little insane. Or just drunk. They must be used to drunks here. I’m invisible behind a customer’s mask. All sorts of losers have to end up here all the time, and now I’m one of them.

The music plays, women dance on a raised platform. Strippers. Pole dancers. A woman with so much make-up on her face it looks like a mask approaches me. She’s so heavily perfumed I can’t tell if she’s a beta, alpha or omega. She tries to get on my lap and I push her off.

I order another whiskey. Pat my pockets, count my money.

This is madness. I don’t have a single dollar to spare. My one big spending was the gym, my one escape, oh and the one drink I always got at Alpha Bet, waiting for Ronin to show up, then lamented my dollars when he didn’t.

Now I push more dollars at the bartender. “Another one,” I say.

He gives me a hard look but doesn’t say anything. He pours me another two fingers. They’ve stopped burning going down. That’s a bad sign.

Another is that my money has run out. That was what I had left from my weekly apprenticeship payment from Ink and Shadows. The rent has been paid until next week, thank fuck, and the gym, too, but what about after that? What about food and shit?

Hell.

I finish my whiskey, rub at my eyes. Ask myself yet again what the hell I’m doing, how this is fixing my life. It’s not.

And yet I have no place else to go. This is it, my one chance to build a life, get a proper job and not live hand-to-mouth.

Not live—or die—without anyone noticing.

Right now, I doubt anyone would.

* * *

“Grey. Hey! Are you alive in there?”

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