Liberty Begins (The Liberty Series) (3 page)

The smiling didn’t last long. I had just sat down with some water and my latest beaten-up paperback when Alex walked up. “You know, you are the only stripper I’ve known who checks out books from the library,” he said, but it was perfunctory and I could tell he was no longer in the mood to chit chat. He ran his hand through his over-gelled hair; he would have to go wash his hands soon and leave me alone. I hoped. Instead, he just stood there and took a deep breath.

“I need a favor,” he said and smiled a big, fake smile. My stomach dropped. I was not into giving favors. Favors were free for the recipient, but they always cost the giver something. In Vegas, it was usually your dignity. I was hanging on real tight to the little bit I had left.

“What?” I asked, impatiently, all traces of my fake and real smile gone. I couldn’t afford to be unpleasant to Alex, but I couldn’t afford to be taken advantage of, either.

“I have a very important client who wants to meet you,” he said.

I closed my book and looked at him levelly. “Meet?” I asked. Meeting was one thing. Something else was, well, something else.

“Just a drink. I told him you were unavailable for more,” he said, and I relaxed. Alex really wasn’t as bad as some of the other girls said. He did bad things on occasion, but I bet he felt guilty about them. Sometimes.

“Do I have to pay for my drink?” I asked. An eighteen dollar gin and tonic was not in my budget. Eighteen dollars bought a lot of macaroni and cheese.

“He’s buying your drink — he’s a gentleman!” he said. “White wine okay? Let’s stay away from hard liquor ... I’ve never seen you drink. I don’t want you getting crazy!” he said, and I could tell he was relieved that I seemed cooperative. “And if you’re so worried about paying for your drink, you should think about picking up some extracurricular activities,” he said, and wagged his eyebrows at me again.

“I’ll have a drink with him and that’s it,” I said, firmly. Maybe some wine would be nice. A lot of the other girls smuggled in drinks to have before, during and after they went out on the floor, to calm their nerves. None of us could afford the steep prices at the bar and we only got that one free drink when we were done. That was, unless the customers were plying us with shots — which most of the girls thoroughly enjoyed. I had made a deal with the bartenders to send me Sprite and cranberry in a shot glass if someone wanted to buy me a drink. That way, the bartender got a free drink, the customer was happy, and I didn’t look like the total nerd I was.

“Who is this guy?” I asked. I’d never had Alex ask me to do something like this before.

“He’s a friend of Cruz’s,” he said. Cruz was one of the owners, but I’d never met him. I heard he lived in Brazil most of the time. “He’s a gentleman, I swear!”

“A gentleman in a gentleman’s club? No way,” I said, and my real smile was back. The irony of that was at least funny to me. Alex laughed a little and I relaxed. Sometimes it was okay to actually talk to someone, even though he’d grabbed my ass not that long ago. I was over it, so I would go talk to this guy. I just hoped the gentleman would be a gentleman.

I told Alex I would meet him out there. I buttoned up my shirt a bit, put on some more lip gloss, and ran my hands down my hair. I was always relieved to see my reflection in the mirror, and it wasn’t because I liked the way I looked. I had grown up feeling that way, relying on my own eyes steadily looking back at me. Things could be crazy around me, people I loved could be falling apart, but I was the same. So now I looked at myself for a second more and took a deep breath, telling myself to be nice, even though I knew I wouldn’t be
too
nice. That comforted me.
I could trust myself, even though I couldn’t trust anyone else.

I went out to the floor and tried to focus on Alex in the distance. He was talking to the same group of men from when I was dancing. I kept my eyes on them and tried to avoid the comments from the baseball-hat wearing crowd as I waded through them; they wanted a lap dance, they wanted to buy me a drink, they wanted a one-on-one. There were some grabbers, but I knew the bouncers were watching out for all of us, so I just kept moving. No one got a good grip, and I wouldn’t look at them. I didn’t smile. I thought about Tracey and I felt guilty. I was so high and mighty now, but I knew it wouldn’t last. Tracey had been twenty-one once, too, and now she had two kids, a little cellulite, and a boyfriend with a coke habit. That was gonna be me if I didn’t watch it.

That was gonna be me.
That’s what I was thinking when I saw him. I knew who the very important client was before Alex had a chance to introduce us. He was tall, maybe six-two, with slightly shaggy brown hair and a creased face. He was old enough to be my youngish father, probably mid-forties. He was wearing a suit and tie. I had seen a lot of businessmen in Vegas; I could tell he was not in photocopier resales or insurance. There was something about the cut of his suit and his beautiful tie that conveyed money and sophistication. Because I had neither, I couldn’t put my finger on it. But he didn’t have the look of a drug dealer or some sort of thug, like so many of the men did here. There was no jewelry, no spray tan, no hair gel. He just looked clean and healthy, like he took vitamins and smelled good without cologne.

He turned towards me and smiled. And my heart stopped.

Okay, so this had never happened to me before. I thought I might be having a stroke. Not once,
in what felt like my long twenty one years, had a man’s face affected me like that. I paused for a second — I took a stuttering step, actually — but then I kept walking toward their little group. I pulled myself up to my full height and reminded myself to close my mouth so I wasn’t gaping. Reminded myself to breathe. He kept smiling at me.
Holy hotness.
I hoped my heart wasn’t malfunctioning and that I didn’t trip in these dumb heels.
What the hell is my problem?

“Here she is!” said Alex loudly, over the music. He handed me my glass of wine and I clutched it gratefully. “Liberty, this is John. John, this is Liberty.” I held out my hand to shake his.

“Liberty?” he asked, and shook my hand firmly. His hand was large and strong and I am really glad that he has a firm grip so my hand can’t shake while he’s holding it. I watch out of the corner of my eye as Alex slips away and the rest of John’s group back up imperceptibly, giving us space. “Is that your stage name?”

I shake my head, “It’s my given name,” I say, and I can barely hear myself. My throat feels tight. I realize I’m still clutching my wine in my other hand and I take a sip. It is cold and warm at the same time, and I can feel some warmth blossom in my chest and my heart start beating again. Erratically. John is incredibly handsome up close. He’s Han Solo handsome, as my mother would have said.

We are still shaking hands — it actually feels like he’s just holding mine, holding my whole body up. His hold is strong, calm, and his eyes are a bright and beautiful, clear blue. But that is the only good news of the moment, because I can feel myself starting to blush. I’m a blusher anyway, but this is a code red one. He is so handsome and sexy that touching him is literally making my hand hot.

Strippers can’t blush.
I have to get a grip. I pull my hand away and keep looking down at my glass so I don’t stare at him, and as I’m trying to hold down my rising panic, I’m also trying to avoid looking at the red blush creeping up my chest.

I’m a mess, but when I look back up at him so he doesn’t think I’m a complete freak, I guess he hasn’t noticed my redness or my rising panic. He’s still smiling at me. He has wrinkles around his eyes. He is so handsome and large, overpowering, but his smile is ... pure kindness. Like he’s going to take it easy on me.

“Liberty?” he asks, tentatively.

I realize I’ve just been alternately
staring at him and watching myself turn red instead of talking to him. Maybe for longer than I thought.
I hope he doesn’t notice the blush.

“Yes?” I say, meekly
,
willing myself
to calm down and be normal.

“Are you first-generation American?” he asks.

His question makes me laugh. My mom would have loved it, and him. Hans Solo was her favorite. “No, my mom was just dramatic,” I say, and take a gulp of wine. I haven’t mentioned her to anyone since I came to town. I’m not used to other people asking me things here; the other girls had mostly given up on trying to get me to chat and now ignored me, and I just tried to keep it real short with everyone else.

But I don’t want to lose John’s interest. He shifts a little and I notice that he’s not wearing a wedding ring. Not that it means anything in Vegas, but I can at least feel a little better about myself, that I’m not drooling over an openly married man. Standing next to him was still giving me that unusual feeling of heat, like I had dropped down into a hot bath. It felt wonderful. Everywhere. I could feel my heart beating, my breath coming in fast. I realized I was standing in my stripper pose — chest out, stomach in, legs slightly spread. It was totally on accident, like the wild girl felt the heat and was scratching at the surface, wanting to come out and play in my real life.

I pulled my legs together, a little embarrassed. “What about you?” I ask. I don’t know how to do this, to chitchat, but I’m desperate to know something more about him. Who is he? Why did he want to meet me, out of all the other girls? I seriously hoped he didn’t have a thing for schoolgirls. That would ruin it for me.

“I’m from New England,” he says. “I’m in business with my father. Our company focuses on acquisitions. Repurposing. That sort of thing.”

I nod, trying to look like I knew all about New England and whatever acquisitions and repurposing meant. Las Vegas was the furthest east I’d ever been, but he looked like he was from New England, healthy and rugged and tanned from being outside working. An image of him without his shirt on, out chopping wood flashed through my mind ... I felt a flash of heat again and I felt my legs try to spread apart a little ... but I mentally kicked myself and managed to keep it together. I didn’t want him to stop talking to me. But even though he was amazingly hot, and I never thought that about anyone I met, I still didn’t want him to ask me for a private dance. The wrinkles around his eyes, the kindness - I wanted to be able to memorize his face that way. I wanted it to be the last good memory I had of him. I wanted to be able to remember it later, when I was alone. When I could think straight.

“But I’m boring,” he says, and I want to laugh out loud. Even if he never opened his mouth to speak, the man could not be boring. His shoulders were massive. I mentally kicked myself before I could start thinking about him with that chainsaw again.

“Let’s talk about you. So you’re here at the Treasure Chest, dancing the night away...” He looks at me appraisingly. “Alex tells me you don’t give private dances.”

Here we go
, I think. I can feel the wind leaving my sails. “That’s right,” I say, and clear my throat. All of a sudden it’s tightening up again. “I haven’t been brave enough to yet.” To add to my tightening throat and itchy blotches, now I feel like I’m going to cry. I don’t know what I expected, given the circumstances. Damn stripping. Everybody thought you were for sale.

Still, he was the first guy I’d met here that I didn’t want to run away from, screaming.
Don’t make me say no to you, John. Not tonight. Not yet.

“Well, you’ll do it when you’re ready,” he says. “Or not. Maybe you’ll get lucky and move on to bigger and better things.”

Bigger and better things?
Huh?
This is not what I expected, and I’m grateful, but I’m also wary. I’m not sure if he’s being sarcastic. Does he mean that I’ll be lucky and land a waitressing job instead? Or start being an escort — maybe his? That thought makes me woozy, for a number of reasons, and I push it away.

I’m not sure how to take what he says, but I know one thing: if he’s factoring in luck, he obviously doesn’t know anything about my life. Not at all. I look up at him and hold his stare. “Luck doesn’t run in my family,” I say, and my voice sounds harsh to me, older and sharper than I intended.