My mother.

If I didn’t love her, I’d kil her.

Trixie started mixing some gunk in a little bowl with a wide flat paintbrush and shrugged at Mom.

“Everything’s okay with Eddie so you can stop meddling,” I told them.

“I better cal Javier,” Mom said quietly.

See what I mean?

“How okay are things with Eddie?” Trixie asked, giving me a wide-eyed, nosy stare.

I looked to the ceiling and asked for deliverance.

God clearly had better things to do that day.

I guided them off the subject of Eddie. I fel asleep during the pedicure with a head ful of foil wrap and had to be woken up to get my hair rinsed in the kitchen sink.

“Voila!” Trixie said, handing me a mirror when she was done.

I stared at myself in disbelief.

Okay, I had to admit, it looked good. No, real y, it looked great. She’d cut off a couple of inches so my hair just brushed past my shoulders, gave me a deep thick bang that was parted well to the side and looked almost sexy. It did actual y brighten me up. In fact, my eyes looked more green than hazel and my skin looked kind of glowy.

“It’s great,” I said.

“It is! It’s you! It’s perfect! You’re a whole new Jet,” Trixie announced.

I wished I was a whole new Jet with a whole new life but I’d take the new ‘do because I wasn’t going to get the other, that was for sure.

Trixie did my makeup for Smithie’s, which also looked better than I could ever do, and I was a dab hand at makeup. I celebrated my new look by wearing my sexiest slut shoes with my Smithie’s uniform. They were black patent leather, closed, pointed toe with double, thick straps with a dual buckle at the ankle. Smithie cal ed them my dominatrix shoes and he wasn’t wrong.

JoJo and I were only five minutes late when we swung through the door. Smithie was at his usual place behind the bar. He turned when we entered, opened his mouth to say something smart and his mouth just stayed open when he saw me.

I put my purse and cardigan on the bar.

“Please tel me you did that to your hair ‘cause you’re gonna dance a pole.”

“I’m not dancing a pole,” I told him.

He handed me my apron and, as usual, I slid my cel into the pocket. I always did this; I was never without my cel , just in case Mom needed to cal .

Smithie kept talking. “So, then, it was to throw me off the fact that you didn’t cal me to tel me some dickhead held a knife to you last night.”

Damn.

Lenny had given me up.

“It was nothing.”

“It didn’t sound like nothin’, it sounded like f**kin’

somethin’. You’re escorted to and from the building from now on.”

I opened my mouth to argue but he lifted his hand.

Everyone knew you shut up when Smithie lifted his hand.

“Okay,” I said.

“I take it since you sashayed in with JoJo that your car stil ain’t workin’,” he said.

“Right,” I told him.

He put my purse and cardigan behind the bar. “Then one of the bouncers picks you up and takes you home. You don’t arrange it, I wil .”

I nodded because he wasn’t exactly opening it up for discussion.

“Good,” he said. “Get to work.”

I got to work and knew right away it wasn’t going to be a good night. My station included three tables at the front by the stage. Two hours in, those tables were taken up by a bachelor’s party. Who on earth would have a bachelor’s party on a Tuesday, I did not know, but there they were.

They were getting drunk quickly and I knew by the way they were behaving (giving me winks, cal ing me “babe”, elbowing each other and giggling every time I was near) that they were going to be trouble. In fact, for a Tuesday, it was a busy night. Al the tables were ful , there were some men standing around and the bar was two deep.

It was just after midnight, my section had gone from drunk and stupid to drunk and getting rowdy and I was at the waitress station at the bar. The waitress station was separated from the rest of the bar by two big, brass rails that went up the front of the bar, ran high and curled around the back. I was waiting for an order to be fil ed and deciding that, even though they were my sexiest slut shoes, I hated them with al my heart because my feet were kil ing me. I was dog tired and looking forward to my three hours of sleep when Tanya, another waitress, slid in beside me.

Now, Tanya wanted to be at a pole. She looked great, lots of dark hair, a fake DD-cup and long legs. She tried the stage once but she was a terrible dancer; not only two left feet, but also no rhythm and when she tried to dance sexy, well , there’s no way to describe it, it was just plain wrong. It was hard to watch her up there, it was so bad. Smithie took her off the stage and gave her a uniform. It broke her heart.

She was now taking salsa lessons in hopes of another go.

“I’m in love,” she told me.

“Real y? That’s great,” I said.

She laughed.

“You idiot. Not real y. More like in lust. Got a guy at my station the likes you don’t see in here very often.” I looked over my shoulder to her station but there were people standing around and I couldn’t see any of her tables.

“Who is he?”

Someone shifted and I froze when I saw Eddie sitting alone at a table, his legs stretched in front of him, crossed at the ankles. His arms were crossed on his chest. He had a beer bottle on the table in front of him, his face was blank and his eyes were on the stage. He watched the stage like I would guess he’d watch a sitcom, as if it was al the same to him.

“Holy shit!” I said, turning away.

“I know!” Tanya said. “Isn’t he hot?”

No.

No, no, no, no.

This was not happening.

“Jet, are you okay?” Tanya asked.

What was I going to do?

I couldn’t leave, I needed the tips and the hours and Smithie’d lose his mind.

I couldn’t stay because Eddie was there and he was going to see me in my Smithie’s uniform and that did not bear thinking about.

“I know him,” I told Tanya.

“You do? Who is he?”

“Pour a beer on him, turn the table on him. Something, anything to get him to leave,” I said to her.

“Is he bad news?” she asked, looking toward the table.

“Don’t look!” I said, grabbing her face by the chin and making her look at me.

“He hurt you or something?” she asked between smushed lips and I let her face go.