“Whatever.” I wave a dismissive hand. “I don’t give a f**k about gossip anymore. It’s been going on for years.” Only this gossip might become fact, the way things are going.

Nate makes his way toward the door. I don’t blame him for wanting to head home; it’s almost four a.m. But he suddenly stops. “Man, I’ve been through hell and back with you, Cain. I owe you everything. But I’m tired of watching you chase ghosts and punish yourself for shit you can’t change—shit that happened years ago and wasn’t your fault.

“Do you remember the night we opened this place? You sat in that chair, pissed out of your skull, watching an old surveillance video of Penny onstage, promising that if you ever met another girl like her, you’d do things differently. You wouldn’t sit back and make excuses. Hell, you said you’d walk away from this business in a heartbeat if you could just have another chance.”

I think back to that night. I remember wanting to shoot myself in the head the next morning after downing half a bottle of cognac. Then I remember seeing the frozen screen shot of Penny’s face on the monitor and wanting to down the other half of the bottle. But I sure as hell don’t remember saying any of that.

Nate doesn’t wait for my denial. “And here you are, doing the exact same thing with Charlie.”

“This is nothing like—”

“It’s the exact same thing!” Nate rarely raises his voice but, when he does, it reminds me that he’s not the scrawny little kid I knew back in South Central. “You knew you wanted Penny and you waited, giving excuse after excuse as to why you weren’t good enough, why she deserved better, why you’d be taking advantage of her. Playing a f**king martyr. And then you finally made a move, when she was on her way to the altar!” His voice suddenly quiets because he knows his words have already pummeled me and his next ones will kick me while I’m down. “And it was too late.”

The air hangs silent and heavy in the room. Nate has hit old wounds that closed over but never truly healed. I should have swept Penny off her feet the second she walked through my door. But I did what I thought was the “right thing” by staying back. I figured I’d wait. Wait until she got out of this business, until she was no longer working for me, and then maybe I’d tell her how I felt.

But a plumber named Roger beat me to it. He came along, showering her with flowers and romantic dinners, making her feel as special as I wanted to. As I should have. He proposed to her within four months. It was fast and unexpected and it hit me like a freight train but still, I held my resolve, convincing myself that he could give her a life I couldn’t. She deserved a white picket fence and a respectable father for her babies. I was a f**king strip club owner with a cargo plane’s worth of skeletons.

The night she came to me to tell me they had decided to elope the coming weekend and she wouldn’t be coming back to Penny’s, I panicked. I couldn’t deny it any longer—I was in love with her and I selfishly wanted her for myself.

So I spilled my guts. I dropped to my knees, my hands wrapped around her legs, begging her not to marry him, to stay with me, to give me a chance. I told her everything about me. Everything! It all just tumbled out.

She yelled at me for not telling her how I felt sooner, cried that she couldn’t do that to Roger, that he was good to her and it would wreck him. And then she completely broke down, spilling into my arms. We made love that night in my office, for the first and last time. She left with a “sorry.”

No one but Roger will ever know exactly what happened the next night. The video surveillance showed her working her last shift with a sad smile. Everyone assumed it was because she would miss the friends she had made. I couldn’t face her, and so I hid in my office like a coward, burying myself in paperwork.

Around midnight, the last cameras caught Penny and Roger in a whispered conversation. By the tears in her eyes and the repeated “I’m sorry” forming on her lips while she fumbled with her ring, as if trying to take it off, I have a good idea what they were talking about.

Why she decided to do it then, at the bar, I’ll never know.

I wish I had been out there. I wish Nate had been closer. I wish I had swept her off her feet in the first four seconds that she walked into my life. I wish a lot of things . . .

I wish I’d known that Roger had one hell of a temper.

“You’re scared, man,” Nate proclaims now with that penetrating stare fixed on me. “Make all the excuses you want—you’re plain scared of getting hurt again. That’s why you’re letting Charlie play this little game of hers, enjoying the view while not taking the leap. You think avoiding the conversation will somehow keep you safe. I’ve got news for you, Cain. You’re already hung up on that girl. You can’t focus on anything else when she’s in the building. It took me a whole ten seconds to grab your attention tonight and you were standing right beside me!”

I rub my hands over my face. I was watching Charlie and Ginger react to something Ben had said. I had never seen Charlie burst out laughing before, but tonight she did. I was desperate to know what was so funny, and bitter that it was Ben making her laugh like that and not me.

“But what if she doesn’t want anything to do with me?” Penny may have given herself to me that night and she may have been breaking off her engagement for me, but I saw the fear in her eyes when I laid out my past. The disgust. I wasn’t the kind of guy she was looking for. And I also saw the confusion because, despite her upcoming wedding, despite me not being the model citizen, she did feel something for me. Whether she wanted to or not. “Doesn’t Charlie deserve someone normal?”

“You mean like a nice, quiet plumber who will bash her brains into the ground?” His words stab me in the chest as he turns and slowly walks toward the door again. “Make it easier on everyone, including yourself, Cain. Tell Charlie whatever you feel you need to about yourself. Or don’t tell her anything about your past, because it’s the past and I don’t think it matters as much as you think it does. Either way, make a damn move. Make it now. ”

Chapter eighteen

CHARLIE

“Charlie!” I hear Ginger’s voice yell out over my hair dryer.

“Yeah?” I yell back, turning to see her holding a phone out.

The new burner phone I picked up from the extended-stay hotel this morning.

Switching off my hair dryer, I smooth my expression as I take it from her. By the lit-up screen displaying “unknown caller,” someone has called and Ginger has answered.

I feel the blood drain from my face.

Oh no . . .

“It was ringing, so I got it,” Ginger explains, though by her drawn brow and hesitant tone, I think she’s wondering if maybe that was a mistake.

I’d love to tell her that she sure as hell shouldn’t have gone into my purse to answer it, but now is not the time. Swallowing the rising bubble of panic, I say, “Thanks, Ginger. I’ll be out in a second.”

She opens her mouth but then pauses as if in thought. She must have decided it’s better left unsaid. Spinning on her heels, she walks back over to my couch and dives into it.

I take a deep breath as I pull the door almost shut but not quite—to ensure Ginger doesn’t scurry back over to press her ear up and eavesdrop. She’d be the type to do that. Holding the phone up to my ear, I say with a slight wobble in my voice, “Hello.”