Now, here I was, working all through the night again while he was probably at home in his apartment with a relaxing glass of bourbon. The more I thought about it, the madder I got. I hurried to get the stitching pulled out even faster so I could get all this done in time for the new deadline; that would show him. It would show him that not only was I more capable than he gave me credit for but that I wasn’t intimidated by his raised voice and nasty attitude. I was so mad and trying to work so fast that the thread-puller slid out of my hand and cut a sizeable chunk out of the side of my palm. I howled in pain and turned around to grab a spare piece of cloth, but as I went to reach for it, I accidentally grabbed the dress for Kerynne to wear instead.
“Fuck!” I screamed as the tears started to roll down my cheeks.
“Hensley!” Cai called to me as he ran over to see what the matter was. “What the hell happened to your hand?”
“What are you doing here again?” I asked as I tried to bite back my cries. “Why do you keep showing up after hours? Are you stalking me or something?”
Cai laughed. “You wish,” he said. “No, I left my wallet again around here somewhere. It’s a really bad habit of mine that someday is going to wind up costing me my whole bank account, I’m sure. I need it to go out tonight, so I came back to get it.”
I felt like an idiot for accusing him of being a stalker. I clearly wasn’t thinking straight right now.
“Shit, you’re bleeding all over,” he said. He took off his T-shirt, which suddenly made me feel a bit better just because of the gesture and wrapped it around my hand. “Do you think you need stitches?”
“No, it’s looks worse than it is. I just need to bandage it up.” I started to cry again when I looked at the bloodstains on the dress. There was no way I was going to be able to get those out. I would have to redo the entire section that was damaged now.
“That’s a drag about the dress,” he said as he looked over at it. “Will you be able to fix it?”
“Yeah,” I said, sniffling. “I just really didn’t need another emergency to have to fix right now.”
“Ah yeah, you mean about the changed runway show date. Well, between you and me, I think Arlo was acting like an ass,” Cai said.
That made me laugh a little.
“He didn’t have any right or any reason to take his frustrations over that shit out on you.” Cai was right; he didn’t.
I dug out a first aid kit from one of the workshop cabinets and tried clumsily to get the gauze out.
“Here,” Cai said. “Let me help you.”
“Why is it that you seem to keep coming to my rescue?” I asked him.
“You’re just lucky, I guess,” he winked.
I held my hand out, which still had blood dripping everywhere as he unwrapped his shirt from around it. Cai cut and wrapped the gauze around it and then taped it all up so it was secure and wouldn’t bleed on anything else.
“So, do you need to like wash that dress now or something?” he asked.
“No, washing it won’t do any good. I’m going to have to remake that portion of the dress.”
“So it won’t matter if the dress sits there for tonight then?” he asked.
I looked at him in confusion.
“Come out with me tonight,” he said. “You clearly could use a break.”
“I can’t,” I said with a smile at the invitation. “I have way too much work to do now to meet this new deadline.”
“Come on,” Cai persuaded. “Your hand is injured, and you can’t tell me that it doesn’t hurt. It’s late; you’re upset; you’re not going to be very productive tonight anyway, and you know it. Come out for a little bit and have some fun for a change. You need to give yourself a minute to relax.”
“I’m not sure,” I said as I mulled it over. “I’m not really a club-type person. I don’t even know what I would do there.”
Cai smiled. I think he knew that he had already got me to agree to it. “You’ll hang out with me there, that’s what you’ll do,” he said.
I was already so mad at Arlo and so upset about tonight that I decided to accept Cai’s invitation. He was right; I did deserve a night to myself. I’d been working round the clock and doing jobs that weren’t even supposed to be mine to do. And now all the dates and rules seemed to have changed. Tomorrow I would go back to working feverishly on everything, but tonight, my injured hand and I would go out and have some fun.
“Okay,” I said. As soon as the word came out of my mouth, Cai grabbed my good hand and his wallet, and we headed out.
When we got to the nightclub, it was packed. Cai put his arm around my shoulders as we walked in, and a ton of the people there seemed to know who he was.
“Do you come here often?” I asked him above the noise of the loud music and crowds of people.
“It’s one of the places I come to regularly,” he said. “Come on, let’s dance.”
“I don’t really know how to—”
Too late. Cai pulled me out onto the dance floor in the middle of the gyrating crowd before I could protest. Just as I thought that I would need a drink in order to be able to even attempt dancing, a cocktail waitress showed up with a tray full of rainbow-colored shots. Cai pulled a blue one off her tray and tossed it back and then a violet one, followed by an orange one.
“They say you’re supposed to go in order of the colors of the rainbow, but I like being different,” he said as he lifted his head up and laughed. “Go on, have a few.”
“When do you pay for them?” I asked the waitress.
“No, darling,” she said. “These are on the house. Drink up.”
I took a red one from her tray and drank it in one big gulp. It was actually delicious.
“Can’t just have one,” the waitress said.
I saw Cai working his way through the colors.
“What the hell,” I said as I grabbed a yellow one and opened my mouth.
By the time I had taken each color, I was heavily buzzed, and the deliciously sweet taste of flavored shots lined my lips. Cai grabbed me by my waist and pulled me into him as he danced against me. At first, I was a little worried that he was trying to molest me on the dance floor, but then I remembered that it was Cai, and Cai was just overly sexual. I didn’t even think he could help himself. Besides, it felt kind of good.
The entire club was like one big, wild party. We danced, we drank, we chatted about ridiculous and crazy things with friends of his. I couldn’t remember the last time I had laughed so hard. It was so much fun that I all but forgot about how miserable I had been earlier on in the evening. The alcohol was doing a great job of numbing my hand. When Cai and I got tired of dancing and our sweating bodies needed a break, we went to sit down on one of the comfortable loveseats in the corner of the bar area.
“This is so much fun,” I grinned at him as he plopped down next to me on the cushion and lifted my legs up to go over his lap. “Thank you for bringing me out here tonight.”
“You’re a natural here,” he smiled. “Like this is your element, and you just didn’t even know it. I’m glad you came out tonight with me; you needed it. I think you should come out with me more.”