Page 23 of Heart Over Heels

With Beck and Zephyr making heart eyes and Colette egging them on, it fell to me—yet again—to point out what should’ve been obvious.

I cleared my throat. “Let’s circle back to what Cherry said. Why would this Mercer guy want to work here?”

Beck angled a narrow-eyed look my way, clearly perturbed at being interrupted mid face-suck. “Better question: why are you poaching Antonella’s employees?”

I let out a sharp breath. “I was a little shaken up at the time.” Literally. Physically. “Clearly, I wasn’t in my right mind.”

From his nest in Beck’s lap, Zephyr chimed, “So what are we gonna do? He’ll be here in half an hour.”

Beck’s mouth tightened. “We’ll turn him away. His employment status is hardly official.”

“I’ll take responsibility for him,” Colette said. “He’s very qualified. Former Marine.” She gestured toward the résumé Beck had been waving earlier.

Mmm. Marine.

Mercer in a Basilica uniform was hardly thrilling, but dress him in fatigues and shiny silver dog tags, and I had a very different toy to play with.

Leaning forward, I snagged the corner of the paper Colette had indicated and dragged it into my greedy little hands. A résumé, yes. And it was pure military. It looked like the man had been born into the service and lived there until the recentBasilica stint. Maybe I could overlook that. Maybe he hadn’t been in his right mind either.

Beck leaned back in his chair, fingers idly tracing patterns on Zephyr’s thigh. “Fine. Let him show up. If he works out, great. We need the extra muscle. If he doesn’t, we get front-row seats to watching him crash and burn.”

If Mercer tanked the job, I’d enjoy the show right up until the angels turned it into something less funny, like a bloodbath. Knowing my luck, I’d be stuck mopping up afterward.

CHAPTER

SEVEN

Mercer

I’d been to a strip club before.

On deployments, the guys and I would check out the local scene in our free time—sample the food, experience the culture, meet the locals. Sometimes that meant finding the kinds of places where the drinks were cold, the music was loud, and the girls looked at you like you were the only man alive.

Most of us were married, but that didn’t stop the guys from hiring company for the night. It was easy to arrange with a bit of cash in the right hands and a cab ride to some pay-by-the-hour hotel. I mostly avoided it; I had enough trouble at home without borrowing more.

I didn’t judge the other guys, though. It was lonely out there. Spending weeks or months without my wife’s voice in my ear or my daughter’s laughter rattling the walls. Loneliness made men do things they swore they never would.

The absence didn’t make my heart grow fonder. Instead, it made me ache in a way I didn’t have words for. Pictures came in the mail, Molly’s little smile missing another tooth, Rachel holding her hand at the school fair. Meanwhile, I washalfway around the world, smelling sweat and diesel and spices I couldn’t name, trying to pretend I still belonged to the life I’d left behind.

And now here I was, years later, working the door at the Devil’s Dollhouse, thinking I’d seen strip clubs before.

I hadn’t. Not like this.

The most obvious difference was the dancers. Male strippers weren’t common anywhere I’d been, and I’d never gone looking for them. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen another man move the way the ones on the Dollhouse stage did, except maybe in that Channing Tatum movie from a few years back.

Had I thought things, watching that?

Felt things?

I couldn’t remember. Just like I couldn’t name what I was thinking or feeling now.

The opening act was a pair of raucous cowboys who danced, sang, and stripped like a two-man variety show. They were good-looking enough. Fit, oiled, and glistening in the spotlight. And there was a lot of bare skin to glisten. By the end of their set, one was down to boots, assless chaps, and a ten-gallon hat, while the other sported nothing more than a bolo tie and fringed Daisy Duke shorts.

The crowd loved it. People were practically climbing the stage and flinging bills like confetti. It was rowdy, loud, and the bass thumped so strongly I felt it in my chest every time I opened the door.

Colette had been patrolling the floor most of the night, leaving me to manage the line outside. From there, besides getting my eardrums punished with every admittance, I could steal glances of the performers as they worked through the roster.

After the cowboys came the aerialist. A leggy, androgynous-looking redhead who did a full routine without ever setting foot on the stage.