Break This! (A 300 Moons Book) (3 page)

T
he private dining
room at Piatti was booked, so Thea, Jade and Brooklyn found themselves
slumming it
in the exquisitely stark and romantic main room.

The hostess had cleverly seated them at the rear table of the exclusive Italian restaurant. From their perch, they could see over the whole room, like the three women were a row of queens serving their kingdom.

Likewise, the other diners could steal gazes of rapt admiration at them. It would have been enough to turn Thea’s head if she hadn’t had enough contact with the public lately to make her a bit jaded.

Crystal chandeliers reflected off the burnished copper pots on the walls. Ten long tables with plain white cloths lined the wide plank floors.

Thea felt like she was on the set of
Miss Julie
, she half expected peasants to come out and dance at any moment.

The only menu option at Piatti was the tasting menu, at two hundred dollars per person. Though Thea had grand plans for her
Sports Unlimited
money, she figured one really fancy meal wouldn’t break her.

She sipped her red wine. Oh, god, it was good.

“You know Gino is here all the time, right?” Brooklyn smiled conspiratorially.

“Who?” Jade asked.

“You know. Gino. Gino
Piatti
?” Brooklyn giggled.

“The owner? Nice of him to come pick up his cash,” Jade quipped.

“Jade,” Brooklyn scolded.

“No, seriously,” Jade insisted. “I want to hand it to him myself and say, ‘Here’s your two hundred bucks, thank you for my asparagus Spam.’”

“It’s
flan
,” Brooklyn laughed. “Asparagus flan. And wait until you try it.”

A waiter arrived, his hair so smoothed back he looked like he had swum the English Channel to get to them.

“The gentlemen in the corner sent these,” he said lightly, depositing a round of Bellinis on the table.

Thea looked over expecting a bunch of old geezers. But the men at the table were young and athletic looking. One of them smiled back at her raised his glass.

“Oh wow, I think that’s Connor Starwick,” Jade muttered, waving back with a coquettish look.

“Who’s that?” Thea asked.

“Oh brother,” Jade replied.

Brooklyn just giggled and tossed her dark hair over her shoulder.

“What?” Thea asked.

“He’s a —” Brooklyn began.

“—No,” Jade said, her eyes dancing. “Make her guess.”

A smile slowly appeared on Brooklyn’s face.

Crap.

Thea studied the handsome guys. They had wide shoulders and big arms. Definitely athletes. And pros, if the other girls recognized them.

“Boxers?” she suggested.

Jade howled with laughter.

“Look at their noses,” Brooklyn advised.

Oh. Their noses were in good shape.

Hm…

“Hockey players?” Thea ventured.

Jade half slid, half melted down her chair with gaiety.

“Teeth, baby,” Brooklyn advised.

Right. They had great, original-looking teeth.

So. That only left…

“Tennis players,” Thea announced triumphantly.

Jade banged on the table helplessly, laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe.

“Do you give up?” Brooklyn asked kindly.

“No, no,” Jade panted. “Please, let her keep going.”

“Well, I am almost out of types,” Thea said. “Baseball? Gymnastics? …Hammer toss?”

Jade screamed with laughter and an alarmed waiter headed their way.

“Football, baby,” Brooklyn told her. “They’re football players.”

“Your antipasti is on its way. Do you require… assistance?” the waiter asked politely, looking pointedly at Jade. That type of frivolity was clearly not on the menu.

Jade sat up quickly, adjusting her dress in such a way that there was no question the waiter was treated to a quick view of her perky little breasts. Thea wished fleetingly that she could go braless, though of course she wouldn’t waste that ability freaking out waiters.

“No, but thank you
very
much,” Jade said sweetly.

The waiter was still staring at her chest. He seemed somewhat placated.

Then the food was there.

Thea had never tasted such unusual delicacies. After the light and zesty asparagus flan, she was brave enough to try the antelope. Maybe it was the wine, but she swore the gamey taste made her feel like her own legs were loping through the Serengeti.

It was fun to talk food with the other two. Brooklyn was by far the most knowledgable, but they all enjoyed the unusual meal.

Thea was relieved that the conversation had taken a new direction. Despite being featured on a sports magazine, she wasn’t really into sports.

“Hammer toss,” Jade said suddenly, dissolving into a fit of giggles. “I wonder if those guys would be good in bed.”

“Never tried one,” Brooklyn remarked, sipping her Bellini. “Though I’ve been with a lot of athletes,”

“What kind are the best?” Thea heard herself ask.

“Ooooh, Polly Prissy-pants is ready for some action,” Jade hooted.

“
Soccer players
,” Brooklyn said firmly.

“Soccer players?” Thea echoed.

“They have the best stamina,” Brooklyn said, staring meaningfully into Thea’s eyes, then waggling her perfectly arched eyebrows.

Thea melted into giggles herself and Jade joined her.

“Haven’t you ever been to a soccer match?” Brooklyn asked.

“No. Actually, the fight tonight is going to be the first live sports I’ve seen since my dad took us all to baseball games when I was little,” Thea admitted.

“I’ve been to a lot,” Brooklyn told her. “But that’s mostly because I like to date athletes.”

“How many athletes have you dated?” Thea asked, fascinated.

“A
lot,
” Brooklyn told her with a wink.

Thea blinked and Jade roared with laughter.

“What about you?” Thea asked Jade.

“Oh, I’ve never dated an athlete,” she said.

“Besides Chance,” Thea offered.

“Of course, besides Chance,” Jade allowed.

“He seems nice. What’s he like?” Thea asked.

Jade thought, her blue eyes narrowing slightly.

“He’s… sweet,” she said at last. “A little too sweet sometimes - he’s always trying to take care of me.”

“That must be terrible for you,” Brooklyn said with mock sympathy.

“Very funny. He’s just kind of a puppy dog. But he’s nice to have around,” Jade said, knocking back her Bellini. “He knows there’s nothing serious going on with us.”

But Thea had seen how Chance looked at Jade. She was pretty sure he knew no such thing. Thea couldn’t help but feel bad for the poor guy. He was in over his head with this one.

The waiter swept their plates away and out of thin air, another appeared with a dessert cart.

Thea was considering whether the mini crepes with chocolate truffle fondue were a better choice than the seasonal fruit tart, when Jade’s phone played the first few bars of a rap song
loudly.

The entire restaurant watched as she moved her head to the rhythm while checking.

“Let’s get out of here.” Jade smiled, grabbing cash out of her clutch and laying it on the table. “Hit the clubs.”

“Sorry, love. I’m on a plane again in the morning,” Brooklyn said with a small yawn.

“Yeah, poor you,” Jade teased. “Hawaii, was it?”

“For a shoot, not for fun,” Brooklyn scolded, smacking Jade on the shoulder lightly.

“I’ve got some stuff to do too,” Thea said.

It might have been the understatement of the year. The real reason she was going to be unavailable to
SU
for the next week had nothing to do with her modeling and everything to do with her other line of work. She had a job coming up, and she was a big believer in being prepared.

“Nope, unacceptable,” Jade told Thea. “You’re coming with me.”

“Really, I’ve got a lot to do,” Thea protested weakly.

But she had already gone over her plans a dozen times, and going out one more time sounded like fun. Thea loved dancing.

H
alf an hour
later they were climbing out of the limo and heading straight to the front of the line at Gossip, Philly’s hottest club.

The gigantic bouncer smiled at their approach and opened the velvet rope.

Thea looked guiltily down the line of people waiting. A few months ago she would have been at the end of it, with scant chance of getting in the doors.

“Come
on
,” Jade said, grabbing her hand and half-dragging her into the dark hallway.

They weren’t carded. Instead, they were waved toward the dance floor.

Music pumped so loudly the reverberations came up through the floor until Thea could feel her blood resonating in rhythm with it. Lights flashed off the disco balls and a guy with a smoke hose let off random blasts so that the whole place seemed hung with mist and stars.

No hefty cover charge could remove the smells though. The glamorous dance floor was filled with the sweat and perfume of a couple hundred dancing twenty-somethings.

The air practically crackled with their reckless energy. Thea let it wash over her, wishing she could take the tiniest taste. But her gift didn’t work that way. She could only manipulate the energy inside electronics, not people.

Jade headed straight for the center of the room and began to dance, Thea joined her. No one in here had recognized them yet and it was just starting to be fun, when Jade looked up and smiled like a kid on Christmas morning.

Thea turned to see the photographer from the event, the Italian one, whose hotness was only spoiled by his awareness of it.

“Come on, we’re going to the Vault,” he yelled over the din.

Thea just wanted to dance, but Jade grabbed his hand and winked at Thea.

Thea shrugged to herself and followed them through the mist to the bouncer who minded the door of the VIP space. He led them into a room remarkable only in its simplicity compared to the rest of the club.

Jade slid into the satin lined booth and the photographer got in next to her, leaving Thea to sit on his other side.

“I’m so glad you could come,” he said to Jade, ignoring Thea completely.

“This place seems cool, Dante,” Jade allowed.

“I like the private lounge better than the floor, you’ve had enough time in the public today,” Dante replied in a sexy way.

Jesus.

But Jade laughed like he was a riot and continued to laugh at every stupid thing he said for the next ten minutes.

Both of them completely ignored Thea.

She decided to run to the bathroom while they were… whatever they were doing, and then find a reason to slip out for the evening.

In the line, someone finally recognized her.

“Oh, shit, you’re the girl from the magazine, right?” a girl said too loudly. Thea could almost taste the girl’s beery breath.

“Mm,” she said noncommittally.

“I get
so
mad when they say that shit about you,” the girl confided loudly, shaking her head back and forth.

“Haters gonna hate,” Thea said lightly.

“I’m all like, ‘She is
so
not a fat slob. Where is
your
profile pic if you’re gonna call
her
a big fat whore?’” the girl shouted with great satisfaction.

Other women in the line began to titter.

“You shouldn’t read those comments. I don’t,” Thea said with a smile. “But thanks for being a fan.”

“I mean, you should lose weight, for your health, for sure,” drunk-girl said matter-of-factly. “But damn, they don’t have to call you a whore about it.”

Wow.

Thea observed, not for the first time, that her body was definitely something people had big feelings about.

She stole a glance at drunk-girl’s physique, sizing up whether she was actually any smaller than Thea before she realized what she was doing.

Thea Harlow, if you use her size to undermine her comments, even in your own head, then you are no better than she is,
she mentally chided herself

“Oh, fuck this,” a voice further back in the line said, and Thea found her arm in the tight grip of another woman, who was leading her back toward the dance floor.

“Seriously, I would rather piss my pants than listen to one more word from that drunken skank,” the tall blonde said in Thea’s ear.

Thea couldn’t hold back a laugh and allowed herself to be steered to the edge of the crowd.

“Look, this will make you feel better,” blondie said kindly, opening the hand that wasn’t gripped to Thea’s biceps and revealing a small blue pill in her palm.

“Oh, no thank you,” Thea said, feeling light-headed already.

“You don’t get it, this is Syncope, amazing stuff,” blondie insisted.

“Nope, I actually have to leave. Thanks anyway,” Thea said, extricating herself from the death grip and disappearing herself through the crowd and back to the VIP lounge.

Jade was half in Dante’s lap.

“Jade, the fights have already started, we really should go,” Thea said loudly, assuming Jade would jump out of his arms.

“I know, I know, we’ll get there,” Jade said, and went back to her quiet chat with Dante.

Thea slipped her phone out of her pocket. It was a cheap model, not like the fancy, big-screened one Jade sported, but Thea had burned out too many cell phones lately to keep spending money on them. She used to have a lot more control, but lately, she’d been having problems keeping her special abilities in check.

She scrolled through her messages. There were several that shouldn’t wait. Why hadn’t she just gone back to her room?

“Is this seat taken?” a deep male voice asked.

Thea looked up to see a big guy with a neatly trimmed beard indicating the half-seat beside her on the booth.

“Sorry, we’re getting ready to leave,” she said quickly. “Jade, seriously, we need to go.”

“We’re having fun. And Chance’s fight is the main event, so it will be last anyway,” Jade replied without making eye contact.

“You know what, I’ll just take an Uber,” Thea said, trying not to lose her temper. She’d thought Jade was a friend, but she sure wasn’t acting like one.

“Ubers are for basic bitches,” Jade said firmly. “We have a limo.”

“Well, I’m leaving now,” Thea said, getting up.

“Fine, fine, want a ride, Dante?” Jade offered.

“Yeah,” Dante said, grabbing Jade’s ass as she climbed out of the booth.

Jade shrieked with parrot-like laughter and Dante chased her out to the sidewalk, Thea trailing behind them as if she were the cans dragging behind the newlyweds’ car.

The ride to the casino was insane. At first Jade and Dante satisfied themselves whispering into each other’s ears, Jade turning pink from giggling.

Then he wrapped his arms around her and they started kissing like they were the last two people on earth.

Thea was no prude, but Jade had a boyfriend. And the limo meant all their knees were touching. She was practically in on the action.

When Dante opened his eyes mid-kiss and extended a hand to invite her into the action officially, she felt a little of the delicious dinner crawling back up her throat.

She shook her head looked pointedly out the window. She tried to open it to get some fresh air, but it wouldn’t budge. Thea cursed under her breath, unsure if it was because she’d shorted the thing out somehow, or she was just missing some kind of lock. Before she had time to puzzle it out, they had arrived.

“I’ll meet you inside,” Jade said thickly through Dante’s kiss.

Thea didn’t bother to acknowledge her.

Pushing down her thoughts on the hideous last hour of her evening, Thea pulled herself together and headed into the casino.

Now it was time to join a crowd of bloodthirsty, beer-soaked people, gawking as one sweaty guy did his best to knock the living daylights out of another, sweatier guy.

Though, come to think of it, Thea may have stumbled upon exactly the perfect mood for watching two people try to maim one another.

A smile turned up one corner of her mouth as she walked inside, thinking about what Jade’s boyfriend would do to that slimy photographer if he knew what she was up to.