From the corner of the room, his eyes claimed me, all of me-my eyes, my neck, my legs…making me feel like he was touching my skin… The heat that spread over every inch of where his eyes looked had me dizzy, like an acute case of vertigo, and I wanted to spin in it, spiral out of control and drown in it.  Sitting on a bar stool, I let my skirt ride a bit further up my legs to watch his eyes widen and his breath quicken. I was swept up in a frenzy.  I wanted to make him look at me; I needed him to.

“I really need to talk to you,” Fran slurred behind me, practically pinning me to the edge of the bar.

“Maybe later, Fran.  I need to use the restroom,” I lied, squeezing my way around him and rushing into the back hallway.  Glancing back over my shoulder, I smiled at Kade, hoping he’d find his way to talk to me.

Locking myself in the stall, I heard the bathroom door open and footsteps squeak in.  I opened the stall door thinking that Kade would be there, his face, smirking at me, but it wasn’t.  The muscles in my shoulders tightened when I stepped out to see Francis.  Drunk on either the wine he was guzzling, or some sort of nontoxic environmentally safe fumes of maybe, I don’t know, bacon grease or something.  My thoughts were quick and precise. He had me cornered by the sheer luck of me thinking about another man, and I was going to need to fight him.  “I think you’re in the wrong bathroom,” I said.  He just laughed condescendingly, as if I should know better.

“I think I made a terrible mistake about us,” he slurred, stepping forward.  I sidestepped him, squeezing my body around him without ever touching him.  When I was the one closer to the door, my shoulders slumped a bit with relief.  “Please hear me out,” he mumbled.

Before I could get out an answer, Fran’s body catapulted onto me. His mouth was on mine, bitter wine breath, strong body order and I swear I smelled one of those old-fashioned evergreen car fresheners.  I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had one in his pocket.  Revulsion quaked in my belly and I shoved him off me quickly.  “Fran, don’t make me have to kick your…”

With a loud thud, the bathroom door flew open and smashed up against the wall, splintering one of the white tiles with a web of cracks.  Natalie stomped into the bathroom, hands on hips and her usually cheerful expression twisted into rage.

“What the fuck is this?”  She screeched, looking from me to Fran, eyes narrowing.  “Are you fucking kidding me?  My kids asked to call you daddy!” In five days, she let her kids meet him and want to call him DADDY?

Fran’s hands dropped from my arms, his pleas were whines and lies, and it made me sick to listen.  I couldn’t look at the hurt in Natalie’s face. I couldn’t take the heartbreak, because it was like looking in a mirror and I knew just how she felt.

I ran out of the bathroom, tears stinging my eyes for Natalie for having feelings for a jerk like Fran.  Running down the hall, I slammed head first into a solid chest, and looked up into the stormiest eyes I’d ever seen.  With my stomach twisted into knots, I swallowed thickly and sucked in a sharp breath.  Kade.

“Lainey, what’s wrong?” he asked, eyes narrowing.  There was tightness in his jaw, the muscles flexed and clenched.  His hands instantly cupped my face, big, thick, warm hands.  I wanted to tell him everything. I wanted his lips on mine, because I wanted to matter and make a difference to someone, and I wanted to stop this lethal game of hide and seek I was playing. I just wanted to be Samantha Matthews again.  Hell, I wanted to tell Kade that I was just like him.

Natalie stormed out of the bathroom, and pushed between Kade and me.  “Don’t worry, hon.  I know that was all him.  I hate him so much right now, because my kids were crazy about him.  What am I going to tell them now?”  She sighed heavily, and looked up at Kade as if she just realized he was standing there. “But,” she purred like a cat, “Revenge is sweet.” She winked and grabbed Kade by the hand and shoved him into Dylan’s office.  “Take out that cock, Kade, I want to dance on it,” I heard her say as the door slammed shut.

Instantly, I was sick.  Desperation ripped through me, and I wanted to bang on the door and throw her off him.  Though, what right did I have to do that?  Because he stared at me for a few weeks?  Because he took me for a coffee when he saw Fran treating me like a child?  I was nothing to him; I was just a goddamn waitress in a God forsaken strip bar in the middle of nowhere.  And what was he to me?  Nothing but my boss’s brother who lived a tragically lonely life.  There was nothing between us but a simple attraction.  Nothing to put hope in.

Nothing.

Yanking off my apron and crumpling it up in my hands, I walked into the bar and threw it under the counter.  Then I walked out the door and right home to the shitty little trailer I lived in.  Heading straight for the bathroom, I rummaged through my bag, grabbed a bottle of sleeping pills, and swallowed two dry.

Tossing myself fully clothed on my bed, I grabbed my iPod and jammed my earbuds in my ears.  Pressing play, I was instantly surrounded by the haunting voice of Amy Lee and the heavy rhythms of Bring Me To Life by Evanescence, and waited until the magic of my pills worked.  The night chilled my bones as small drafts of the cold winter winds drifted through that old tin trailer.  I wrapped myself in a soft fleece blanket to keep myself warm and pretended I was lying in Kade Grayson’s arms.  Sleep lumbered slowly over my body as I thought how preposterous of a fantasy it was. I had enough scars on my body from the last man that held me in his arms, raised stains that read like Braille across my flesh, so I shouldn’t desire another violent one.  However, he wasn’t the same man as the last; he was a far better one, were the last thoughts before sleep took hold of my mind.  I didn’t wake up until the next morning.

Armed with an entire pot of coffee, I walked through the dense evergreens that crowded this little part of the world, until I reached the bar.  An early morning slideshow of images flashed through my imagination of the carnage and chaotic state of mess the bar must be in, and I cringed, hoping there were latex gloves I could use to clean.  Darker images clawed at the back of my brain, juxtaposing themselves against the chaos, thoughts I didn’t want to be thinking, despite the clarity of them.  Twisted white sheets, guttural moans and whimpers of two lovers; I didn’t want to visualize them, but visions of Kade and Natalie wrapped around each other were screaming in my mind.

Dylan already had the front door unlocked, and was standing in the middle of the barroom holding a mop in one hand, a bucket in the other, wearing a sheepish smile across his lips.  “Morning, love.  Where did you get off to last night?”

I wanted to grab the filthy mop out of his hands and sanitize it, but instead, I just slid my jacket off, hung it over a stool and started collecting the strange clothes and debris that was strewn around the bar.  Feathered boas.  Tassles.  A riding crop.  I completely passed over picking up the dirty looking G-strings.  “Ugh.  I hand a run in with an extremely drunk Francis and an angry Natalie, so I thought it better if I just left.  Sorry.”

“No worries.  Did Kade get to see you?”

“I bumped into him in the hallway last night, but I didn’t speak with him.  Natalie needed him for something, I think.”

A strange smile played at the corner of his lips, “He was looking for you most of the night.  He slept on the couch in my office.”

All I could think about was scrubbing the bar with bleach, so I shrugged my shoulders and held up all the costumes I collected to ask, “Where should I put all this stuff?”

“Just throw it in my office on the floor, or in my closet. It all needs to be cleaned,” he murmured, pushing the mop along the floor, trying to hide his smile from my eyes.  Shit.  Didn’t he just say that Kade was asleep on the couch in there?

Maybe he had lost it, drank too much of the Kool-Aid around here.  I walked over to the entrance of the hallway and turned to face him. He was staring at me with a stupid knowing smile on his face.  What it knew was beyond me.  Maybe Dylan wanted me to walk in on Kade in some precarious position.  Slowly, I backed into the hallway and made my way to the door of his office.

I was about to throw all the crap on the floor and run when I heard Fran’s voice in the barroom talking with Dylan, asking him if he’d seen me.

Crap. Now it was between hearing Fran’s excuses for drunkenly attacking me in the bathroom, opposed to sneaking past Kade asleep on the couch.

Kade.  Fran.  Kade.  Fran.

All right, deep breath, there was no way I wanted to see Fran and listen to his whining and begging.  In a rush of glittery costumes and feathered freaking boas, I dashed through the office door and searched for the nearest hiding spot. It was either under Dylan’s desk where I sure as shit couldn’t fit, or in his coat closet.  Closet it was.  I didn’t even look to see if Kade was asleep on the couch.

Diving in, glittery sequins and all, I yanked the door shut behind me.  Total darkness consumed me and a lone hanger swung against the rod and whacked me in the eye.  “SON OF A…” I grabbed for the door handle, and it wouldn’t budge.

Oh, just wonderful.  I was locked in.

“Lainey?  Lainey?” Fran’s muted voice called from the hallway.  His footsteps clopped heavily against the floorboards and moved throughout the room.  “Oh, Kade, hey.  Have you seen Lainey?”

“No,” Kade’s rumbly voice replied from somewhere just outside the closet door.

“Dylan said she was just here,” Fran pushed.

“Does it look like she’s in here?  Go check the bathroom,” Kade rumbled.  Fran’s fast footfalls stomped down the hallway, the closet door swung open, and a blast of bright light hit my eyes.  Kade’s face came towards me like a ton of bricks.

“No-no-no don’t…don’t close the door…” I whispered loud as he stumbled in with a rush of air, slamming into me, causing my head to knock against more empty hangers that jangled amongst each other and clanged to the floor.  “The door locks…”

“Now, that’s a piece of information I wasn’t aware of.”

Awkward silence.  From somewhere just above my head the tiniest puff of warm breath came.

“This…is…interesting,” he chuckled.

“Why are you in here?” I hissed, realizing that because of the way Kade landed in the closet, he was now pressed up against me.  Leaning back as far as I could, I pressed the palms of my hands against his chest to push him away.  Except that I couldn’t, because as soon as my fingertips touched the tightness of his chest, the gasp that came out of his mouth made my heart race and I had to resist the urge to pull him close and bury my face in his scent.  Godfuckingdamnit!  I was not going to turn into one of those women who threw themselves at a man who didn’t want her.

“I wanted to see why you jumped in here,” he whispered back.  Strong thick fingers gripped my arms.  “You smell good.”

“That’s cleaning supplies, jackass.”  It wasn’t.  I lied.  I actually did smell good.

He gripped me tighter, and I wanted to run, run before I did something stupid, like kiss someone who didn’t want to have anything to do with me.  A warm hand slid slowly up my arm…  He had to stop playing with me.  I was not a toy.  As I started to speak, I felt the tip of his nose softly trace the edge of my jaw.  The smooth, moist heat of his lips moved down to my neck then back up trailing a path of fire to my ear. I needed to stop him. I needed to push him away, but I couldn’t, because I was frozen.

And, of course, there was the little fact that I liked it.  I sighed into the silent darkness.

“You left me with that creeper last night. I couldn’t find you.  I knocked on your trailer door almost all night and I just came back here to sleep,” he whispered hotly in my ear.

“Creeper?”  My stomach flipped. He had looked for me?

“Yeah, what’s her name, Natalie, I think,” he replied, pulling the warmth of his face away from mine. I could still feel his breath on my skin, but I couldn’t make out any of his features.  “She was one of those touchy feely, be my baby daddy, gold digging, online pussy showing creepers.”

“I figured you’d enjoy her company,” I laughed darkly.

“Seriously?  Did you get dropped on your head as an infant?” he asked dryly.

“Yep, into a large puddle of glitter, glorious intelligence, and flawless awesomeness.  What happened with you, did you get left in the mud?”  I heard him chuckle.  “Oh, God.  Look, I didn’t quite think it fully through. I just wanted to get away from Fran, so I went back home and went to sleep, had my earbuds in listening to music and I might have taken two sleeping pills.”