Page 1 of Direct Action

Chapter One

“Sorry, sorry. I know I’m late. Summer traffic is the worst,” I grumbled as I rushed past one of my bosses, Ryan Strong, who unfortunately was a dead ringer for the actor Ryan Gosling, which made him distracting in an ‘I can’t stop thinking about banging you’ kind of way.

“You’re five minutes early,” he contradicted.

“Five minutes early is ten minutes late,” I countered.

My dad had taught me that back before the dementia had started eating away at the man who’d been the wisest person I knew. Now there were days when he barely recognized me.

Stop.

Recalibrate.

“I’ll be out on the floor in a minute,” I told Ryan, as I pushed into the locker room our awesome management had given us, taking half of a storage room to give the female staff members a fully kitted-out place to change and store their stuff. Pete had even put a couch in the room that was super comfy.

“Hey, Chloe,” Poppy greeted from in front of her locker.

“Hey.”

I busied myself opening my locker in an attempt to ignore my friend. I could feel her giving me the side-eye, and I was not in the mood for another lecture. She’d given me one last night before our shift ended, and again this afternoon when she called me. Luckily, I was at my other job and had a valid excuse to cut the talk short.

“You can’t keep this up, Chloe.”

Here we go.

I tossed my purse into my locker and pulled out my pen holder and notebook, diligently focusing on my tasks.

“You were up at five this morning,” she told me, something I knew. “You worked until three. Now you’re here and won’t get cut until after one. After you cash out, do your side work, and drive home, that leaves three hours’ worth of sleep if you’re lucky.”

She wasn’t wrong, and I was feeling every hour of sleep I’d missed out on this week. But I needed the money. I had no choice but to work two jobs or move in with my mother, and as much as I loved her, I would rather work seventeen jobs and never sleep another wink.

Just because I loved her didn’t mean she didn’t drive me batshit crazy. I’d last approximately three days, give or take a few hours, living with her before I’d give up the comforts of a bed in favor of a cardboard box.

“I can get you a job at the Vault.”

Not this again.

“No.”

“I work a three-hour shift and walk out with a minimum of five hundred dollars. You make twenty an hour at—”

“I know how much money I make.”

Sadly, I couldn’t forget my twenty-dollar-an-hour job didn’t even cover my rent on my one-bedroom apartment. Maybe I should see if there were any studios coming available in my building. That would save me a few hundred dollars a month. That would go a long way, and maybe I’d be able to afford a to-go coffee again one day in the next millennium.

“You’d be perfect—”

“Poppy, I love you with all my heart, but I’m not cut out to take off my clothes in public.”

“You say that like the Vault’s a strip club. It’s not. Think Coyote Ugly but themed.”

Every time Poppy tried to sell me on the idea of going to work in the bar nestled up in the hills with a steep cover charge and a drink minimum I couldn’t afford, she always referenced the movie where the bartenders and servers danced on the bar top in cutoffs and crop tops. The movie was the bomb, but I didn’t think I could even manage to climb on a table or the top of a bar.

And showing copious amounts of skin wasn’t my thing, unless I was in my bikini on the beach. But that felt different, especially seeing as I was a SoCal girl and grew up running on the sand and in the surf.

“How about this,” she continued. “Tomorrow night, come with me. Just watch the show we put on, and if you really hate it, then I promise to never mention it again.”

I’d do anything to get Poppy to stop mentioning the Vault. “Fine.”