Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 101764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
I pulled the door open, and the volume increased tenfold. “What?” I shouted, pointing to my ear. “Sorry, can’t hear you?”
“Oh, screw you.” Trevor flipped me the bird.
I waggled my fingers at him and slipped into the hallway.
“You loved that nipple tweak, and you know it,” he shouted after me.
Ah, revenge. So damn sweet. Guess he’d just have to wander upstairs to Parker’s office for his rubdown. He could thank me later. Trevor might like to complain about our boss, but he’d been gone for the man since the day he interviewed. Parker was everything Trevor went for in a guy—older, serious, rich, and intense as hell.
Chuckling, I wormed my way through the crowded dance floor to the hostess booth for the night’s VIP schedule.
“Hey, Alex.” Luke glanced at the computer after smiling at me. The lucky bastard got to wear a suit while the rest of us pranced around in a few scraps of fabric shy of naked. But Luke didn’t work for tips, and showing skin brought in the big bucks and the customers. “You’re on seven and eight tonight. Seven is booked for the entire night by two different parties. One from ten to twelve and another from twelve to two. Seven is only booked for the first two hours.”
The ten o’clock booking gave me a half hour to make sure my area was ready for a group of men to spend an obscene amount of money on alcohol and the experience. Thirty minutes to get my game face on and prepare to spend hours pretending I loved the club scene and loved serving rich assholes. I didn’t like socializing with anyone, let alone rich partiers. To them, I was nothing more than a fit body who delivered the alcohol and let them slap my ass.
But money was money, and I could bank more working four nights a week here than a full-time job elsewhere. And make no mistake, for me, this was all about the money. As much as I could rack up in as little time as possible, this job allowed me to balance classes, studying, and covering the bills.
Mostly.
“Thanks, Luke. Find me if anything changes.” Occasionally, a last-minute reservation would fill the empty slot, or a walk-in would be willing to drop big bucks for some privacy in the VIP section.
He nodded and waved without tearing his gaze from the computer.
Though it was only nine thirty, the dance floor was filling fast. Most guys still wore their shirts, but that would change in the next hour or so. We maxed out capacity every Saturday night. Hell, the doors were open Wednesday through Saturday nights, and we hit max capacity often. Wednesday tended to be the slowest, but it was never empty. Thursday was a go-go night with some of the staff, Trevor included, dancing on raised platforms. Friday always had a theme, and Saturday was Golden Night. We slathered ourselves in glitter until we looked like walking disco balls. Customers got a free shot if they wore gold. VIPs, the section where I worked, received a complimentary golden bottle of Dom Pérignon.
Of course, free was a bit of a misnomer. A table in the VIP section cost two grand for a two-hour reservation, and that bumped to twenty-eight hundred on Saturdays. Each table could accommodate up to eight people. The reservation came with snacks, bottled water, and me. The friendly neighborhood grad student who’d deliver the ridiculously priced alcohol while shaking my ass, waving sparklers, and providing the luxury experience these rich assholes thought they deserved. It wasn’t uncommon for a VIP’s tab to hit over ten thousand dollars on a given night.
The thought of spending that much money on a single night out boggled my mind, yet I witnessed men drop that much cash every week. And then there was me, the guy who felt guilty for spending three dollars on a coffee at the campus café a few times each week.
“Alex, you good?” Trevor called out as he walked by with an armload of bottled water. “You’re standing there with lost puppy eyes.”
Shit. I gave myself a mental slap across the face. This was not the time to bemoan my station in life, not if I wanted to earn enough tips to pay for this semester’s books. “All good. Just went offline for a second.”
Trevor’s grin turned sympathetic. “You work too hard, Ally. Maybe you should take a week off.”
I snorted. “School’s not gonna pay for itself, Trev.” Like me, he’d graduated last year but with a degree in political science. He is assisting at his mother’s fabric shop a few days a week. Must be nice to have the luxury to dick around for a while. I started at twelve, out of necessity, not desire. Back when my mother could still work, I was able to take the occasional day off. Now, not so much. Every day I missed work hurt my family’s ability to get by.