Chapter Two
“You’re late,” Nikki said, as I walked into the back of the club.
“I know. Mom didn’t get home until late, and I couldn’t leave Mikey alone.” I trailed off. Nikki nodded and gave me a sympathetic look. We’d been friends since middle school, and she knew all of my secrets, including how ill my brother had been.
“Johnny isn’t going to be happy,” she said, as she applied her makeup. “Apparently, we are down a ton of girls tonight.”
I raised a brow in surprise. Red’s was a premiere club. The clientele was wealthy, so even us bottle girls got paid incredibly well. I released a heavy sigh. I’d been late multiple times in the last month either because my brother had been in the hospital, or because, my mother lacked the ability to look at a watch properly.
“I’ll talk to him,” I muttered. I dropped my bag at Nikki’s station. For a minute, I watched her in the mirror, taken aback by her outfit. Nikki was a dancer at the club and had been for several years. Tonight, she was wearing pasties and lacey bootie short, which showed off her long, lean legs.
Nikki had always been lean and lovely. Her long red hair made her stand out against the other bottle blondes in the room. Even when we were kids, Nikki was always turning heads.
“You should dance tonight,” Nikki told me as our eyes locked in the mirror.
“I don’t know,” I said.
When I came to the club, things hadn’t been so bad. I had just finished high school, and my waitressing job at a local diner wasn’t bringing in the kind of money I needed. Nikki had brought me on, and I’d been hired as a bottle girl.
Things were worse now, and stripping would double my nightly salary. Maybe even triple it.
Nikki walked behind me. I knew she was offering me moral support, but a part of me wished she would go back to getting ready. Nikki was always cool and collected. We had grown up in the same neighborhood, but she had never allowed it to define her in the same way I had.
“When do you go on?” I asked, as we walked backstage towards the manager’s office.
“After Lisa.”
I nodded. We were outside of Johnny’s door, and I knew that I would have to gather up the courage to knock. Johnny was an asshole, but he controlled the girls. We all had to go through him to get our jobs. Someof the girls had Johnny by the balls. He needed us just as much as we needed him. I was different though. With only a high school diploma in hand, I knew that I would never be able to get a job that paid nearly as well. Johnny knew that, and he exploited it at every turn.
“It’s going to be fine.” Nikki placed a warm hand on my shoulder. “If Johnny gives you shit, just tell him you'll dance. He’s been dying to get you on stage since the moment you walked in here.”
I blushed. Johnny had been after me to dance, which should have been a compliment. Red’s girls were the most desired in all the city. But the way he looked at me made me uncomfortable, and the idea of being ogled like that made my stomach turn.
Sighing, I lifted my hand and knocked on the door softly.
“What?” Johnny yelled out.
I squared my shoulders and pushed the door open.
Johnny’s dark eyes looked me up and down, and I fought the urge to place my hands over my chest. He looked back down towards his beck. “Where the fuck have you been?” he asked, not bothering this time to look up from whatever papers were on his desk.
“I’m sorry,” I stuttered out. “I had a family thing.”
Johnny didn’t bother lifting his eyes from his paper. “You can pick up your last check at the end of the week.”
I frowned. “I’m sorry,” I told him.
He moaned in the back of his throat, but said nothing else.
I didn’t move. I couldn’t. If I walked out of the door, then I wouldn’t be able to get back inside, and that meant that I wouldn’t have a job, which just wasn’t an option. So instead, I swallowed back my pride and walked forward slightly.
“I was hoping that you would reconsider that,” I said. I played with the fringe on my jacket nervously.
“Too bad,” Johnny said. “I need someone reliable.”
“I am reliable. I’ve always shown up for my shifts.”
Johnny snorted. This time he did put down his papers and trained his attention directly on me. Johnny might be a slimeball, but he was able to clean up nicely. Tonight, he was wearing a navy suit and a black shirt that was unbuttoned at the top. It was definitely discounted, but I knew that it cost more than anything that I owned.