Chapter 1
I sat in the back seat of the small red sedan driven by the Uber driver, staring at the headrest in front of me. The music was so loud I could hardly hear Annalise going on about the club and how much fun it would be. It didn't matter how much I protested, she insisted that since it was my birthday we had to celebrate. My idea of celebrating was a nice book and a glass of wine, followed by a hot bubble bath and another glass of wine. Just the anxiety sweat from going to this club was enough to reconfirm in my mind that I was missing nothing if I skipped clubbing with her.
"You're such a sour puss! I swear, we'll just stay like an hour." She nudged my ribs with her elbows and I shifted. The scratchy texture of the rayon dress she forced me to buy yesterday irritated my chest--what little was covered anyway.
Annalise was outgoing and flirtatious. She had no trouble picking up guys. She also had the body to rock a dress like this, while I spent most days in professional slacks and tops covered by a white lab coat. My pasty-white skin never saw the light of day, so I looked dreadful in dark colors--which is why she chose bright yellow. What a horrible color.
"We could just watch a chick flick and get plastered?" I whimpered, still hoping she would turn this Uber around and take me home where I was more comfortable. Clubbing wasn't something I did--ever. My time was spent working and going over patient files, cleaning my apartment, hanging out with my cat Boots, and once in a while grabbing coffee with a colleague before, during, or after work.
"You're going to have fun. That's an order!" She didn't even wait until the car was fully stopped before opening the door. "Thank you!" she shouted over her shoulder to the Uber driver. He looked in his rearview mirror at me and I offered a reluctant and unenthusiastic smile before climbing out too.
Instantly I could hear again, horns honking at me because I was street side. I stutter stepped and hurried to the curb, staring up at the towering building. An hour out from NYC and the buildings weren't nearly skyscrapers, but when she said "club" I expected something totally different, not a five-story office building.
"What the hell is this?" I tugged on the hem of the tight-fitting dress as my eyes drew upward over the mirrored building.
"Not there, silly." Annalise took me by the shoulders and physically turned me so I could see across the street, then she pointed. "There."
The two-story building was all black, darkened windows, neon graffiti painted on its front. When traffic stopped for the red light, I could faintly hear the din of music vibrating within its dark walls. She wanted me to go into that building? The few people in line waiting to get in did not look like my sort of people, women scantily clad, men wearing gold chains and lots of rings with tattoos covering their necks and forearms. Maybe this was what she was used to since she hailed from Chicago now, but my crowd wore scrubs and glasses.
"Don't look so surprised. You're never going to cut loose and have some fun unless I force you to." She hooked her arm around mine and paraded me to the street, then proceeded to cross three feet outside the cross walk while the do not walk hand was already flashing. A few horns honked at us and she smiled and waved, wiggling her fingers like she really was in a parade.
"Are you insane? They could have run us over." I clung to her arm, accidentally pulling a strand of her long blonde hair.
"Hush, they would never. Pedestrians have the right of way."
I rolled my eyes and tried to keep up with her. Even the pace she walked at was different than mine, probably because sensible footwear was all I owned until yesterday when I was forced into a department store to buy shoes and a dress--I didn't own any of those either. In fact, everything about my appearance changed yesterday thanks to Annalise's incessant nagging and the barrage of appointments she scheduled. Hair, nails, makeup, shopping, you'd have thought a three-day trip to town would have included some down time but not with Annalise. She became the makeover queen.
Tugging at the dress again, I tried not to lose a heel as we staggered up to the bouncer. She batted her eyelashes and reached into her strapless minidress and pulled out a ten-dollar bill. "Got room for a few cuties?" she asked, tilting her head. He glanced down the line of people waiting to get in and nodded, then took the chain and unhooked it and held it open for us. How on earth did she get guys to respond to her like that?
"Come on," she hissed at me as I struggled not to lose a shoe.
"It's hard to walk in these." My ankle felt like it would give out any second.
"You really never wore heels?"
Just inside the club I stopped and stared up at her. It felt awkward with nothing on my shoulders. I always had my lab coat on. The cool air in the club made me shiver already.
"Do you even know me?" I planted my hands on my yellow rayon hips and shook my head.
"I know my best friend doesn't get promoted to Chief Resident on the same day she turns thirty very often."
"Day before," I corrected her.
"Whatever. We have to celebrate. Come on! Don't kill my joy. The closest thing I'm going to get to this honor is if I get promoted to principal." She hooked her arm around mine again and led me into the depths of the pulsing vibration that was the club. Strobe lights threatened to set off epilepsy, and the music was so loud it shook my chest. We squeezed through the masses until we were seated at the bar, which acoustically seemed like a dead spot. The music was quieter and I heard perfectly as the cute older guy next to me ordered a drink.
Annalise parked next to me on a stool, but all I could think about was how my dress was riding up. And I had no purse. Annalise insisted that we didn't have to bring a single cent with us, that cute guys would buy our drinks. I felt like that was a little sketchy so when she wasn't looking I shoved a twenty in my top--no bra because apparently my sports bras would look horrible with this dress and I had no strapless. So here I was free boobing it with tits the size of melons. Half a dozen guys were already ogling me, including the bartender as he approached.
He slung a towel over his shoulder and pried his eyes off my chest long enough to ask, "What can I get you beautiful ladies?"
"Give her a sex on the beach, my friend. She's turning thirty!" Annalise was such a friggin' flirt. I shook my head and blushed, looking down. He smiled at me and I felt like running away.
"Look woman, he was checking you out." The death grip she took on my arm hurt and I pried her fingers off me while I chuckled.
"You mean, he looked at my tits. Who doesn't? Even women check these honkers out. That's why I wear a sports bra to keep them contained." I pulled the top of the dress up again uncomfortably.
Annalise scoffed and stood behind me, gripping the fabric of the dress on my sides, just below my tits. She pulled gently until my boobs came pillowing out again.
"Stop it!"
"You'll never get a guy with those babies tucked away," she said directly into my ear as the bartender walked up to us with our drinks. He slid them over the polished wood and leaned there, both hands gripping the edge of the bar.
"Excuse me, Piper," she said, emphasizing my name, "I'm going to go see if I can get one of those hot guys to dance."
And with that she was gone, and I was curling into myself. I stared at the drink, wishing I'd brough my glasses. I had contacts, but I felt safer with the glasses, as if somehow they were a shield of defense. The bartender stood there grinning at me and I felt my shoulders hunch over, my arms hugging my stomach. I just wanted him to stop looking at me.
"Nice dress."
I looked up at him awkwardly and smiled as much as grimaced. He was talking to me--oh my god. I wanted to disappear. "Thanks.... My friend that I came with, Annalise... she picked it out. It's not something I normally wear." My god I felt like a grade school child unable to sling sentences together not a woman with a doctorates degree.
He snickered and leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the bar and folding his fingers together. "Well you look fantastic in it, so I think you should wear it more often."
I swallowed hard and turned on the spinning stool so that I could see Annalise already on the dance floor with a man. "Thanks?" I said, not meaning it to sound like a question but my voice squeaked. Why was I so fucking awkward?
"It seems like Annalise is having a good time." I glanced at him and he said, "Why aren't you dancing?"
Still hugging my own stomach, I slouched more and felt my face screw up into a scowl. "In case you didn't notice, we just got here, and I haven't exactly been asked." I shrugged a shoulder and stared out at the mass of gyrating bodies, all grinding in rhythm to the bass in the song. Nope, I didn't do that.
"Yeah right..." He lingered there even after I turned my body away from him making it--in my opinion--obvious that I didn't want his attention. "Maybe its' because you're giving of a 'don't bother me' vibe."
I turned around so quick I almost fell off the stool. "I am not!"
He laughed as if that was the most hysterical thing he'd ever heard. "Yes, you are. You're facing way from the dance floor, hunched over with your arms crossed, and you aren't exactly smiling."
"So that makes you an expert in body language or something?" I scowled and picked up the drink and took a gulp. Anything to drown out this entire experience. I told Annalise this wasn't my scene, and it is obvious to people around me that I don't' fit in.
"When you're a bartender you have to be." He sighed and stood straight, taking the white towel from his shoulder. "I could help if you want. Or you can just sit there all night and you are certainly welcome to."
I tried to sit straighter, already very conscious of how maybe my body language was off-putting. I wasn't trying to be. I just wasn't comfortable here, or in this dress. "Okay, well, what should I do then..."
"Cash. My name is Cash." He grinned again and tossed the towel onto the counter below the bar where bottles of whiskey sat.
"Ok, Cash, so how do I get guys to notice me?" Cash was a cool name. I'd never heard anyone named that. It had to be a nickname or something. Maybe it was his bartender name like a pen name or alias.
He smirked. "I'm pretty certain every man in this bar as noticed you." His eyes dropped to my tits again and I swallowed hard again. I wanted to cover them and run out, but Annalise would only chase me down and make me come back.
