Page 39 of Faking the Goal

I immediately shove that thought away.

Not my fucking business.

Still, I don't turn around.

The farther we get from campus, though, the less certain I become that she's headed to a party. Twenty minutes becomes thirty, then forty, and we're still driving. By the time we're approaching an hour, I'm seriously questioning both my sanity and how Taylor does this drive several nights a week if this is where she normally goes.

The neighborhoods gradually change around us. The familiar streets near Ridgewater disappear behind us, giving way to older commercial blocks, twenty-four-hour convenience stores, pawn shops, check-cashing places, auto shops already shuttered for the night, and bars glowing beneath cheap neon signs. It's not some apocalyptic wasteland, but it's definitely not the part of town I'd expect Taylor to willingly drive an hour to visit when Miami has approximately a million places closer to campus where she could drink and party.

Eventually, her turn signal flashes.

I slow down and hang farther back as her Honda pulls into a parking lot beside a low building with dark windows. There are enough cars outside that the place is clearly open, but nothing about it resembles the packed clubs I've seen her disappear into before.

I pull over farther down the street rather than following her into the lot, feeling increasingly fucking ridiculous.

Taylor gets out of her car and adjusts her leather jacket before heading toward the entrance with the ease of someone who has been here plenty of times before.

Then I finally look up at the sign.

For a second, my brain refuses to process what I'm seeing.

Pink and purple neon sprawls across the front of the building, complete with the unmistakable silhouette of a woman wrapped around a pole. The sign flickers once, bathing the parking lot in another pulse of lurid pink while I stare at it like changing the angle might somehow change what kind of establishment I'm looking at.

It doesn't.

This isn't a nightclub.

It's a fucking strip club.

I sit in my truck for ten solid minutes after she disappears through those doors, hands gripping the steering wheel while every logical part of my brain tells me the same thing: leave. Just fucking leave.

Instead, I kill the engine and get out.

The bouncer at the door is built like a refrigerator. He looks me over, checks the fake ID that says I'm twenty-one, takes twenty bucks, and waves me through.

The music hits me the second I step inside, bass pounding through the floor beneath my shoes. The lights are low, mostly red and blue, illuminating women in G-strings working the poles while men crowd around the stage throwing bills at their feet.

I immediately feel out of place.

Hockey locker rooms I can handle. Frat parties, fine. This? Not my fucking scene.

I find a booth in the back corner that gives me a clear view of most of the room without putting me in the middle of it. A waitress in a black bikini top and tiny shorts comes over, and I order a beer I don't want before scanning the room.

No red hair. No leather jacket. No Taylor.

Maybe she's in the back. Maybe she came here to meet someone.

Maybe she's a dancer.

I really don't fucking like that possibility.

I'm halfway through my beer and seriously considering leaving when a service door near the bar opens and Taylor walks out carrying a tray loaded with shots.

Jesus Christ.

She's wearing a black corset laced tightly over her chest and a skirt so fucking short it barely qualifies as one, with fishnets and heels that make her already-long legs look endless. Her red hair is twisted into a messy bun, a few loose strands framing her face, and that same bright red lipstick stands out beneath the dim lights.

My eyes drop before I can stop them, catching on the ridiculous amount of thigh between the hem of that skirt and the top of her fishnets.