Rock Chick Reawakening (Rock Chick 0.5)(43)

So I’d let my heart get in it. He’d put that effort in but everyone had to take responsibility for their lives and I’d let him in when I knew I shouldn’t. I knew he was too good for me. I knew it just wasn’t my lot to get my something special.

And although most of his behavior indicated he wanted to be in, there was that one important way it did not. The intimacy we would share to make all the rest of it concrete in my head. To understand irrevocably that he wanted all of me. Not to save me. Not to take care of me. Not to go that extra mile because he was the man he was to look after an employee, or just some woman that occupied a fringe of his life, who had the worst done to her that could happen.

No, not any of that.

To have me.

Daisy.

“Woman?”

I focused on Smithie to see he was very focused on me.

“You good?” he asked.

I nodded, throwing him a dazzling smile.

He wasn’t dazzled.

His eyes narrowed.

“Everything good with Sloan?” he pressed.

“Peachy,” I lied.

It was good. It was just that everything wasn’t good.

“You need me, I’m here,” he stated and my heart that had started to go cold again warmed up a bit. “And if you gotta talk about guy stuff, LaTeesha is there.”

I giggled a little bit and that made some of the concern drift out of Smithie’s face.

“I need you or LaTeesha, I know where to find you,” I told him.

He jerked up his chin.

Then he swung out.

I took another sip of my beer.

Then I turned to the mirror and picked up my teasing comb.

I was on in less than an hour. I needed to get ready.





I slid down the pole upright, only one arm and one leg wrapped around it. My other arm was thrown out, my other leg extended up, my back arched, my head hanging back, my hair dangling.

When I got close to the bottom, I arched back further, put one hand then the other to the stage, did a layout but ended it dropping and tucking into a backward, one and a half somersault.

I ended that on my back, my hips twisted to the side, knees bent, legs tucked tight.

I straightened my legs and swung them wide, up and over, letting them take my body with them until I was on my forearms and knees.

I stuck my booty toward the end of the stage and felt the bills stuffed into my strings.

I was singing with the song that was playing—Lil’ Kim, Christina Aguilera, Pink, and Mya’s version of “Lady Marmalade”—but I stopped just to give one of the men who’d tipped me an air kiss before I popped up, legs straight and wide, head hanging down between them.

I slapped my hands to the stage and lifted up, throwing my hair back in a dramatic toss, turning and strutting down the stage in time to the song, swaying my hips.

I made the end, turned, and swung my ass out, feeling the cash flutter at my feet. I stuck the tip of my finger between my glossed lips, looked over my shoulder, gave a wink to no one, then ran back up the stage.

I launched myself at a pole, swung around it with body out, legs wide, through the ending of the song, finishing it on the floor in a front split, bent over, bared tits pressed toward the stage, head thrown back, mouth open.

Before the lights went black, I slid my eyes sideways.

Beyond the men standing up and cheering, I saw Marcus sitting in his booth, eyes on me, forearm on the table, fingers wrapped around his forgotten bourbon.

His lips were curved up in a smile that through the dark, even when my heart was breaking, I felt in my coochie.

He disappeared as the lights went out.

The crowd shouted but I pushed up and quickly exited the stage.

Holding out my robe for me, Brady gave me the grin that he always gave me when I left the stage, not leering and creepy, just appreciative.

Once he helped me on with my robe, he followed me, close to my back, to the dressing room as the girls rushed by, Chardonnay and China giving me high fives as they went.

I hit the dressing room door and turned back to Brady.

“I’ll be out in about fifteen, sugar.”

“All right, Daisy.”

He opened the door for me, swept the room with his eyes, and closed the door after I went in.

I stood staring at the door, breathing heavy, and not just from the dance.

My eyes felt weirdly too dry.

And I was wondering how I was going to do what I needed to do next.

That was, get to Marcus’s place.

And then let him off the hook.

In other words…

I was going to break up with him.





In my ice-blue Juicy Couture tracksuit with its decal on the back of the hoodie that had peach and blue hibiscus flowers around a gold, interlaced “JC,” the same flowers on the front hip of the pants, I slid out of the cold Denver air into the warmth of the limo beside Marcus.

I did this grinning up at Brady.

“Thanks, darlin’.”

He grinned back. “Not a problem, Daisy.”

He closed the door and I tried to look at Marcus, but I had to do it quickly looking through Marcus.

What I saw was that he was still in his suit, like he was always still in his suit when he came to see me dance, except on the weekends. This telling me he didn’t waste time going home to change.

He came right to me.