Dream Chaser (Dream Team, #2)(9)

“I don’t have to act, Ang. I showed up. I got your kids to school. They aren’t even mine, and I helped them pack lunches and cleaned up their breakfast dishes and took them to school while you snoozed. So yeah, I don’t have a real hard time feeling I’m better than you.”

“I had a migraine.”

“You’re a goddamn liar.”

Her spine straightened and her voice was cold when she declared, “I think we’re done.”

“You think?” I asked and made a move to get out of there.

“Ryn,” she called.

I stopped at the door.

And I braced at the catty look on her face.

“Forget seeing my kids again,” she said.

My stomach plummeted.

“Ang—”

“I don’t think it’s appropriate, them hanging around an aunt who strips for a living.”

Two could hit below the goddamned belt.

“You know,” I said quietly, “a mystery is unraveling. Suddenly, with this new, awesome you that you’re showing me, I’m finding it not so difficult to believe my brother preferred to spend time at the bottom of a bottle.”

“Fuck you, Ryn,” she snapped.

“You’ve already fucked me, Angelica. Ongoing for five years. But if you don’t allow me to see those kids, knowing what they mean to me, what I mean to them, after all I’ve done for them, for you, you’ll be killing me. More, if you care, you’ll be taking something crucial from them. Think about that, if you can tear yourself away from thinking about nothing but you.”

So, apparently, Boone wasn’t the only one who could deliver an awesome parting shot.

Because with that, I turned and walked right out.

*



“Hey, Rinz, you okay?”

I looked to the side, at Hattie, my friend and fellow stripper, who was sitting three makeup stations down from mine.

Her attention on me.

I knew why she was asking.

One, I was not a girl who hid her mood.

I wasn’t bitchy or impolite, I just kept to myself.

But don’t get up in my face when I wasn’t feeling you, or my lock on those two things went out the window.

Two, I was putting on a thick coat of red lipstick rather than taking it off.

And Hattie noticed.

Our shift was over at Smithie’s. Last call was done and gone, and the bouncers were clearing the place out while the girls were in our dressing room, showering or wiping down and changing in order to go home.

I usually showered. I didn’t like getting oil all over my civvies.

Also, I endeavored total makeup removal with hydration at the end of a shift, because I was no raving beauty, but I wasn’t tough to look at and I wanted my skin to serve me well…and for a long time.

But I was not preparing to go home and crash.

I was preparing to go out and get laid.

I’d only told my closest friend and fellow stripper Pepper about some of my more interesting life pursuits. The rest of my posse, Hattie and Evie, didn’t know (I didn’t think). Though Lottie guessed, I knew, since she picked Boone for me.

And fortunately, Pepper wasn’t there, because she was the kind of chick who got up in my face about my moods.

Loved the woman, but that was annoying.

Hattie was soft-spoken, often just plain quiet, and with dudes (at least ones she was attracted to), she was shy.

Her breaking this ice was unusual.

“I’m good,” I said, turning back to the mirror, adding another coat of ruby red and then rubbing my lips together before I finished with a smack.

“You know, if you need to talk about anything, I’m a good listener,” Hattie said.

I looked to her again, understood the depth of her concern was what was making her crawl out of her protective shell to take a chance and broach things with me, pushed up to my feet and walked her way.

I then bent down to press my forehead to hers and pulled away, lying, “Honestly, I’m good. Really. Just some stuff on my mind. But it’ll sort itself out.”

If I blackmail my niece and nephew’s mother into allowing me to spend time with them by holding those photos over her head, I did not add.

I went back to my station, avoiding the eyes of the other gals with us, Dominique and Champagne, thankful Lottie’s set was over a while ago and she’d gone home, so she wasn’t around to interrogate me. Because she wasn’t one of those in-your-face sister friends. But she was the queen of our hive and she didn’t let shit slide for very long.

I tossed out a fake-breezy good-bye to everyone as I took off.

Smithie always had a bouncer waiting at the end of the hall to walk us to our cars.

That night, it was Dorian, and I realized I was really not keeping my shit tight when, after I opened my car door, he asked, “Things smooth?”

I looked up into his brown eyes in his handsome mocha face and lied, “Always.”

Dorian didn’t like my answer, but he’d been at Smithie’s for a while, was actually family (he was Smithie’s nephew), so he knew not to push it.

At least with me.

He shut my door after I folded in, slapped his hand on my roof, and shared he wasn’t all that thrilled with me blowing off his attempt to look after me by standing in the parking lot and watching me drive away with a look on his face so broody, I could see it in my rearview mirror.