Crazy Eights (Stacked Deck #8) - Emilia Finn Page 0,27
for a sec, because not so long after, there were breaking news banners saying he found his girl, and all was right with the world.” She peeks around the mirrors and sighs. “And since you’re right here, I guess that means it wasn’t you.”
“Mm. Wasn’t me.”
“Don’t you think he’s hot as hell, though?”
Yes. “Who?”
“The guy on the news. Jamie Kincaid! He had me fanning my face, standing there in shorts with all that moppy hair, and ink on his chest.”
“Oh. Nah. I didn’t catch the news, so I don’t know who—”
“I figure whoever she is, her name must start with Q. Because he had a Q on his chest.”
“Hm. Maybe.”
“Not a lot of name choices there. Quinn, Quisha, Quorra, which sounds like Cora, right? Unless it’s more of a nickname thing, like maybe he calls her his queen.” She shrugs. “But no matter which way we slice it, you, my darling, are not a Q. Which means, I, unfortunately, was not getting my hands on that reward money.”
“You’d have sold me, just like that?” I fake a laugh and go to work on my mascara. “So much for loyalty.”
“Girl,” she snickers. “I was tempted to dress you up and see if he’d notice you weren’t her. Dance for that handsome man once, and he’d have no recollection of who his Q was.”
I roll my eyes and drawl, “I’m flattered. Are you doing the fourth routine tonight?” Change the subject. Move the hell on with your life. “With the silks?”
“I was thinking of the one we practiced to Britney. The one with the ass. Every time I bend over, it sends the guys crazy, and I need a new hot water heater, so mama’s gotta work it tonight.”
I snort. “Make that ass work for you, girlfriend. That’s why God gave it to you.”
I slide the wand back into my tube of mascara and drop the whole thing onto my table. Standing, I run a hand over my flat stomach and try to forget the ache in my heart after hearing Jamie’s words. The rage in his voice. The dismissal, when I realized I was nothing more to him than an incubator.
I thought what we had was real, but after all these years, all of that searching, I was only as valuable as the hypothetical baby he thought I had carried for him.
I’ve been broke all of my life. But not once have I ever felt so cheap. Not until Jamie.
“I’m ready to go on.” Lita bounces up from her stool and hustles her way around to stop in front of me.
She has the best boobs money could buy, the best ass that came without injections, but to tie it all together, her waist is so beautifully narrow, it creates the perfect hourglass, the most erotic shape that we know men obsess over. It’ll take one single set tonight, one dance, for her to afford a new hot water heater.
“Are you okay?” Lita leans a little closer, bending her neck to close the couple inches of height she has over me. Then she reaches up and cups my jaw, allowing the universe to fuck with me some more, as she runs the pad of her thumb over the dimple in my chin the way Jamie used to. “You seem nervous.”
I drag a lungful of air down my throat, then let it out again on a sigh. “I’m tired. I’ve been run off my feet trying to make the rent.”
“You should sleep more, sweetpea. It’s not healthy to never take a minute to rest.”
“Someday.” I take her hand and hold it for just a moment. “Someday I’ll be able to rest. But not right now. I’m too busy.”
She scoffs. “And at the end of your busy day as a fancy dance teacher, you take your fancy-pants dance education, and put it to good use here at Zeus’, shaking your ass for a little cash and a pat on the rump.” She makes the tsk noise with her tongue. “That doesn’t sound right, does it?”
“Sounds perfectly fine to me.” I release her hand and step around her in nothing more than cheeky, boyleg panties, a matching bra, and heels that are so tall, they would almost – almost – bring me eye-to-eye with Jamie Kincaid. “Beggars can’t be choosers, Lita. I want to dance, I want to choreograph, and this way, I get to do both.”
“But when you planned to dance, you didn’t mean for men. When you say you want to choreograph, you