The Not-Outcast by Tijan

16

Cheyenne

Agirl’s ass was bouncing in my face.

And it was close enough that I could tell she put a strong dose of vanilla cupcake perfume right there. If I looked close enough, I could probably identify which self-tanner she used, and she preferred purple glitter rather than the regular all-color glitter.

Yep. Too close.

I focused on Sasha who was sitting next to me, lounging back in one of her booths, with an arm resting over the top of it, her hand dangling, and her other hand stroking her glass on the table.

“Why is Juna giving me a lap dance?” As I asked, the dancer in question turned and hooked one ankle around my neck, and her whole body fell backwards. “Oh! Whoa!”

“Don’t touch her,” came from Sasha, but she wasn’t too upset. She wasn’t even looking.

I looked down and past a thong that I did not want to see…there, in all her glory, I saw Juna looking up at me. She was laughing.

I asked, “You okay down there?”

She unhooked her ankle, sliding to the floor, and came back up to slide in on the other side of our booth. It was a round booth. It was Sasha’s special booth. She used it when the club wasn’t too full, and one of us was here.

“Yeah.” Juna winced, rotating her arm in a circle. “I was trying a new move, but it didn’t work. Everything else up to then was good, wasn’t it?”

“You don’t need the new move.” Sasha was still not watching us, she was looking out somewhere else. I didn’t think she was even seeing the main stage, or all the other booths that were spread out before us and below us. We were at the highest spot in the club. The rest was shitty seating, or really great private seating, depending on how you viewed it.

“You don’t think?”

“No.” Another monotone answer from Sasha.

Juna rubbed at her arm, frowning at her boss before looking at me. “What do you think?”

“I’m not a dance-expert, but the shows I’ve seen you do, I don’t think it’s needed either.”

She sighed, standing. “Okay. Maybe I’ll think about doing something else.”

“You don’t need anything new. Stick to what you do. It’s already perfect.”

“New tricks mean new tips.”

“The regulars like what you’re doing already.”

Juna was walking away and heard this last comment, sending a last grin over her shoulder before a guy snagged her up. Warm smiles, and soon she was air-grinding on a dude in a corner.

Sasha noticed, watching. “She better not try the new move.”

“But if she does, maybe she’ll get better tips.”

“She’ll hurt herself and then there’ll be no tips.”

Sasha could be a hardass, but not usually like this.

I frowned. “What’s going on with you?”

Not even a blink, she sent back, “What’s going on with you?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Come again?”

“You and the NHL guy.” She scowled. “You’re seeing him?”

She knew I was. I’d called and told her what happened. “We’ve been texting. He’s had away games.”

“You think that’s smart? He was your ideal in school and college. That gives him an edge over you. He could hurt you, ya know.”

She was griping. Griping and Sasha went together like peas in a pod, but this was more. I gestured to my own face. “Right here.”

“What?” A sharp snap from her.

I touched the corner of my mouth. “Right here is where you have this line that goes down.”

She touched her own face, but her movements were jerky, impatient.

I shook my head. “That line just got worse.”

I was trying to tell her this, and I was trying to lead her down the path, but there was a buzzing. It was in the background, and my meds had kicked back in, but it always took a little before they really helped center things away. Because of that, I was sitting here, and I was acting like normal, pretending to myself and to Sasha that I was normal, but I wasn’t. The buzzing was building. It was in my blood, and it was rising, rising. If I let it overtake me, I’d be gone.

I couldn’t do that again.

I liked Tits. I liked the darkness of the place. I liked that there was some grime in it, too. I liked the girls. Of course, I liked the boss. The security guards were like uncles and big brothers. There was an undertone that was settling to me, even all the glitter, too.

I was able to relax in Tits, but Sash was interrupting that flow.

I scowled at her now. “What is your problem? And don’t turn it back on me. You’re in a mood. What gives?”

Her scowl just deepened, but she studied me a moment and let it go. “You’re jonesing.”

“I’m not jonesing.”

“You are. I thought you got back on your meds.”

“I did, and it doesn’t really matter where I’m at. You know how it is.”

She quieted, because she did.

“What crab crawled up your claw?”

She snickered, shaking her head. “You.”

“Me?”

“Well, your. Your brother.”

Chad. My scowl just deepened. Fucking Chad.

“Again, he’s not my brother, but what happened?”

“He’ll always be your brother, because that’s your relation with him, through your parents, through Hunter.”

I grinned. Koala Dude. He could always make me smile.

But we needed to focus here. I couldn’t get distracted. “What about Chad, though? What’d he do?”

“He dumped me.”

Oh-kay. This now entered the terrain where I really had to focus. That meant sitting up, leaning forward, and turning toward her. All the background shit needed to be just that, background. “Say again?”

She had a faint grin, knowing what I just did, and I scooted closer as she said, “He dumped me. Said since you’re seeing his boy, then he can’t see me. It was an either/or situation. And I’m not pissed at you, because you’re not the one choosing. He is.” As an afterthought, she said, “He did.”

Back to scowling. “Fucking Chad.”

She sighed, all the sniping gone from her. “Fucking Chad.”

“Let’s go toilet paper his house.”

“What?”

I grinned. “You heard me. I know where he lives.”

“That’s your boy’s house, too.”

I lifted up a shoulder. “They joined their houses so we can toilet paper only Chad’s side. And besides, Cut has money. He can pay for cleanup, no problem.”

“This won’t piss off your boy?”

“I’m not sure we’re at the stage where he’s ‘my boy’ yet.”

“What stage are you at?”

“We’re in pre-talks of the actual talk.”

“That makes no sense.”

I flashed her another grin. “He can say all he wants, but until he sees my crazy shit and is okay with it, he and I are only talking and,” thinking about tonight, “doing other things. We’re enjoying each other right now. That’s our stage.”

“The enjoyment stage?”

“The enjoyment stage.”

“Holy cripes!”

That came from a booth in the back and we turned.

Juna was upside down on a guy’s lap.

Sasha sighed. “She tried the move.”

I nodded, seeing Juna flip over on the guy’s lap, but she jumped to her feet. The guy was cradling his dick, glaring at her. “You fucking bit—”

Three bouncers rushed in, and Sasha was getting out of the booth. “I told her not to do the move. She did. I don’t want to sit and hear her babble how she shouldn’t have done the move. Let’s go now.”

My blood buzzing just picked up a whole notch because I knew what this meant.

It was toilet paper time.