“Can’t you find another job?”
“I don’t want to,” she stresses, her eyes flashing. “I make a lot of money at the club. The tips make the long hours on my feet worth it.”
Of course her tips are good. She’s flashing her fucking tits at everyone all damn night. “But don’t you find it—degrading, walking around the club for hours, serving drinks with no shirt on?”
“No, not really. And I’m not ashamed of my body, if that’s what you’re asking,” she retorts.
“You shouldn’t be ashamed of your body. You have an amazing body. I just don’t like the idea of a bunch of perverts getting to see it. It’s the job itself that’s…shameful. The location. You know what I mean?” I can tell Jensen’s getting pissed. I’m making a mess of this, and that’s the last thing I want to do.
“So what you’re telling me is that you’re the one with the problem, not me.” She stands, and starts pacing the kitchen. “You’re ashamed of where I work, aren’t you?”
“It’s not something I want to tell my family,” I admit, feeling like a douche.
But come on. What guy wants to admit the girl he’s seeing works at a strip club? She doesn’t strip, but she might as well…
“Why not?”
“You know why not. It sounds bad, you working at a strip club. You don’t wear any clothes while you’re working,” I remind her.
“I’m topless. Big deal.” She shrugs, looking extra small wearing my hoodie. Extra vulnerable, though there’s fire in her eyes as she glares at me. “There are lots of topless beaches, you know. Being topless is the most natural thing in the world.”
“Yeah, well, not to me. Did you know Park kept telling me last night he thought you were awfully familiar? He swore he’d seen you somewhere before.”
Her eyes go wide and she drops her hands to her sides. “Do you think he’s seen me at City Lights?”
“Maybe.” Probably. “I told him you cleaned offices at night when he asked me if you worked anywhere.”
“So you lied for me.”
“I didn’t want to tell him you worked at City Lights. I would’ve never heard the end of it,” I explain, but she’s already halfway out of the kitchen by the time I finish speaking. I chase after her. “What’s wrong?”
“You’re just proving my point,” she calls as she heads for my bedroom. “You’re totally ashamed of me.”
“Not you, Jensen.” I grab her hand, stopping her in the hallway. “Your job. I’m not telling my family you work there.”
She jerks her arm out of my grip and enters my room, shedding the hoodie as she walks, leaving her completely naked. “If you don’t have the balls to tell them, Rhett, then that’s on you.”
I lean against the doorjamb and watch as she yanks on her panties and then pulls her sweater dress back on. She doesn’t even bother with the bra, and I can see her hard nipples through the fabric of her dress. Fuck me, she looks sexy as hell, her eyes blazing with anger, her cheeks flushed.
But if I try to touch her right now, she’d probably do something crazy, like try to hurt me. She looks that angry.
“Where are you going?” I ask as she shoves her bra in her purse.
“I’m leaving. I can’t be with you if you’re too ashamed of me and what I do.”
My mouth drops open in surprise and I enter the room, stopping directly in front of her. “Are you serious?”
She grabs an elastic out of her bag and gathers her hair in one hand, pulling it into a messy topknot. “I’m dead serious. Clearly this is an issue for you. And this is me. This is what I do, this is who I am.”
“Your job doesn’t define you,” I start, but she cuts me off with a look.
“Right now it does. Savannah is my best friend. My only friend. And she works there too. She’s not ashamed of what she does, and neither am I. I don’t want to—to spend time with you, Rhett, and always worry that you’re judging me over my job. I’ll always feel like a disappointment to you, and I’ve put up with enough of that in my life. I refuse to ever let it happen again,” she explains as she slips on her shoes. She grabs her purse, slings it over her shoulder and proceeds to walk straight out of my bedroom.
I step out of the way to let her pass by. “So you’re really leaving.”
“Yes,” she says over her shoulder as she marches toward the front door.
“How are you getting home?”