1
Olivia
Gravel scrapes the soles of my Louboutins as I trip across the parking lot in the dark.
“The shoes are fucking hot,” Kat says.
“They’re not rated for off-roading.” I send up a silent prayer for forgiveness as I dodge the empty beer cans and my roommate laughs.
The sign on the single-floor building in the middle of nowhere says “Velvet” in pink neon. The glow lingers in the corner of my vision when my friends line up at the bouncer, whose eyes have been on us since I was halfway across the lot.
He glances at Kat’s ID, then Jules’, but frowns at mine. “I don’t think so, sweetheart. You’re drunk.”
“I’m the designated driver. I haven’t had anything harder than soda tonight. You try walking across gravel in these.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so.”
“I’m better behaved than anyone in there,” I insist. “Not my fault these shoes were designed with smooth surfaces in mind.”
He stares at me like I’m nuts. We’re running low on options.
I look around, assuring myself there’s no one else watching. “Fine. Would a drunk person be able to do this?”
I reach for my shoe and bend my knee, pulling my foot up to the apex of my thighs. Then I take a breath and lift it higher, straightening my leg so it’s extended alongside my upper body.
His eyes round. He might’ve snuck a peek or two at the strippers who work the stage, but I’ve got moves he’s never seen.
Releasing my leg, I grab my ID out of his hands and follow my friends inside.
“That was badass. Where have you been hiding that?” Kat shouts over the music as we head inside.
“Don’t worry about it,” I toss back. “Tonight’s about celebrating your birthday and living life like a normal”—a glance back at the bouncer, grateful he didn’t notice or care that our licenses were fake—“twenty-one-year-old.”
I reach into my bag to pull out the Queen B tiara, and my roommate’s eyes light up.
Kat’s been bugging us for the past year to visit a part of town that’s the opposite of the one starring in the glossy university recruitment brochures.
My corporate father and socialite mother would lose their shit if they saw me in a place like this. But we’re here for Kat, and as much as this isn’t a place I’d choose to spend my night, it’s not about me. It’s about friendship.
Kat sets the crown in her dark hair and tugs us toward the bar. There’s no point trying to score a booth around the perimeter since Velvet is full. We wedge in, Jules calling for vodka sodas for her and Kat, and a Diet Coke for me.
On stage is a woman who looks too beautiful for this place. She winds around the pole, shifting toward the edge of the stage to drop her hips into a seductive slide.
A piece of hair escapes my tidy top knot to tickle my neck, but as I reach up to tuck it back in, I realize there’s no runaway hair. Only a bead of sweat.
When the dancer finishes, a woman dressed in a black T-shirt with the Velvet logo claims the mic.
“Shh, this is it,” Kat breathes, and I arch a brow.
“This is what?”
“Amateur night!”
“You’re not going up,” I say, horrified.
Kat grins. “The prize is five hundred bucks. That’s a hell of a birthday present.”
She brushes off her hands and joins the throng of girls by the register, returning a few minutes later with a white “Hello my name is” sticker that says “Cherry” stuck to her low-cut black tank.
“Subtle,” Jules deadpans.
I turn back toward the stage but end up doing a double take on the way.
Down at the other end of the bar is a man who’s so beautiful I nearly swallow my straw. His navy dress shirt is rolled to the elbows and tugs over broad shoulders as he reaches for his drink. Dark hair extends past his jaw. Add that to the straight nose, firm mouth, eyes that scan the room…
Those eyes stop when they meet mine.
It’s electric, the connection. I swear he looks into me, through me. Fire grabs my core, making my breasts tighten.
“Liv. You okay?” Jules asks.
I blink, ripping my gaze from his. “Yeah.”
I shake off the unsettling attraction.
He’s the opposite of my boyfriend, Adam, who’s blond and athletic with an easy smile. He’s from the right family, has the right hair, and is point guard on the basketball team.
“No fucking way.”
Kat’s pointing at a booth in the back, where a couple of guys from the basketball team sit, plus one I don’t want to recognize.
Adam is sprawled across the bench with a half-naked woman bent over him, her boobs swinging dangerously close to his face.
My throat tightens as I wait for him to push her away.
Instead, he shifts back, grinning, and invites her closer.
“Unbelievable,” Kat bites out. “I’m going to fuck him up.”
Jules squeezes my shoulder, and I shake her off.
“Don’t, Kat. It’s probably some basketball team thing.”
I turn toward the front, ignoring the back of the room and the burning behind my eyes.
What I didn’t tell Kat or Jules to avoid spoiling the birthday vibes is that when I showed up at his house yesterday morning, a girl was slipping out of his room.
Something in my chest popped like the cork on bad champagne.
I told myself if I dated Adam, at least one part of my life would go as planned. After twelve years of wasted ballet, I couldn’t be a dancer like my mother, but I had him.
We’ve invested three years. We’ll figure this out. Maybe he screwed up, but he loves me.
I wonder if love feels the same for him as it does for me. If it’s that dull reassurance I dig my fingers into when I’m feeling lost or if it’s something else entirely.
The MC calls the contestants to the stage to explain the rules. “Each contestant has two minutes to dance, then the crowd will vote. First up is Brandy.”
The first girl stands up as they play “Pour Some Sugar on Me.”
She gyrates her hips, swinging around the pole, clearly drunk.
The next is a little better but not much.
At one point, a woman in the crowd yells, “Camera!” and security descends on a guy filming from inside his jacket with a phone to drag him out of the club.
It’s comforting to know they enforce the “no videotaping” rule. The idea of dancing here on a dare and a few shots of vodka coming back to haunt you in perpetuity thanks to the internet is horrifying.
“Cherry!” the MC calls after a few minutes.
“That’s you, Kat,” Jules says, jarring me out of my numbness.
She gets up from the bar but trips. “Whoa. I can’t, guys.”
“You didn’t pre-game that hard,” Jules points out.
But Kat holds up a flask inside her bag I haven’t seen before.
Shit.
Jules motions to the bartender for a water, but movement catches my eye. In the back, the woman dancing on Adam takes his hand, and he follows her with a shit-eating grin toward a doorway with a beaded curtain.
Bile rises up my throat.
I slept with Adam three months into my senior year of high school, after his parents’ party for winter break.