She walked out, giving instructions to the guy who’d ignored me earlier. He was all red as he put ointment on me and wrapped it. I didn’t care; I was more excited about making a friend on my own.
Lennox came down a few minutes later, and we headed over to the Wild Horse Saloon. When we walked in, I saw Damon was at the bar, and I rolled my eyes. We’d gotten into it the other day over me being a manager. It was my job to make the schedule now, and he didn’t like one of the days I’d given him, stating it was an agreement with the last manager he had that day off. He refused to tell me why, so I said he’d have to work it.
He called in sick, pissing me off even more. We were now in a brutal battle for dominance. He pushed my buttons, and I refused to give in. It was only a matter of time now before one of us folded. I was holding out that it would be him.
“Who’s that?” Lennox asked, noticing the hate-filled eye war we had going on.
“Damon. The bane of my existence.”
“Hmm, sounds like there’s more to this story.”
“Nope. Come on, we can go to a different bartender.” I pulled her along, ignoring the hot guy at the other end. Tonight was about new friendships, and I was here to dance. Bad boys and their attitudes could stay far away.
* * *
“Okay, this has been a blast. We must do it again,” Lennox said as she downed a bottle of water a few hours later.
“Yay! I feel like we’re going to be best friends. Give me your number, and we can hang out more.”
“Sure.” She handed me her phone, and I put in my number, texting myself.
“Come on, I’ll walk you home. You’re on my way. We actually live pretty close to one another.”
“Really? That’s awesome. Thanks for talking me into this. I didn’t realize how much I needed to get out of my comfort zone. Oh, hey, look, there’s Thane. Come and say hello.”
We walked over to a tall guy with blonde hair. He was model attractive, but something about him didn’t do it for me. He hugged Lennox with a possessive glint in his eye, and I wondered if she knew he harbored feelings for her. Interesting new development.
“Thane, this is my new bestie, Darcie.”
“Howdy.” I waved, smiling friendly.
“Nice to meet you,” he said quickly, dropping his eyes back to Lennox. “Can I walk you home?”
“Oh,” she looked at me, and I waved her off.
“It’s fine. I can make it to my place. I do this trek almost every night. But text me, and we’ll grab lunch.”
She pulled me in for a hug, squeezing me tight. Lennox was a great hugger. “Don’t forget to take care of your tattoo.” She pulled back, winking.
“Right. Laters.”
They walked off toward the tattoo parlor. I didn’t want it to seem like I was following them since I had to go in the same direction, so I stood in line to grab some food to take back. Once I had it with me, I started on my journey home, realizing how lonely it felt now. I’d done this a million times, but for some reason, it felt different tonight.
Pulling out my phone, I scrolled through messages. Candi had never showed up, and I wondered what had happened. When I saw the missed messages, my stomach dropped.
Candi: Shit. Darcie. Something terrible is going down. You haven’t had any personal relationships, right?
Candi: That bitch Lucinda busted me, and now they’re going through the whole server.
Candi: I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that my new sugar daddy was from the site. I thought it would keep you safe.
Candi: I’m locked out. What am I going to do? They’ve disabled my account and are holding my funds for this month. I have rent to pay. John’s not going to be happy about this. I’m spiraling.
Candi: Darcie! Call me back asap. I might have a solution.
I hit call on her contact, but it went to voicemail. “Hey, it’s me. Call me back.”
I clicked on my email and saw I had new messages from the server. Shit! Looked like they’d locked me out, too. But I thought I’d been careful? I’d never met anyone outside of the chat rooms. Yes, things had gotten personal, but I didn’t know that was wrong.