6

 

One More Night

Demi

 

 

There’s a line Reeva won’t let customers cross. Usually it has to do with abuse, and for that we have several panic buttons in our respective bedrooms we can access at a moments notice. Any time we feel even slightly threatened, a man the size of a battleship will burst through the door and save us from our impending doom. I huff a tiny laugh as I stare at the ceiling. I wish life came with panic buttons—just one would suffice. I wish it were my father who would run through that door and rescue me from this bleak, wicked world. I swing my legs over the bed and open my laptop. According to Brookhurst Steel’s website, changes are afoot. I wonder exactly what those changes might be. I read an Internet rumor that suggested Nora is selling it to an overseas’ investor. If it’s true, I bet that investor is also coincidentally Nora, thus somehow barring me from ever retrieving a penny. Before my father died, he spoke of a trust fund. Nora was quick to tell him that trust funds were nothing more than a familial curse. I remember the sound of my father’s voice softening as he gave into her whim. He always caved so easily with Nora. And¸ then again, had he not caved so easily with me that day, he would still be alive. In the end, my father’s greatest fault was trying to please the women in his life. I wish he would have given us both the finger. He would die all over again if he could see the damage that Nora has done—that I’ve done all on my own. My thoughts drift to Gavin and how he feels dead to me, too. My heart mourns him more than I ever did my parents, and this embarrasses me. But Gavin isn’t dead. He’s in Loveless without me. And that, too, is my fault. It’s unbearable. Each day I have to force myself to clip Loveless out of my memory. If my life were detailed in a scrapbook, there would be a big hole where Loveless once stood—Gavin—Zoey, both gone with it.

There’s a light knock over the door before it cracks, and Eva waves her way in.

“I’ve got the night off.” She throws her arms up and does a little dance. “Throw the money in the air—catch the money. Throw the money in the air—catch the money,” she sings as her hands bounce up and down with her cheery commands.

“Is that how they taught you to dance in stripper school?” I roll over amused by her conversational salsa.

“No, they taught me to do this.” She jumps on the bed and straddles my knees. “You up for a night on the town?”

I consider this a moment. “Sounds like exactly what I need.” I pull myself free and slip into fresh jeans and a T-shirt—a pair of high-heel boots for the hell of it. I glance at myself sideways in the mirror and wonder what Gavin would think. I can practically feel his body against mine, his weight pressing against me, warm and reassuring. A very insane part of me still believes I could mean something to him. I’m sure after he pieced everything together, he wished we had never met—that I never existed. Unless, of course, he still hasn’t figured it out. That’s the most heartbreaking scenario of all. Fate knew that Gavin and I were a house of cards all along. It infuriates me that destiny let this happen. Destiny and I have never been friends, so I’m not too surprised by the turn of events. I don’t know what I ever did to the bitch, but it seems her karma skills are a bit off balance.

We head for the door, and Reeva flags us down. She’s working the front desk, and a small alarm goes off in me when I see her there. Stella or Jo usually man the fort. I haven’t seen Reeva take the helm since, well, ever. Reeva has girls to spare, so it makes both Eva and me pause.

“What gives?” Eva asks because we’re both thinking it.

“It’s a special night, ladies.” She looks my way as if it were special just for me. “I need all hands on deck.” My stomach turns. “A group of investment bankers are rolling through town. They’re paying top dollar.” Her lashes flutter as if there were a note of sarcasm in her words. “Tonight just might be your lucky night, Demi. One of them has agreed to pay twenty thousand dollars—your rules,” she says it stern. “Make an effort.”

“Oh, my God!” Eva gasps so loud three more girls join our circle.

“I want all of you in your rooms in the next hour. I need everyone on call and ready for tonight.” She’s still looking at me, prickling the hairs on the back of my neck because, for some reason, this feels personal. Reeva knew I needed fifteen thousand dollars. It would be just like her to pad the sum as a parting gift.

“Yes, ma’am!” Eva salutes her as we turn to leave with the rest of the girls.

“Demi?” Reeva calls my name, and it feels as if I’ve just stuck a fork in a light socket.

I turn to face her.

“I’m letting you keep the entire cut,” she whispers.

“Really? Thank you.” I lean in and offer a heartfelt hug. “Thank you so much.”

“Wear white.” Her eyes ride up and down my body. “I’ve billed you as a virgin—anyone who’s about to turn their first trick qualifies as one in my book.”

I give a wry smile.

It’s just one night, I tell myself as I follow Eva to the kitchen. But the heft of this “one night” feels as if every guy I’ve ever slept with has been layered on my shoulders. I can’t bear the guilt this night will bring. Cash in exchange for sex. Something like that stays with you, haunts you like a corpse tied to your back until the day you step into eternity. But, on the bright side, it’ll be more than enough money to take Nora and her wicked spawn to court.

One night.

My rules. I’m in control.

I let out a ragged breath. If I’m in control, why am I quivering like a “virgin” on prom night? This isn’t the prom, and I’m no virgin, but the last thing I want to do is cross that line with anyone.

If it were prom, I’d give anything for my date to be Gavin.

Tonight is going to suck, and I have Nora to thank for that.

 

 

“Why are we raiding the fridge again?” I ask Eva as she retrieves two spoons and a small jar from the cabinet. She’s wearing a single strand of pearls, and my eyes keep gravitating toward them. She’s worn them before. The beads are small and uneven like tiny little teeth. My mother’s pearls were iridescent cream, each bead as perfectly round as the next. I used to wear them all the time growing up. I didn’t know until later that she died wearing them. Her labor caught her off guard in the middle of a cocktail party, and out I came two hours later, but she was already gone. My father said she held me for a moment, then they plucked me from her arms and tried to save her life. I was afraid to wear the pearls after I found out—afraid they were cursed. I wanted to ask my father if he had to wash blood off them, but then they were probably clean to begin with.

“We’re not raiding the fridge, we’re raiding the cupboard.” Eva holds up a jar of something that looks like peanut butter, but it’s not. It’s called Cookie Butter. “A client introduced me to this in the most interesting way.”

“Stop.” My hands clamp over my ears. “I don’t want to hear it.” Every time Eva details her less-than-nutritious sex encounters, it ruins my appetite for weeks.

“Anyway”—she unscrews the lid as we take a seat at the table—“it’s become my comfort food.”

“Since when do you need comfort?” I take a spoon from her and dig out a scoop.

“Since I discovered Cookie Butter.”

I put the whole thing in my mouth and give a hard moan.

“God.” I groan even louder. “I think I just had a food-gasm.”

“Didn’t I tell you?” She mumbles through a mouthful. “This is better than anything that goes on upstairs.”

“For sure that’s true for me.” As far as the other girls go, I practically do qualify as a virgin.

“We should totally find the guy that invented this and offer him a freebie.”

“It might have been a woman.” And, sadly, Eva’s slightly sexist comment makes me ache for Gavin in the worst way.

“Taken care of. We’ve got Monica upstairs.” Her brows spike into her hairline. “So what about tonight?”

“Tonight is all about the future.” I say the words but don’t believe them. I can’t breathe at the thought of another man touching me. Gavin and I were going to change together, and here I am throwing it all away just like I threw us away. Thanks to Gavin, I no longer have the urge to fight for my place in this world by way of my vagina. He taught me everything I ever needed to know about love, even if I could never truly have it. I miss him. With him it was as if the world were startling awake after a long slumber, color appeared where only black and white existed before, but now I’ve receded, plunged into a dingy hell a thousand times darker than before.

“Tonight is anything you want it to be.” Eva bleeds a sad smile. “But mostly it’s your ticket out of here.”

“I’ve just been buying time.” Still trying to claw my way back up the cliff Nora tossed me off all those years ago. “What about you? Do you want out?”

“Only every other day.”

“You only work every other day.”

“I always knew you were smart.”

“I won’t forget that.”

“That you’re smart or that I finally want out?”

I lean forward and kiss her on the cheek. Eva has been closer than blood to me.

“Both. I’ll remember both.”

“We’d better get going. Your White Knight just might be on his way.”

“Pfft.” With my luck it’s going to be a Warren Senior knock-off save for a few extra chins.

What would I do if it were Gavin?

I shake the thought away. Gavin doesn’t have twenty thousand dollars to spare for a night of sin.

The things I would do if it were Gavin—makes my mouth water just thinking about it.