Boy in the Club a boy & billionaire novel - Rachel Kane Page 0,31
know you need protection.
I didn’t, the only thing I needed was the man I’d just been dragged away from. I’d never been so embarrassed in my life, being led down the hall with my hard-on still raging, like it thought maybe there was a chance I was going to get laid after all, like maybe at the end of all this, I’d have my legs wrapped around Colby’s hips and things would be good—so good, I knew it would be with him, my whole body thrummed like a guitar string when he touched me—but no. Nothing of the kind was going to happen.
Kid, you’re an ugly.
Stop calling me that. Damn it, Jimi, just…stop.
I’m telling you how it is. You were ugly before the scar, you’re uglier now. You’re not bait. You’re not gonna catch anybody on your hook. Got me? The only guys who want you, are the ones who want to hurt you.
Colby Raines isn’t going to hurt me, I told him.
Colby— That gold-toothed laugh. You’re on a goddamn first-name basis with him? Kid. Kid! That’s the whole point of the rules! What the fuck are you doing?
Practically in tears by that point. Jimi, come on, I’m sorry—
Nah kid, nah. You’re out. Okay? Look, no, don’t do that, take a goddamn kleenex, goddamn it. Let’s get Louie to drive you home, all right? No hard feelings? I always looked out for you, kid. Every since your folks— Nah, nah, ancient history. Look, I oughtta dock your pay for putting me through this—now I’m really down a waiter, you know? I gotta look out for this place. I’m not gonna dock your damn pay. No. Show you I’m a good man, deep down. All right? You stay away from fuckers like Raines. Got that? You don’t know what kind of man he is.
And you do? Sniffling, almost as embarrassed to be tearing up as I was to be ushered out of the room. You know something about him that I don’t?
Which was stupid. What did I know about him, other than that he’d come back for me? What did I know about him, other than that he had a huge glass floor to impress and scare the unwary?
He had sad eyes and said he was not kind.
That’s all I knew.
And I knew that every time I got close to him, all I wanted was more.
But this was Jimi’s specialty. His field of expertise. If they ever gave degrees for understanding a billionaire’s peccadilloes, Jimi would’ve had a Ph.D.
Oh kid, and I couldn’t bear the look of sympathy. What are you doing?
All of this I condense down to its bare essentials for Roan, who brings me the mug of coffee, and I wrap my hands around it like it’s winter and my hands are cold.
It isn’t winter. And it’s not my hands that are cold, it’s my heart.
There’s a rustling at the front door and we both look up—it’s Polly, coming in with a few plastic boxes of food, his sister is a great cook and already my mouth is watering, absurdly given the emotions of the night, but maybe a little comfort food is just the thing—and for the first time in a while, Polly’s smiling, because unlike those of us who are orphans, he’s got a family who loves him.
The minute he sees me, though, that smile goes away.
“Oh hell, Finn, what happened?”
Roan hurries to get up—I think he’s scared of Polly, which is ridiculous. “I’ll put those in the fridge,” he says, taking Polly’s boxes, but Polly is looking back and forth between us.
“Bad news?”
So I have to tell it again. But this is Polly, so I can’t make it without some interruptions.
“You did what? You went to a fucking room with him?”
Roan flinches back. Dude, come on. This is just Polly.
“Don’t ask me to explain it,” I tell them. “Please? I just… He’s got a spell on me, is all.”
“You’re looking to get yourself killed, is all. You’re a fucking idiot, Finn,” and anybody else in the world would’ve said that last bit angrily, but instead there’s this weird sympathy there, this feeling of family that I only have with Polly. Nobody else could call me an idiot without me getting mad, but Polly saying it, I realize how right he is.
“I don’t think that’s very nice?” Roan says, or rather asks. “Finn’s not an idiot. He met a guy. A billionaire apparently. Would that we were all so lucky.”