But why did the thought feel so disappointing?
“So, where are you going?” Gavin asked.
His voice pulled me out of my jumbled thoughts. “Just out with a friend. Girl’s night out.”
“Okay.” And just like that, his attention was diverted back to his game once again.
I felt glad that he dropped the subject so easily. I knew I didn’t have the most conventional relationship with his father, but I had been shocked by his question. It hadn’t even occurred to me that Gavin might think something would happen between the two of us.
I pressed a kiss to the top of his head and stood, making my way into the bedroom. I quickly ordered Gavin a pizza from the restaurant’s website and started combing through my closet. To say I was used to revealing clothes would be an understatement, considering what my job was, but the dress I picked out was one of my more modest pieces of clothing. Falling to mid-thigh, it was burgundy with half-sleeves and a thin black belt. I’d become used to wearing high heels, since it was basically a job requirement at the strip club, so I slipped on a pair black boots with a pointy heel.
I might have been a little too dressed up for going to some random bar, but I didn’t care. It felt good to look in the mirror and see myself like this. Leaving my blonde hair down, I had just put on some eyeliner when I heard Samantha’s voice call out from the living room.
“I’m here!”
I walked out of the bedroom to see her already setting her schoolwork up at the same spot where I’d been sitting all afternoon.
“Don’t you look nice?” Samantha commented with a grin as she unloaded three thick books from her backpack. Her laptop was already open, as well as a legal pad filled with her cursive writing.
“Big night planned?” I asked with an arched eyebrow. I would have felt guilty for not inviting her out, but I knew Samantha pretty well by now, and I knew she was hyper-focused on school. She had big goals and refused to let anything stand in the way of accomplishing them. She was on the Dean’s list, and I had no doubt she would have declined an invitation out to a bar. Besides, I needed someone to watch Gavin.
Samantha shrugged. “You know how it is. Schoolwork is increasing as the semester goes on, and the closer I get to earning that engineering degree, the harder the work is. It doesn’t exactly help that I’ve had a little trouble concentrating lately.”
“Well, I don’t know how you do it. Your dedication to school is impressive. I just spent a few hours hunched over in front of my computer screen, and I felt like I was going to pull my hair out.”
A knock came at the door before she could respond, and I pulled it open.
Angel stood there. Her dress stage-worthy, barely covering her behind and clinging to her curves like a second skin. Her red hair was piled high at the top of her head with loose tendrils hanging on each side of her face. “Cute place,” she said, stepping inside and glancing around. “It’s cozy.”
I felt pretty sure she was trying to say it was small without being rude, but I ignored it. Crossing the living room to Gavin, I gave him a quick hug. “You can play for another half an hour, but after that, I want you to turn off the game.”
Gavin nodded.
I turned to Samantha. “Pizza will be here soon. I already paid for it. I won’t be out too late.”
“Just have fun,” Samantha said, already sitting cross-legged on my kitchen chair and flipping through one of her textbooks. “We’ll be fine here.”
I felt a flicker of guilt I couldn’t completely ignore, born from the high expectations that society placed on mothers. For just a few seconds, I wondered if I was being too selfish by going out, leaving my son at home.
But I forced those thoughts to the back of my mind. I was still a person, after all. My need for personal time didn’t just disappear when Gavin was born. He wasn’t a baby anymore, far from it, and I shouldn’t deny myself the chance to unwind because of a false sense of wrongdoing.
So, Angel and I left the apartment, getting into her little red convertible. I couldn’t help wondering how she could afford it. I knew she’d done what Duane demanded so she could get a spot on the center stage, so she probably made more money at the club than I did, but I didn’t think it would be enough to allow her to buy a vehicle like this.
“Where are we going, anyway?” I asked.
She fired up the car and pulled away from the curb. “This bar I heard about on the north side of town. Wheelz.”
“Wheelz?” I repeated. “That’s a weird name for a bar.”
“Not a biker bar. It’s the hangout for a motorcycle club called Rebel Saints.”
Oh, Smoke’s club. He hadn’t told me much about them, but I remembered seeing the patch on the back of his cut. I wasn’t sure it was a good idea to go there; things were still so uncertain between the two of us. Would he mind seeing me there? Would he be annoyed at me encroaching on his territory?
It’s just a bar, you’re not breaking into the man’s home.
Even if I didn’t want to go, I wasn’t sure how I would explain it to Angel. She didn’t have kids. She had no awkward relationship in her life like the one I had with Smoke. She wouldn’t understand my hesitation.
So, I kept my mouth shut as she drove, my hair whipping around in the wind created by the top of the convertible being down. The sun had set, but it wasn’t cold. A humid warmth lingered in the air that always seemed to be present here. Being from the midwest, I was still getting used to it. Back when I lived in Holbeck before, I hadn’t been here long enough to adjust to the different climate.