This club is literally the largest leap I’ve ever taken from my comfort zone. The tiny strip club at the edge of town in Resting, IN is a sorrier excuse for entertainment than any of us back home realized.

The A-List lives up to its name. It is swanky, sexy, and more risqué than HBO television. The dancers here are gorgeous—and I know I just got signed as a model at the most exclusive agency in the country and by all accounts am gorgeous too—but there is a huge gap between these women and me. They know the power they hold over the people here. Me? I hardly know the power I hold over myself.

Getting “discovered” was one of the most surreal moments of my life. One second, I was loading a bale of hay in the back of my daddy’s truck at the feed store in town, and the next, I was offered a life that I never imagined.

And now here I am... less comfortable in my own skin than ever before.

Definitely nowhere as comfortable as the women in G-strings and pasties, dancing in cages, setting the mood. I notice, though, after I’ve watched for a few hours, from my awkward perch on the velvet couch, that the dancers aren’t actually strippers or prostitutes. They stay in the cages, or on platforms, and do routines. The people who are partnering off, though, the women who let their dress hitch higher up their thighs, the men whose hands graze to indecent territory, are all guests of the club. This isn’t some illegal operation. This is a decadent bar that turns a blind eye—or even suggestive eye—to every act of debauchery.

It’s like a sanctuary for the rich and famous to get high on life without negative press—or really—without any press at all.

Colette and Gretchen have no problem finding dance partners, and then later, they full-on disappear to a back room. Not wanting to go where I’ve never gone before, I stay seated until Danny tells me he’s calling it a night himself and kisses me on the cheek. “You need to learn to have some fun, darling. These are the golden years,” he tells me, before walking down a hall that doesn’t look like an exit. Hmm. Maybe he isn’t going home after all... maybe Danny has his own reasons for coming here.

I check the clock on my phone. Eleven.

Plenty late, too late for me to start navigating the LA streets alone. And I’m not going to start knocking on doors, asking if my roommates want to call an Uber and get out of here.

I may be awkward, but not that awkward.

So instead, I walk to the bar and slide onto a stool, instantly meeting the eyes of the bartender.

One glance and I almost fall off my stool.

This is not an exaggeration.

When I ask for a drink menu he just frowns like I made a massive faux pas.

“Is this place always so weird?” I ask, trying to think of a classy drink to order. Over at Danny’s table, we’d been drinking champagne.

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” he tells me, with a smile that has me nearly falling off the stool for the second time. He isn’t just a bartender. He is an incredibly handsome one.

He has day-old stubble but I can still make out a dimple in his left cheek. His hair is brownish-blond and his eyes sparkling blue. He looks all-American, standing behind this bar, and I wonder how a man who looks as genuine as a cornfield could be working at a place like this.

“So,” he says. “You don’t know what you want?”

I bite my bottom lip, a move I always make out of nervousness. For the first time in my life, I see exactly what I want. Him. A man who’s nothing like the men I’ve met in this city with slicked-back hair and suit jackets, skinny jeans and who’ve probably spent more time and money on waxing their chests than I ever have on my eyebrows.

“To drink,” he clarifies. “We don’t have any menus, but I can make you anything you’d like.” His biceps flex in his simple gray shirt as he reaches for a maraschino cherry. “Something sweet?”

He dangles the cherry in front of me and I feel my face flush. I can’t tell if he is flirting or genuinely wants to know if I like the sugary flavor of the artificially flavored fruit.

“Sweet. And bubbly,” I answer honestly, before realizing my answer sounds more coquettish than I meant.

He raises an eyebrow. “How sweet?” he asks, reaching for a champagne flute.

I laugh through a smile. “Sweeter than I should.”

He shakes his head. “There are no ‘should’s allowed in this club. Here, you do what you want, when you want.” He grabs a cocktail shaker, adds ice, gin, and simple syrup. As he shakes it, my eyes roam over his body unabashedly. I’m hoping the dim lighting conceals some of my lust.

He makes my body feel things I never feel.

I blink, realizing this club really must have some sort of sex appeal pumping through the air vents because I feel all sorts of hot and bothered.

He hands me a flute, champagne mixed with yumminess, a cherry and twist of lemon finishing it off.

“For you,” he says.

“What is it?”

“A French 75. Classic,” he says. “But underrated.”

Now it’s my turn to raise an eyebrow.

“What are you trying to say?” I ask, relishing the way he leans over the bar closer to me. I breathe him in: polished wood and whiskey and nothing like the boys back home. No. This bartender is a real man... the kind I told my friends I wanted to meet.

The fact he isn’t an A-Lister puts me at ease.

“I’m trying to figure out why a beautiful woman like yourself is sitting at the bar when you could have any person you wanted all to yourself in a back room.”

I shake my head. “Not interested.”

“Come on,” the bartender teases. “No one ever comes to this club without the intention to have a fantasy realized.”

“It’s just not my thing.” Not wanting to tell this stranger that I’m a virgin, I embellish my truth. “I just got to LA. I need to put out some feelers before I’ll go to a dark room with someone I’ve never met before.”

“So, you’ll go to a room, eventually?” He raises a brow, he looks like he doesn’t believe me for a moment. “Yeah, right. You’re sitting on this stool, so uptight, I bet you’ve never let yourself go.”

I laugh. “You don’t know me. I can have a good time. It’s just… say I were to go to a room here—which I am not morally opposed to—it would just have to be with the right man. The right moment. And something that could last longer than a night.” I sip my cocktail, the bubbly champagne putting me more at ease with this man wearing a cocky smile.

He nods slowly. “The right man.”

“Mmmm,” I say, thinking he would be the sort of guy I could picture walking upstairs with, down a dark hall, into a private room. I could undress for him, letting him pull down my panties and take me in a way I’ve only ever imagined.

Completely.

There is something genuine about him, he’s a man who teases and laughs. He doesn’t try to put a hand on my leg or up my skirt like the men who were sitting beside me earlier when I was on a couch with my roommates. Men who saw me as a piece of meat… not a personality.

A person.

“So, what you’re saying is that you’re looking for a relationship,” the bartender asks, leaning over the bar, meeting my eyes. “Not a one-night stand?”

I feel my face flush, but he can’t notice, not in a club as dark as this.

The truth is… a one-night stand sounds… exotic. The kind of thing I imagined happening while here in LA, far from the farmlands of home.

“I’m guessing none of the guys here want a relationship,” I say, putting off his question.

The bartender shrugs. “You never know.”

“Are you in a relationship?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Naw, hard to find women in this town who are interested in more than a bank account.”

I furrow my brows. “Hard assessment of half the population.”

He just grins. “You haven’t been in LA very long.”

“What else do you know about me?”

“I know you’re one of Danny Bruneau’s new girls, from the middle of nowhere.”

I bristle at his words. “Maybe from the middle of nowhere, but I come from one of the greatest towns in America.”

“Oh yeah?” He’s mixing drinks for a waitress who’s put in an order with him, but he keeps on eye on me. “What makes it so great?”

“Everything.” I exhale, thinking about the smell of freshly mown grass, of rich soil and the sunshine on my face. “Where did you grow up?”

The moment I say it, I know I’ve touched on something personal. His shoulder’s tense. He places drinks on a tray with a clenched jaw. And when he turns back to me, he wears a sad smile.

“Not far from here, actually. Down the coast a bit.”

I offer a warm smile, and his face brightens. “So, you’re a Cali boy, born and raised. I wouldn’t have guessed it.”

“That’s because you’ve never seen me surf.”

I laugh, taking a final sip of my French 75. He makes me another one before I’ve set it down like he had it at the ready, like he knew what I wanted before I did.

“You should let me take you out to the waves someday,” he says.

The idea of spending a day with this guy makes my skin tingle in a good way. And I don’t even know his name. Before I can respond, however, I’m rudely pushed to one side by a large hand. The large hand is attached to a much larger man. He and his friends definitely do not look like they match the atmosphere of the rest of this club. They look like thugs with an agenda.

“How can I help you?” the bartender asks. His eyes flick over to the manager who let me in the club several hours ago, and I follow his gaze. Earlier I saw several bouncers, big guys with broad shoulders, on the perimeter of the place— now I see no one.

“The manager won’t tell us who the owner is, but I’m thinking, considering you’re the bartender here, you might know something.” The man reaches over the bar and takes a bottle of whiskey.

I may not be from a big city, but we have a bar back home. And Dusty who runs that place would never let another man do that to him. You don’t reach behind another man’s bar no matter how important you think you are.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” the bartender asks, gripping the man’s wrist and pushing him away. Guess this guy won’t let anyone get away with it either. The man squeezes his wrist, then steps back toward us, wanting more.

“You wanna tell us who owns this place?”

“Look, I’m just the bartender, and we don’t want any problems here, understood?”

“Too late for that,” the man says. “Tell me, what’s your name?”

The bartender looks over at me, and I swear he’s begging me to go, to leave this conversation before it gets more heated. But I can’t seem to budge from this barstool. Ironic, considering I already fell off it twice.

“I’m not telling you shit,” the bartender says coolly.

The man looks down at me as if seeing me for the first time. His eyes are red, beady, and his breath stale. “You wanna tell me who this man is?”

I shake my head, feeling the room get small around me.

“She’s not telling you a damn thing, and you best step away from her, understood?”

The man snorts. “Best step away? What is this? A made for TV movie? I’m not stepping off anything unless I want to.”

“It’s time for you to leave,” he says, his cool tone now ice.

“Or what? You’ll call the owner and tell him what went down?” The man’s lip curls and I realize that is exactly what he wants to have happen. Something to blow up so badly that the owner is called—the owner who the bartender clearly doesn’t want to be known. “Why don’t you go make that call, I’ll stay right here, with this fine piece of ass.”

The man snakes his arms around me, his hand reaching for my right breast. He paws at me like he’s a dog, and I recoil under his touch, trying to push him away as his mouth blows hot air against my ear.

Time seems to stop, my body tenses, and my deepest fear—the biggest reason I didn’t want to come to LA—surfaces.

Back home everyone knew my daddy, no one would touch me because they knew who had my back.

Here, I have no one.

And as this thug’s fingers graze my skin, I forget to breathe, forget where I am.

I just want to be home.

To be safe.

Away from this city I don’t understand.

My eyes go wide, searching for the bartender. And in a flash, he seems to understand where I’m coming from. Maybe it’s fear flashing in my eyes, or maybe he saw me as more than a pretty face. Maybe the bartender knew my being here was more than I wanted… and that this man touching me is more than I can take.

“Get away from her, now,” he shouts. My fingers clench the edge of the wooden bar as if holding on for dear life.

The thug seems to like the reaction he’s getting from the bartender and pulls me closer to him. I try to get away, but there’s nowhere to go. The thug has backup and I can’t help but wonder where the bouncers are? Did these gangsters pay them off?

“I told you to step away,” the bartender says again. When the man touching me doesn’t loosen his grip, the bartender seems to have had enough.

He leaps over the counter in one liquid motion, and my cocktail glass goes flying. His eyes dart around the men as if sizing them up. With his feet firmly planted on the ground, he wrestles the man off me and quickly throws a punch that catches the thug’s temple, causing him to fall to the floor in a daze.

The henchmen seem to snap to attention, and I look around wildly, wondering why this thug would have backup but this club wouldn’t?

The two men rush the bartender, and one kicks him to the floor. I scream for help as the seconds slow and punches are thrown the bartender’s way.

He shields his face, growling as he blocks the punches. He kicks hard, his foot colliding with one of his pursuers kneecaps, and the man screams in pain, falling to his knees.

Before any more punches can be thrown, the bouncers from the club arrive with the manager Jordan right behind them.

“What the hell?” the manager asks as the thugs are pushed around aggressively by the bouncers. “Are you alright?” he asks me.

My eyes though, fall to the bartender. His lip is bloody, and his eyes are cold. His anger isn’t concealed.

“Where the hell were you?” he asks the bouncers, which is the same question on my mind.

They grunt out an excuse, something about dealing with some other guys out front, but I hear the flimsy words as false. I don’t know anything about fancy nightclubs—but I do know a bit about bar fights—and the bouncers should have stepped in before any punches were thrown.

Other guests have gathered around for a better view, but the bartender shields his face and tries to step away without any attention on him. The bouncers leave with the thugs, and Jordan and the bartender have a heated conversation that I don’t pay attention to.

I’m trying to catch my breath and figure out how that went from 0 to 100 so damn fast.

“You okay?” the bartender asks returning to my side. He sets his hand on my shoulder and my body relaxes. He may not be my father, but he definitely had my back tonight.

And his hand is nothing like the man with the sweaty palms and bloodshot eyes.

No, this hand calms me, and with his gentle voice, there’s not a hard edge in sight. He’s just like my father in that sense. But he’s also a stranger, which only reminds me that I’m very far from home.

“I’m... I’m...” I blink back tears, tears that have no place here. All that really happened was a man getting aggressive and touching me... still—I hadn’t wanted him to. He didn’t have permission to wrap his arms around my waist or touch my breasts. He didn’t have permission to press his mouth to my ear. It doesn’t matter that we are in a club known for its debauchery, or that it didn’t last for very long—for a second there I felt totally vulnerable, and I hated it.

“Are you crying?” he asks.

“I need to go. Outside. Fresh air.” I’m talking like a robot, but I don’t care. I come from the middle of nowhere Indiana. A place where men know my name, and sure as hell know my daddy. No one touches me like that. No one.

“Here, let me help you,” he says, reaching for my hand, guiding me with his other hand on the small of my back.

And I let him.

I let this stranger take me out of this dark club that is everything I am not.