18. Hannah

Hannah

R ummie’s looks like shit during the day.

Stepping out of my little yellow bug, it’s easy to see the years of wear and tear on the old building that’s not prevalent during the day. The iron bars are suddenly glaring you in the face, as is the group of thugs that stands off to the side of the building, talking in hushed tones.

This is the part of Inglewood everyone talks about. The rough part.

I’ve seen the rest of it. It’s not bad. The people here are some of the nicest I’ve ever met and even with the evidence of poverty, no one has a problem helping each other out. There’s a community around the garage and luckily, they’ve accepted Mason and his business as their own. No one bothers the shop.

Here, it’s evident that people don’t care as much. At least not the people hanging around a dingy bar on a Friday afternoon.

I slip inside, thanking the heavens it’s not as crowded as it was the other night. There’s no evidence of Bill and his gally of biker friends, no snobby women to belittle me, and no handsy men to grope my ass as I make my way through the dark bar toward the person I came to see.

“H—hello.” I’m ashamed that my voice cracks, so I square my shoulders. I’m Hannah freaking Gaines. I’ve been speaking to people my entire life.

The brunette’s chocolate-brown eyes narrow on me and a smirk pulls on her lips.

“Been wondering when you would be back, Red.”

She nods to the stool in front of her and I slip into the seat while she grabs a glass, raising a brow expectantly.

“Um . . . just water, thanks.”

She shoots me another look but concedes and slides a bottle of water across the scuffed wood bar at me.

“So, I take it you aren’t here for the drinks, then?”

I take a drink, willing my nerves to calm down. No easy feat considering I just had the object of every single one of my dirty fantasies tongue down my throat an hour ago.

I’m afraid I’ll have a permanent stutter in my voice for the rest of my life.

“No. I actually came to see you. I never caught your name the other night.”

If suspicion were a physical thing, it would present itself as her twin.

“Britt,” she murmurs, shaking my hand with the power of an ox. ”Look, whatever business you came here for, I can’t help you. I just work here.”

“I know,” I nod, hoping I give a gentle smile and not a garish grin. Judging by the way she eyeballs me, I’m guessing I don’t succeed. “I actually came to ask a favor.”

“I don’t give out favors.”

“This isn’t anything extraneous.”

“I don’t know what that word means,” she counters and I grit my teeth.

Okay, so maybe I’m not the best at making friends, but Britt? She’s five thousand times worse than me.

“Okay . . . let’s start again. Hi, I’m Hannah and I need help dressing for a particular type of party because I am in over my head. Is that better?”

She purses her lips, clearly not amused with me.

“What kind of party?”

Fuck. “A weird one.”

“I take it you and Mason made up?”

“Uh, yes, I suppose so. We’re just friends.” I can’t fight the blush on my cheeks any more than I can fight my stomach doing a back flip from remembering the way he growled against my lips. “You know him well?”

She shrugs, washing a glass in the miniature sink in front of her.

“I know of him. Can’t say I’ve ever talked to him.”

“Oh, I was under the impression you were all friends.”

She looks at me like I’ve lost my mind.

“Can’t say we are. Though, he has come in here a few times with his—” she looks me up and down with a dramatic pause, “—women.”

Of course, he has. And now she thinks I’m just another groupie, pining after the famed Mason Carpenter. The kiss wasn’t that good.

Okay, it was, but that doesn’t mean he’s the man of all men.

“Sorry. I must have assumed.”

She shakes her head. “Mason’s hot and all. Don’t get me wrong, but I like a more . . . emotionally developed type of man.”

I start to tell her that Mason is emotionally developed, but think better of it. I’ll keep that to myself.

“Well, what about clubs, do you know anything about those?”

She gives me a bored look.

“Spit it out, Red.”

I wince, adjusting on the barstool. The thing’s ricketier than a one-legged rocking horse.

“What about . . . sex clubs?”

She stares at me for a beat, cocking her brow before a devious smirk pulls on her lips.

“ You , in a sex club ?”

My cheeks flame with embarrassment and I hastily search the room to make sure no one else heard us. “Keep it down, okay?”

Britt snickers, grabbing a towel from the counter behind her to start drying the glasses she just washed.

“Now that , I would pay to see.”

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “I’m not a nun.”

Her lips quiver, but she doesn’t laugh. “No, but I’d venture to say you’ve never even given a blow job in public before.”

Never given a blow job, anywhere before.

Unfortunately, my poker face is that of a child. She sees right through me.

“You’ve never . . .” Luckily her voice trails off, and when she must realize the depth of my lack of sexual experience, she nods slowly, pursing her lips and mulling it over like the world just offered her the most peculiar problem. “So, how’d you do it?”

I pause, staring at her in confusion and bewilderment. Oh, embarrassment’s here for the ride, too.

“Come on,” she chuckles, leaning forward and pressing her hands on top of the counter. “Mason Carpenter’s head over fucking heels with you,” she says, lowering her voice. “Are you a witch?”

“No,” I snap, appalled by her insinuation. “And Mason’s not in love with me. He’s helping me with something and I’m working for him as payment.”

“So, like prostitution.”

“No,” I huff. “Look, I need something I can wear to a sex club and you’re the only person I know around here besides three greasy mechanics.”

She looks around her as if she’s trying to decide if I’m worth it or not.

“Look, you’re a nice girl, Red. Real sweet . . .” She says it like one would when speaking to a child.

“But . . .”

She sighs, leaning back and searching my face like a disappointed mother.

“You’re sure about this?”

No.

“Yes.”

She sighs, rolling her eyes. “Jerry, I’m heading upstairs for a minute.” The man at the other end of the bar playing solitaire nods, not even looking at her.

“Come on, Red,” she says, taking my hand and leading me toward the back where the entrance to the apartment upstairs is. “Let’s go play dress up.”

“Where do you buy all this leather?”

Britt chuckles under her breath, tossing a skirt on the bed beside me.

“Stores, Hannah. Here.” She hands me a top that may as well be lingerie and I stare at her.

“I can’t wear this.”

“You’re going to a sex club. With a sex god. Wear the damned top.”

I swallow down past the lump in my throat, holding it up to inspect it.

My mother would shit herself if she saw me in this . . .

“You know what? You’re right.”

“Told you, Red.”

I resume petting her cat, Chester, who purrs loudly on the top of Britt’s comforter beside me.

It’s strange. Being in someone else’s room. I feel like I barely know her, but in a lot of ways, I could see Britt and I getting along. We’re from different sides of the world, yet, at the end of the day, we’re the same.

I can tell by her demeanor, she’s had a rough upbringing. Maybe not the same as mine, but it wasn’t peaches and cream.

“What’s Mommy going to say when she sees her perfect daughter in leather and heels?”

I cringe. “Probably start a nuclear war.”

“Thank God she doesn’t have the keys to the kingdom,” Britt mumbles from her closet before turning back over her shoulder. “No offense.”

“None taken.”

“What’s it like?” she asks, resuming her search through a never-ending array of clothing. “Having a mother who’s the governor of the entire state?”

“Lonely.”

I know by the way she pauses, she wasn’t expecting that answer. Finally, she comes back out of the closet and moves to her dresser. Chester curls up against my leg to take a nap.

“Surrounded by a crowd of people, but yet you still feel like you’re all alone.”

“People who only know me as her daughter and not as a person on my own.”

She mulls that over for a moment as she flips through a bottom drawer of pants.

“Like working at a bar in the middle of this shithole part of town, but studying medicine at night?”

Now, it’s my turn to be surprised.

“Medicine?”

She turns back to me. “That hard to believe, huh?”

“No,” I rush but fall flat. “I’m sorry. I just wasn’t expecting you to say that.”

She shrugs. “It’s alright. People don’t like to better themselves anymore. At least, not as much as they used to.”

“No,” I agree. “Doctor, then?”

She shakes her head, handing me a pair of what I can only assume are leather pants. I’m getting quite the collection.

“Nurse. They’re the real backbone of the industry.”

“I don’t disagree with you.”

“The doctors get all the credit, but it’s the nurses that really save lives. Sure, you’ve got your special circumstances, but where would those doctors be without the men and women behind them?”

“Like politics,” I blurt before I can even think, but luckily, she nods along. “Sorry, my mother has an entire team making sure none of us fuck up her perfect image.”

“Your mother does that all on her own. She doesn’t need you to add to it, so she makes sure you’re perfect.”

I roll my eyes. “My mother’s a saint in the media’s eyes.”

“The media, sure, but what about the streets? People don’t like the way shit’s going. I hear about it every time she comes on TV down at the bar.”

“What are they saying?”

“She’s a con artist,” she shrugs. “I know she’s your mother, but I get the feeling she isn’t a very good one.”

“She’s not,” I admit. “But . . . she’s the only one I’ve got.”

“That’s where we’re different. I cut my family off because they were a bunch of sexist assholes who thought I would never be able to do better for myself than living in some rundown trailer in Mississippi with roaches climbing down the walls and a man who beats me every night.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” I say because what else is there to say when someone lets that out?

“Don’t be. It may not be much, but I’ve got Chester. My job. Only a couple months left and I can get the nursing job I’ve always wanted. Shit’s rough for everyone, no matter their plight.”

Her phone buzzes on the bed beside me and she groans.

“Time’s up,” she grimaces. “Means Jerry’s probably got all of three customers and has decided he can’t handle it.”

I chuckle as she slips her phone into her back pocket.

“Well, I can’t thank you enough. I’ll return these as soon as possible. Clean.”

“Don’t bother,” she waves, holding out a hand and pulling me to stand. “I never wear the shit, anyway. Just don’t go getting into trouble. Those clubs can be rough.”

“I can imagine,” I grimace. “I’ve never been to a real club before, so I don’t know how this will go.”

“Well, I may have lied a bit earlier. I don’t know Mason well, but I know him well enough that he won’t let anything bad happen. Especially not to you.”

I shake my head, chuckling humorously. “There’s really nothing there. We’re just working together.”

She smirks, pulling me toward the door.

“For now.”