The two scumbags forgotten, I find myself storming the stage, throwing patrons out of the way left and right. There are screams and shouts, fists fly, but I ignore them all. I’ll kill everyone in this place if necessary to get to her, to cover up the body that was made for me, for my eyes, for my touch.
I hear a shout as the guy that approached me earlier runs her way. “Al, get back, this way, quick!”
I growl at him but it’s no use. He was closer to her and he reaches her long before I can, pulling her down off the stage.
Al.
Alice.
Of course. It starts to make sense in my mind. Fuck, why didn’t she tell me? So she was the one selling the brooch? If I’d known I would have given her the asking price. Fuck, I would have given her the world.
“Roan?” Her eyes go wide as she realizes it’s me, even as she’s pulled back down off the other side of the stage, lowered to the floor. I hate that the big guy, who’s clearly a bouncer, is touching her, but perversely I appreciate his care but he needs to get his fucking hands off her. “Roan, what are you doing here? I’m sorry! I’m… Please don’t look at me like that!”
“Hey, dick head.” I hear the voice from the side of me just before something very hard and heavy strikes the side of my head and I see stars, but it was only a glancing blow. The guy clearly never played pro.
I grab the baseball bat out of his hands and raise it, and he sensibly steps back out of my field. It’s the fucker with the white eye, and his lips are twisted in a snarl even as he retreats into the chaos I see all around us.
“She’s mine, you dick,” he says. “All of them are my girls. You want private time with her, you pay like everyone else.”
I growl and step forward before he can react, grabbing his shirt collar and pulling him to me. “The fuck she is.”
My punch lands square in the middle of his face, and blood flies out to the side. I release him, but land a blow to his stomach, making him crumple forward, right where my knee happens to be.
As he falls back, I turn, forgetting all about him, scanning the room for Alice, but she’s nowhere to be seen. I know where she was though, and the only place she could have vanished to is a side entrance with a dirty emergency exit sign hung above it.
I’m outside a moment later, just in time to see Alice’s pea coat and her bare legs disappearing into the back of a beat-up old Honda. I see a woman’s face in the driver’s seat but she also sees me and I hear the engine rev.
Oh, hell, no. I’m not going to let her disappear on me.
I’m sure she expects me to get out of the way as she starts the car moving forward, but instead I do the exact opposite, running towards them. There’s a squeal of brakes and the car stops just in front of my legs, and I pound on the hood putting two distinct dents in the metal as pain bolts up my arms.
“Alice, talk to me!”
“Leave me alone!”
“No. Get out here. Right fucking now.”
I’m not fucking playing, and luckily for her she gets it. The back door of the car opens just as the bouncer is heading my way, but she waves him off. I flash him a deadly stare as she steps out, her face runny with tears and smeared make-up.
“Why did you lie?” I demand, not sure if I’m angrier about her lying to me or about her letting those assholes see her in that skimpy costume. “After everything we said about telling the truth. After you promised. What the fuck, Alice?”
“What the fuck? Really? What are you doing in a strip club? Business meeting my ass.”
“You could have told me.” I seethe ignoring her anger with me.
“You think I like working here? I don’t. But some people don’t have big houses with swimming pools and fancy cars and trust funds to buy the moon. Things are easy for you. You don’t have to wonder about how the next bill is going to get paid.”
“Neither do you!” I shout, my temples pounding. “I’ll give you whatever you need!”
A humorless chuckle chokes from her throat. “You have no idea what my world is like. I’ll be on my way, you can go back in and guy whatever you’d like. Or whoever you’d like .”
“Show me,” I tell her.
“Show you what?” Anger narrows her eyes.
“Show me what your world is like. Tell me what the problems are. We’ll solve them together because that’s who we are from now on. A team. A couple. You and me. I don’t care if we have to sleep on a twin bed in a cabin the size of a garden shed, so long as it’s you, me and Linnie together, that’s all I need. You want me to give all my money to charity? Just say the word. We’ll struggle, if that’s what you want, but I will always provide for you because that’s who I am.”