“What do you think?” I ask, even though I’m nervous to hear the answer. Anything he says to condemn it would probably be true, but for some reason I want him to like it.

I guess in the same way he wants me to like him.

He steps out of the passenger side and leans on the car frame. I follow suit, my ballet flats crunching the gravel beneath me. It smells like gasoline and smoke and a faint sweetness that must be the anemic honeysuckle plant along the gate. No one ever waters it, but it refuses to die.

“It’s stark,” he finally says. “And still somehow elegant. I’m trying to imagine Blue coming back from deployment to this and deciding to make it his home.”

I raise my eyebrow. “Isn’t that what you’re doing?”

He chuckles. “Sure enough. Though in this case I have you and Blue to ease the way.”

My gut twists, knowing how uncertain he must be feeling. He looks confident on the outside, his stance sure, his gaze assessing. But I’ve seen him vulnerable and worried. It’s a kind of intimacy. I was the one with my nipples bared. I was the one who climaxed in front of him. But he let his guard down for me, and in some ways that must have been harder.

“I’ll help you any way I can,” I tell him, and that’s a promise I intend to keep. Not just because he’ll be working at the Grand, which still holds a piece of my loyalty. But because there is an invisible string between us, tied to our vulnerability, strung taut through the man we both care about. Blue.

Chapter Six

“He’s hot,” Candy says.

We’re sitting on the bar of the Grand, watching Oscar, the new head of security, show West the ropes. There are key cards and procedures. There are cameras, both hidden and in sight—though they’re only on the floor and the lobby. And there’s a shit ton of paperwork.

I shrug, hoping I sound casual. “It’s the military walk. Confidence mixed with strength.”

“That’s part of it. And the way he’s quick to smile. There’s not enough smiling around here.”

There’s almost no smiling around here, at least not the real kind. Girls flash fake smiles, and the customers are too busy humping our legs to notice. Their legs, not mine. I have to remember I don’t work here anymore.

And as for our fair leader, Ivan is severe. Harsh. I’ve definitely never seen him crack a smile. I’m not even sure he knows how.

“You didn’t used to care about that,” I tell her.

“I used to get high more,” she says, sounding wistful.

“Well, I’m proud of you. It’s not easy to kick the habit.”

That earns me a smirk. “I figured I’d try out the good girl angle for a little while. Like you.”

I have to laugh. “Like me? You must have me confused with someone else.”

“Really,” she says, drawing out the word. “So you were out with me every night, drinking and shooting up and—”

“You know I wasn’t.”

“Proved my point. People may have taken one look at us and judged—believing my white lace and your red lipstick, but that was never the truth.”

I’m blushing now, for reasons I can’t explain. “But it was the truth, at least about me. The things I’ve done—”

“Putting out so you didn’t get raped?”

My eyebrows go up. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t sugar coat. Not with me. That’s what happened. You did what you have to do to survive, just like Blue did while he was overseas. There’s no shame in that.”

Shame has weighed me down my entire life, so heavy it threatens to break apart the only thing I’ve ever valued. “You had your reasons,” I say, turning the tables.

Her smile is dark, knowing. “Sure, I did.”

“Reasons like…Ivan?” I ask, though it isn’t quite a shot in the dark. We’ve never discussed it, not in detail, but those two have been circling each other since I first got here.

“He’s part of it,” she admits.

I slant her a look. “Only part?”

She seems offended. “You’re my best friend. I would have told you if we’d… you know.”

“You mean you haven’t had sex?” Now I’m surprised. And even more surprised to hear her say we’re friends at all. It’s not like her to admit it. “You always spent time with him in his office.”

“Business,” she says, her cheeks turning faintly pink.

I don’t quite believe her. They may have discussed business. I know she advocated for some of the girls who were too scared to speak to Ivan themselves. But I doubt that had been the only thing to ever happen down in that basement.

“Candy,” I say.

“Lola,” she says back, mocking, using my stage name instead of my real one. “Do you want to hear all my dirty secrets? Do you want me to confess?”

The word comes out loaded. Confess. I wonder what’s under that word, if I could peel it back. I wonder what it means to her.

I shake my head. “I’m no priest.”

“Good,” she says, her voice hard. “Why are you here, anyway? Why do you keep coming back to this dump when you could be fucking that fine piece of man back home?”

There’s that caustic little girl I know and love. “We come up for air occasionally. And anyway, I thought you might miss me. We’re best friends, you know.”

She responds with a middle finger in the air, and I can’t help but smile.

“Maybe I missed you,” I tell her.

Her expression softens. Well, as much as it can for someone with perpetually huge anime blue eyes. She’s a walking, talking doll, dressed up in pink lace. “Of course I miss you. Things are changing around here, and I don’t think I’m ready for it.”

My heart clenches. “I have a few things I’m not ready for myself.”

“Let me guess… One of those things is five foot ten of hot ex-military man.”

There’s something in her voice, almost like she knows something. “Blue is six-two.”

She smiles. “I didn’t mean him.”

My face gets hot. “Well, you better mean him. He is the only ex-military hot guy I’m doing. Or any other guy, for that matter.”

“Of course.” Her voice has gone completely singsong, proving she doesn’t believe me a second.

Busted. “How did you know?”

A giggle. “I can always tell. It’s the way he looks at you, like he’s imagining you naked. But not speculative. Like he’s remembering you naked.”

I bury my face in my hands. “Oh man, I’m never living this down.”

“Spill,” she says, all seriousness.

“There was a moment, last night. It was really short. We had eaten dinner and each had a couple beers. Then I’m sitting in Blue’s lap and he’s touching me. West never touched me or did anything. He only…watched.”

Candy looks impressed. “And here I thought you’d gone white picket fence, two-point-five kids on me.”

“Not sure about the white-picket-fence part, at least,” I mutter.

Her eyes widen. “Get the fuck out.”

“Nothing’s happened yet,” I assure her. “But Blue is talking about it.”

“Talk? That’s not how babies are made, Hannah. Has no one explained?”

I roll my eyes. “We’re not trying yet. Not exactly. He wants to wait until we’re married.”

Candy’s eyes narrow. We have jokingly called her the Man Whisperer because of her uncanny ability to know what they like—and subsequently coax them out of their money. But the truth is she is just a People Whisperer, man or woman, and she’s turning all her ability on me.

“When will that be?” she asks, her face the picture of innocence.

“Soon.”

“Of course,” she says, her voice singsong again.

“Oh for God’s sake, stop saying that. I am totally going to marry him. And we’re going to have a baby. And maybe a fence, though I’m not sure how that’s going to work in a condo. It’s just…”

“It’s just that you’re afraid,” she says softly.

I shut my eyes tight, against her words, against the truth. Against the sight of the Grand, the place I was desperate to escape, the place I now miss. “I’m afraid that he’s suddenly going to realize what I am, that I’m a stripper, and what is he doing marrying me?”