Rumor (A Renegades Novella) (4 page)

Oh…double shit…

Her fingers curled into fists against her thighs.

“And your new neighbor tells me you work nights at this club. I’m dying to know how you managed to pick an apartment in the
only
ghetto in San Diego. But we’ll get to that later.”

His bossy tone set her on edge, and she brought one foot under her to stand. But Josh wrapped his fingers around her forearm and leaned forward, his face just inches from hers. And God, he smelled good. Just a touch of spice left over from the day and a whole lotta signature Josh. The scent brought memories swimming back—of long, quiet nights sleeping in his hospital room, of slow, challenging days of physical therapy. Of trust built, friendship forged, laughter shared…

Hearts broken.

“Gracie,” he said, his voice softening, his eyes stormy. “
What’s going on?
”

She tried not to bristle. Logically, she understood he was worried. Emotionally, his concern felt a lot like judgment.

“Nothing’s going on.” She pulled from his grasp and stood, struggling to balance on her ridiculously high heels. “I’m just working, that’s all.”

His eyes narrowed. “That’s all? Seriously? That’s what you’re giving me?
That’s all?
”

Grace gritted her teeth to keep from saying something she’d regret, but his attitude stung.

The songs changed, and Grace met his gaze with a serious one of her own. “Look, I have to get back to work. If you’re still in town tomorrow, maybe we can have coffee…or something…”

“Coffee? Are you fucking
kidding
me
?”

Josh pushed to his feet, and Grace fell back a step. She’d forgotten how tall he was. How imposing. She’d seen him in his navy whites a couple of times, but never in business casual. His muscled body filled out the button-down and the slacks like they’d been tailor-made for his body, and heat kindled low in her belly.

“Gracie,” he implored, “you’re talking to someone who knows you. Someone who knows that if you’re
here
,
doing this,
there’s something wrong.”

That was all it took, one perfectly placed cynical dig, and the sexual heat transitioned into anger. “You don’t know
what
I’m doing. You’re assuming.” She felt others’ attentions slide their way, and she forced her voice down. “There’s
nothing
wrong, and you sure as shit don’t have any right to pass judgment on my life. I’m perfectly fine. Good-bye, Josh.”

She turned, hands fisted, and moved quickly toward the black velvet curtain leading to dressing rooms at the back of the club. Her stomach hurt. Her brain spun. Her heart ached.

“Grace, wait.” He called behind her, half demand, half plea.

She cringed at the use of her real name but kept moving. Adrenaline surged, burning along her limbs. She ducked between the drapes and hurried down the walkway, her heels clicking loud on the concrete.

“Grace, stop.” His voice sounded right behind her at the same moment he grabbed her arm and spun her around. He gripped both arms and pushed her back against the wall.

After one long, stunned second, she shoved at his chest. “What the hell is wrong with you? You’re the last person I expected to manhandle me.
Let. Go. Now.
”

He instantly released her and stepped back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” Scraping both hands through his hair, he paced. “I just don’t know what to think. I’m
worried
about you, Grace.”

“Stop calling me that. I don’t want people knowing my real name.”

He flung his arms out to the side and let them drop to his thighs. “If that doesn’t scream
problem
, nothing does.”

She crossed her arms, all the hurt and judgment from the past resurfacing like grease on water. “Why do you insist there has to be a problem when I’m telling you there’s not?”

“You’re working in a
strip club
, Grace. You’re dressed in…” He gestured toward her, then groaned out, “God. This isn’t right. This isn’t you.”

“You haven’t seen or spoken to me in a year. A lot has happened in that time. You have no right to decide what’s me and what’s not.”

“I’ve known you for
seven
years
.” He was growing edgy, a little frantic. “You couldn’t have hidden
this
.”

She rolled her eyes at his absurdity. “My ex-husband still doesn’t know I got my bachelor’s degree while we were
married
. The truth is that we all become the people we need to be to get by, the same way you and Isaac became killers to survive as SEALs. I never held that against either of you, and I damn well deserve the same respect, regardless of what work I choose.”

“Whoa, whoa…” He put his hands up, his expression twisted in confusion. “Where in the hell is this coming from?”

“It’s coming from you, walking in here and passing judgment.” She twirled her finger in the air. “So just turn your sweet ass around and get the hell out.”

She turned and started walking again, fisting her hands, clenching her teeth, squeezing her eyes shut to force the new wetness back. Chanting
let him go
in her head when she ached to wrap her arms around him for a bear hug. Just to feel him close again.

“Okay, hold on.” His hand wrapped around her arm again, but gently. “Let’s back up. I didn’t mean to turn this into a fight.”

No, no, no.
That soft, congenial voice tried to crawl into her heart. She couldn’t let that happen, because he’d just reject her again. Walk away again. Leave her alone again. It had taken her months to find solid ground after he’d moved to LA. And she was barely holding on to her crazy life now.

“Look,” she said, softening her voice and pressing her hands to his chest. His hard, warm chest. She drew a breath. “There is nothing for you to worry about. I truly love this job. I love the club, my boss, my coworkers. The work is fun, challenging, and rewarding. Even the customers appreciate what I do.”

“Yeah,” he huffed, disgusted. “I could see that.”

She threw her arms out to the side and stepped back. “I don’t need a fight tonight.”

He looked at the ceiling and rubbed a hand over his face with a troubled exhale. She might have toughened up and found her latent sexuality over the last year, but her heart was still as soft as it had always been, and it was killing her to see him so frustrated.

“Put your pea-sized brain to rest, Josh,” she told him. “
I’m not stripping
.”

One golden brow lifted in disbelief, and his gaze skimmed down her body.

“God, you’re such an ass.” She crossed her arms again. “I
talk
to the men. They tell me what moves and routines they like to see from the dancers. I train the girls to do what the men like, which makes them more money. And when they make more money, I make more money.
I’m. Their. Choreographer.”

That wasn’t the job title her boss had given her, but it was the one she’d built around her position as house mom. So, in addition to managing all the girls’ needs backstage, which included being a surrogate mother, a psychologist, a makeup artist, a troubleshooter, and a comedian, Grace also taught them how to dance. How to tease and please. And her work had pushed the club onto the top-ten list of strip clubs in San Diego. It had also helped the dancers pay for medical care and school tuition and quality daycare for their kids.

And if the plan she’d put into motion spun out the way she’d planned, she’d slough off the house mom part of the job and take over her very own lucrative niche as dance instructor and choreographer to the area’s top entertainers.

But Josh didn’t deserve to know her secrets or her dreams.

He gave her a dubious slant-eyed gaze and planted both hands at his narrow hips. “Your job description doesn’t matter, Grace. You’re still here, still dressed—Jesus, I can’t breathe looking at you in that—and you still have to walk across that parking lot where some guy was gutted last week. Strip clubs breed crime—”

“So do liquor stores and Planned Parenthood pickets and TV violence, for God’s sake.” She was tempted to tell him to go back to the part where he couldn’t breathe, but she was sure the tease would have been wasted. “We don’t stop driving because someone dies in a car accident. And I’m not going to give up a good job because some assholes drank too much and got in a fight.”

Songs switched again—the fourth change since she’d set eyes on Josh, which meant she’d been gone from the dressing room too long.

She continued the rest of the way down the hall, but paused before turning the corner and glanced back at him. Hands on hips, shirtsleeves rolled up on his forearms, tension drawing all six feet of his amazing body up tight, he looked every bit the commanding presence he’d always been. Overhead lights made his wheat-colored hair shine like the sun. Her heart felt like it was being cut into tiny little pieces, and she cursed herself for one: falling in love with him in the first place, and two: never falling back out.

Her whole chest ached.

“Go home, Josh. There’s nothing here for you.”

Gracie finger-waved to Beth, the house mom who’d taken over for her at midnight. “Good night, Sadie. Remember to tell Rebecca to ice her ankle, please.”

“Will do.” Beth picked up a brush to fluff Clarissa’s hair before the dancer took center stage. “Have Theo walk you out.”

“Will do.”

Grace made her way through the halls toward the front door, exhaustion and heartache dragging at her. Seeing Josh again, so unexpectedly, had been tough. But sending him away with all the unease still between them left her feeling hollow and depressed. More than anything she needed a friend in her life now. The casual friendships she’d made with the staff at the club were great for everyday conversation and company, but she wished she had someone deeper in her life. Someone who really
got
her. And the reminder that she’d ruined that with Josh really hurt.

There had been a thousand times over the last year when she’d wished she hadn’t asked him to move in with her, that she hadn’t suggested there was more than friendship between them. Not because it hadn’t been true, but because she’d lost his friendship over voicing the reality.

Passing into the foyer, she searched for Theo, the bouncer manning the door. He was speaking to a patron, then ushered him into the club before he turned to Grace.

“What’d you do to that guy, Nikki?” he asked. “He’s a mess.”

Grace peered toward the bar, where Josh sat slumped on a stool, arms crossed on the bar, head resting facedown on his forearms. His blazer was draped over the stool beside him. And Dean, her boss and the club’s owner, was standing thirty feet away, talking to a customer.

“Je-sus.” Her heart twisted. “Why’d you let him stay?”

“Because the girls feel sorry for him. Every time I approached him with the intention of pushing him into a cab, Kelly gave me the death stare.” Theo’s big shoulders lifted in a shrug as if he couldn’t help himself. “And everyone really likes him. Even Dean. They sat around talking for over an hour.”

At that moment, Dean stepped away from the bar and started through the club toward the entry. He was dressed in his typical slacks, silky button-down open at the collar, with a blazer over the top. He was in his early sixties, was never sleazy with the girls, paid fair salaries, and was generous with his appreciation of the staff’s hard work. Which was why she didn’t want to lose him as a boss. If Josh had said something—she couldn’t imagine what, but something—that would get her in trouble…or fired…she was going to turn homicidal.

“Hey, hey, Nick,” he said as he neared, his grin wide and authentic. “Did you hear the crowd going crazy for your Santa Baby number?”

She relaxed and returned his grin. “I did. The girls were amazing. I’m training a few new ones each day. By Christmas, we should have twenty-five doing it at once.”

He reached out and tapped her nose. “
You
are amazing. I was telling your friend Josh there all about how you’ve turned this club into something really special.” He glanced over his shoulder toward Josh and laughed, his belly rocking with the sound. “Think I might have just talked him into a coma.”

“Um, yeah…sorry about that…”

“Oh, come on. This happens here on a nightly basis. Nice guy. We were both squids once upon a time,” he said, using the navy’s alternative to “sailor.” “He was really interested in your plans for the studio.”

Grace grimaced internally, and she thought the skin beneath her left eye might have twitched, but Dean didn’t seem to notice. “Well, I’m glad you two hit it off. I’m going to see if I can get him off the stool now.”

“Good luck, honey.” Dean squeezed her shoulder and winked. “And great job with the girls. You’re my star.”

She smiled. “See you tomorrow.”

She strolled to Josh’s side and paused, greeting the bartenders, Sandra and Kelly. “How much did he drink?”

Sandra straightened bottles underneath the counter and gave Grace a sympathetic grimace. “I cut him off when he’d finished half a fifth.”

Grace sucked air through her teeth. That was eight shots. “Shit.”

Sandra lifted a shoulder, glancing at Josh. “He’s a big guy. Averaged about two shots an hour. He’ll be okay.”