Boy in the Club a boy & billionaire novel - Rachel Kane Page 0,3
Bastard, you abandon me that quickly?
I really, really don’t want to be here. Isn’t there a safeword, something I could yell to bring the whole thing to a halt? I don’t like the lack of subtlety here, suddenly I am a big fan of dancing around the topic!
Hawk. I can tell Hawk. He’ll understand. Daniel is a creature of his appetites, but Hawk has a heart. He’ll get me out of here. I can’t explain it to him—and that’s not because of the roaring music in the room, it’s because I can’t explain anything about myself lately—but at least I can show him my distress and get him to lead me out of here.
Except that Hawk has found his prey as well. A big guy, a full head taller than me. A giant. He’s leaning against the wall, laughing at whatever the man is saying. Hawk wants to get pounded by a giant. The things you learn about your friends. I look at him, I chew on my lip, I lift a hand to signal…but he’s gone.
My friends have brought me here saying it’s for my own good, then left me behind.
I’m alone.
I’m not alone. The men here—the ones like me, fully clothed, aren’t men I know, but they look like they could be, peering through the darkness and the obtrusive fog. The short one over there could be Morgan Rauch-Phillips, who threw a lunch last week to fund a wing on his hospital. Who knows? The one in the white suit, looking like a televangelist, could that be Riley West? I was at his sister’s wedding in Denver two months ago.
Were they looking at me and thinking the same thing? Oh look, Colby Raines. What’s he doing here? I thought he’d be too good for this place.
I am too good for this place. I don’t need things to be this…this obvious. I can get a man. I can get all the men, line them up one by one and take them all down.
It’s just that nothing has worked out like that for me lately.
I don’t want it to work out for me now.
It’s starting to occur to me that there’s nothing to do now but go home or play the game.
Go Home is winning, except…well, I’m curious. How does this work? The men are clearly on display, and I can see them all from here, but should I get a little closer? I’ve been a wallflower this entire time, which is fine when I’m at a party and I’m busy judging people, but nobody else is hanging back, and the pickings are starting to thin out. If I’m going to do this, I should do it now, before all the good ones are taken.
Good ones? They all look alike. That’s the amazing thing. I’m circling them, and they all look cast from the same mold. Different heights, sure, but someone with a tape measure has decreed a certain size of chest, a certain trimness of waist. Six-packs are old news; glistening eight-packs are now de rigueur. Which is always interesting to me. I like muscle, but too much muscle is hard. Sometimes you want someone to cuddle, and it’s hard to cuddle bone and tough muscle.
God, don’t let Daniel hear that I said that.
There has to be someone guiding traffic. Nobody picks up guys this fast, without a promoter or someone directing things. Someone to say, that guy over there is a popular movie director who hates Hollywood, so tell him how much you hate actors. That other guy runs a supply company for upscale restaurant chains, ask him about the market for caviar.
I can’t help but notice no one is coming up to me. Maybe I’m off-limits. Maybe it’s this scowl I can’t get off my face. Yeah, I can’t play this game, especially if there’s no way to win, if it’s all rigged. Everybody gets a trophy boy? No thank you. I’m going home, I’m done, I’m—
What strikes me first is the boy’s scar.
No. Let me back up. As I move around the room, I start to see there is variation here. It’s subtle at first, then it picks up. No one is ever less than perfect, but if you take a second to look, you see the choices, different heights, different breadths.
I hate my friends for leaving me so easily. I do. Did Hawk even say anything to me before he went off with his guy? And what are they even doing? Surely they’re not—