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Interesting is an understatement. My night goes from dull-fest to party city the second those two boys get a hold of me. As soon as I join up with them, we head to the bar and Croix buys us a round of shots. Before we even have those downed, Raj is ordering more. After that, Raj practically drags us out onto the dancefloor.
Thanks to a waitress walking around selling shots in test tubes, we're never without libations. Sobriety slips away without notice due to all of the dancing and moving and laughing. Croix and I are practically in stitches when Raj takes to one of the stages to show off his dancing skills and this lady comes up behind him and starts spanking his ass. It's not much longer before we're right beside him, making complete fools of ourselves.
For the most part, we all stick together, though occasionally we break off to dance with random strangers who seem interested. We're never apart for long, converging again whenever one of the guys gets a hold of more drinks.
All good things must come to an end, though. Eventually, Raj runs out of steam. He pulls us from the dancefloor to tell us that he's taking off for the night. I expected Croix to follow suit, but he decides to stick around. We say our goodbyes to Raj, then Croix takes me by the hand to lead me to the bar and order us more drinks before finding a spot in the corner of the room to stand while we drink them. The place is so packed that sitting just isn't going to happen. People are parked in the few chairs in the seating area, and they don't look like they have any intentions of moving.
“Are you having fun?” Croix asks, still bobbing slightly to the music.
“I'm having a blast,” I admit, a bit sad that the night is winding down.
“I've been meaning to ask you something.”
“What?” I look up at him. His eyes are glassy, and I can't place his expression.
“How did you stand dating Derrick Wight for so long?”
I quirk my head back, wondering where in the hell that question even came from. “It wasn't so long,” I correct him. “We were only together for five months.”
“Oh. I thought it was longer than that,” he sounds genuinely surprised.
“It was long enough.” I scowl as my mood starts to plummet.
“I was just wondering because that guy is one of the biggest pricks I've ever met. When he was at The Billionaires Club, he was a dick to everyone but his clients.”
I don't really care. I don't want to know how Derrick was at The Billionaires Club. It's bad enough remembering how he was with me. All of the nights I waited for him when he couldn't make up his mind whether or not he wanted to see me. When we were together, it was like magic. Getting there was the hard part. He was selfish with his time, with his body, with his money. With everything. The honeymoon phase of our dating was over in two short weeks. By that time, he had me addicted to his amazing sexual prowess. After that, I was just a convenience for him. He used me for everything he could, and then when he was done with me, he kicked me to the curb as if I never meant anything to him at all. Maybe I didn't.
“Hopefully, neither one of us ever has to deal with him again,” I say before raising my glass to my lips and taking a long swallow of the long island iced tea. If I could drown all of my thoughts of Derrick away, I would, but there's not enough alcohol in the world for that.
“How was it working with him?” Croix refuses to drop the subject.
“Horrible.” I gesture in annoyance. “We dated for two months before he brought me on at Club Diamond. I told him it was a bad idea, but he wouldn't listen to me. We had a really hard time finding and keeping women as volunteers. No respectable woman who made a decent amount of money wanted to volunteer, so Derrick eventually started bringing in anyone who was willing to have sex with the clients for free.
“When the club finally did open, we only had five volunteers. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to pique the interest of our male clientele, so Derrick decided to add fake pics into the mix. The few real girls we had when the club opened didn't last long. To be honest, I was surprised that Derrick never suggested that I offer myself up,” I tell him only half-joking.
“When it became apparent that the club wasn't going to make it, Derrick blamed me for it. Of course, I would hardly call our relationship a relationship at that point. We only saw each other at work. The times that we did have sex were few and far between. He was so focused on the business that he seemed to forget about me completely. Instead of being his partner, I was someone for him to blame for his failed idea.” I word vomit out everything that I can so that there isn't room for any more questions. Talking about it only drops my mood further, though.
When I'm drunk like this, it's easy to forget about the bad memories and focus on the good ones, like the night Derrick and I first met and the handful of times we went out together. There are things about him that still tug at my heart, like the way that he smiled whenever he said something clever and he knew it. There was an alluring confidence about him. And while he wasn't sweet very often, those rare times were like a special gift. I never took them for granted.
“I'm sorry you went through that.” Croix gives me a sympathetic look.
“Yeah. So am I.” I drain the rest of my glass to muster up the courage to say the words that hurt the most. “The day that he fired me was the same day that he dumped me.”
“Wow. That is low.” His eyes widen in shock.
I stare down at the empty contents of my glass, glad that I feel too numb to cry. “I think I'm going to take off. It's been fun, but I need to get to bed.” So that I can forget this conversation ever happened.
“Did you drive yourself?” Croix points his thumb in the direction of the parking lot.
“Yeah.”
“Let me give you a ride home. You're too drunk to drive.”
“I'll be fine.” I shake my head.
He places his hand on my arm. “I insist. I want to make sure you get home safely.”
While I definitely don't want to spend any more time reflecting on Derrick, I know that Croix is right. I'm too drunk to drive.
“Fine,” I relent, praying that I can hold myself together until I'm safely in my bedroom.
***
“Did you always picture yourself wanting to volunteer at The Billionaires Club?” I ask once we're in Croix's limo. It's something I've been wondering about for a while. Now that we're both drunk, there's less of a filter between my brain and my mouth. Most questions seem fair game, whether they're appropriate or not.
“Oh boy, what a question,” he lets out a nervous laugh. “Who ever really pictures themselves volunteering at somewhere like The Billionaires Club?”
“That's exactly what you are, though, a volunteer. That means you're there by choice. That means when you volunteered at the one in California, you were there by choice.” I pull my clutch closer against me on my lap.
“That's true,” he admits. “To be honest, I originally went there more out of curiosity than anything else. Bruno sucked me into the idea of actually volunteering. I don't think you understand how much performance anxiety something like that gives a guy. I mean, you're expected to be able to...well, you know.” He makes a circle in the air with his finger, and I can't help but laugh.
“You act like you'd never fucked before that.”
“Oh, I had. Plenty of times. There was just never so much expectation attached to it. You definitely don't want to be the worst lay at The Billionaires Club. I swear, the first month I volunteered there, I had nightmares about my clients whispering to one another that they regretted getting paired with me.”
It's hard for me to imagine him having such anxieties. He's absolutely gorgeous, and he has a great personality. What woman could ever want more? Briefly, I wonder if it's a size issue. Letting my eyes drift to the front of his slacks, I can't really tell.
“You're funny.” I shake my head at him. “You know what else is funny?”
“What?”
“Our names.” It's a strange thing for me to bring up, but what better time to say something stupid than when you're drunk.
“What's so funny about our names?” He lifts an eyebrow in amusement.
“They kind of sound the same.”
“How does Croix sound anything like Raven?”
“No, that's not what I meant.” I cross my hands in front of me. “Croix sounds kind of like crow.”
“But crows and ravens aren't the same.”
“No, they're not.” I remember from the first time I made the mistake of grouping the two together. "Crows have tail feathers of the same length. Ravens have longer middle feathers.”
“That's right.” He nods.
“How would you know that anyway?” I turn to him.
“Maybe because I've taken an interest in a certain raven.” He brushes a strand of hair away from my face, and my heartbeat goes from calm to racing in the blink of an eye as I catch sight of his predatory gaze.
