“Are you guys still being punished?” Despite what the Scorpion Kings want me to think, I’m not so naive as to realize that it isn’t normal for them to have so much practice for football. Their regular early morning sessions and afternoon sessions don’t always have the entire team in attendance. Half of the time, it’s just them and their coach.
Nolan’s “Don’t worry about it” is an answer in itself.
I blow out a breath. There’s no point in pushing if that’s all he’ll tell me. “What am I supposed to do in the meantime?” I ask. “I don’t want to hang out on the bleachers.”
“Lex has a spare key under the floorboard of the driver’s side,” Nolan tells me. “Why don’t you go hang at Cory’s? G can give us a ride over after we’re done here.”
Excitement pulses through me. “Sounds like a plan,” I agree readily, and after a short back and forth as we figure out timing, he hangs up.
The second the line to leave the student parking lot clears up, I’m out of the car and rounding to the driver’s side. I find the spare key exactly where Nolan had told me it’d be. With the key in hand, I clamber into the driver’s seat and adjust it to fit my height and not Lex’s ungodly size. I’m halfway to Cory’s Gym when another thought occurs to me and instead of turning in the direction of the usual run-down sector that I used to live in, I hang a left onto the highway that’ll take me out to Tangier.
Half an hour later and a noticeable difference in the gas gauge—why Lex’s SUV has to be such a gas guzzler, I will never understand—I pull into the familiar parking lot of The Dionysus Lounge. For a moment, I just sit there, watching the back door open and close as several hosts come in. It’s barely past four p.m., but it’s the perfect time to set up for when they open tonight. The bartenders are probably counting inventory and the hosts are likely putting their makeup on in the locker rooms.
My hands shake as I turn the car off and sit in silence for a bit longer. Eventually, a dark red Ford truck rattles into the parking lot with a guy in the driver’s seat. My eyes narrow at the rusted-out underside of the vehicle that I don’t recognize, not because it’s a piece of shit, but because of the passenger.
Mads doesn’t seem to notice me as she says something I can’t hear or read from her lips to the driver. The guy leans over, but she deftly sways away from him and her lips twist into a dark frown as she says something else. If her expression and stiff shoulders are anything to go by, she’s agitated.
A moment later and she shakes her head, popping the door open and hopping out with a bag over her shoulder. Before she even gets a chance to swing the door closed again, the driver guns it, causing a plume of gray smoke to cough out of his exhaust pipe as he wheels around the parking lot and leaves the same way he came in.
She enters the building while I remain where I am, curious and confused. It’s not the first time I’ve seen Mads with guys I don’t recognize. Then again, I’m sure there are things about her life she’d rather not share with anyone, just like there are things about mine that I also like to keep private.
When the sun starts to dip below the horizon, I realize I’m sitting out here contemplating what I’m going to say to Ma-Ri instead of actually doing it. I’m running out of time if I’m goingto meet the guys outside of Cory’s Gym at the time we agreed upon.
I remove the key from the ignition and pocket it as I jog towards the back door of the club building. The inside is as dark as I remember and the sound of instrumental music playing at the front of the house echoes back to me as the squeaking metal door swings shut behind me. The low thrum of conversation and music mask my footsteps—not that I’m trying to hide my entry or anything, but it doesn’t hurt—as I head towards the familiar door that leads into Ma-Ri’s office.
A quick knock and a push has the old woman’s head popping up from the papers collected on the surface of her desk as I step inside and shut the door at my back. Her almond-shaped eyes widen.
“Juliet?” She gets to her feet, but I hold my hand out, stopping her.
“Hey, no, don’t—uh—don’t get up. I’m not planning on staying long,” I say.
Ma-Ri eyes me warily but drops back into her chair. A beat of uncomfortable silence passes between us and she sighs, reaching for the long cigarette holder perched at the front of her desk. Balancing it between her fingers, she sticks a fresh cig into one end and lights it before sucking back a long drag. By the time she lets it out, I feel marginally less like a fish out of water and more in control of my own emotions.
I hadn’t expected to feel so lost stepping back into this building, but I do. There’s a strange sense of unease and displacement sitting in my chest at the reminder that I’d been on the backside of this establishment. I’d been not just allowed back here, but expected to know this place well. Now, I have to sneak in just to talk to the manager.
I take a seat in front of her desk. “I wanted to ask you something,” I confess.
Ma-Ri’s dark eyes remain fixed on me as she sucks back another lungful of cancer. Her red-painted lips don’t smudge and with her free hand, her equally red-painted nails tap evenly on the scarred surface of her desk.
“I figured you might,” she acknowledges, “but I thought you’d be smart enough not to come here and ask.”
“Consider me dumb as fuck then,” I say snidely before shaking my head. “No, I’m sorry—that was rude. I just…” Slow. Calm. Breathe in. Breathe out. I count backwards from ten and when I reach five, I let it go and focus on the woman in front of me.
“Why did you fire me, Ma-Ri?”
“I—”
“The real reason,” I snap, narrowing my eyes before she can even think to offer me another lie. I’ve been lied to so much in my life that I’m fucking over it. If one more person that I’m trying to trust lies to me again, I don’t know what I’ll do, but I fear it might send me over the edge. The place on the other side of that edge is… well… dark, and I don’t know what going there will mean for me. All I know is it won’t be good and there may not be any coming back from it.
Ma-Ri’s cloud of cigarette smoke drifts over my head. She’s silent for a long moment and then, finally, as she ashes the end of her cig into a glass tray, she speaks. “The answer to your question won’t change anything.”
“Maybe not,” I agree. “But I still want to know.”
“Even if it puts you in danger?” She arches a brow and I can’t help but laugh.
“I’m already in danger,” I tell her. Danger is no longer something to even be in for me, but a way of life. Danger is my existence and there is no getting away from it.
“True.” Ma-Ri dips her head in acknowledgement of my words before leaning forward. “Fine, if you want to know whyI let you go, it’s because your presence upset a very integral person in my world.”
