One step from the sidewalk, he halted, twisting his torso to look up at me.

I didn’t know what to say. He laid the terms out for his “gratitude” but I got more out of them than he did so I felt some other gesture was in order. I doubted he’d want a manicure or facial so I was at a loss.

“Anya, told you, got shit to do,” he prompted and I shook myself to get it together.

Then I said softly, “Thank you,” not believing I was thanking a man I barely knew for having my landlord beat up and giving me a new phone the money it cost could buy a used car (a crappy one, but still) but doing it anyway.

His eyes held mine. Then he shook his head while turning away.

Then he was gone.

I walked up to my apartment. Then I plugged in my new phone to charge. Then I found the new number and used my old phone to text it to everyone in my phonebook. In the middle of this, my old phone died.

Not long after, I went to bed.

I tossed. I turned.

And when I finally slept, I dreamt of Knight.

Chapter Four

Only for Me

Mission accomplished last Saturday, we got our night with risotto, facials and Chris Hemsworth and Sandrine participated in the festivities. She did it bitching about Nick though not through the movie, not even Sandrine could bitch about a hot guy jerk while Chris Hemsworth was on screen.

Now it was a week later and Viv, Sandrine and I were dolled up and on the town because Sandrine was on a tear. Nick still hadn’t called and Sandrine, being Sandrine, still hadn’t given up.

Viv was out because she was in the mood to be out. The reason she wasn’t at Nick’s party was because she knew, like I knew, he was a jerk and she had no desire to spend time with him or his crew. So she didn’t.

I was either a pushover or too exhausted from my busy life to bear up against a Sandrine Onslaught so I went.

Tonight, though, I was in Viv’s mood.

It had been just over a week and nothing from Knight. No more chivalrous gestures, no matter how scary, scarily generous or criminal. Nothing.

I wanted to let it go and be relieved. I had a phone. It was awesome and did way more than taking calls, it did email, internet, apps, the whole shebang, all of this looking cool as hell and like something NASA designed but fifty years from now… it was the bomb. I had a safer apartment building and so did all my neighbors. He told me in no uncertain terms he found me attractive but he didn’t stop by and before he left didn’t say he would contact me nor did he ask for a date. So the only thing I could assume was that although he was scary, he still was a man who saw that something needed to be done and he did it. It was a lot more than him hearing I needed a ride and him giving it to me but, bottom line, it seemed simply that was who he was and the kind of thing he did.

So he did his thing and onward.

For a guy like him, I was probably a memory.

I didn’t like this and yet I did. I was relieved and upset. It was odd. And these feelings weren’t fading. Not even a little.

Which sucked. Not just because they weren’t fading but because they were confusing as all get out.

I still wondered if he thought about me when he was doing a certain deed. After a few days of trying to convince myself I didn’t as well as trying not to think about it at all, and failing at both, I admitted to myself that I liked this idea even as it freaked me out just how much I did (which was a lot). However, it was highly unlikely a man like him ever needed his fist, as in ever, so it was also highly doubtful.

So I decided to go out, have a few drinks, dance and celebrate new sheets, a new comforter and new pillows. Without having to buy the phone, bed linens had been stepped up on my schedule of things I could buy. I got the good kind of those too, going way beyond what I would normally allow myself and doing it because I not only had the money but because Viv brought me a new client. An extra fifteen dollars every two weeks for a steady, Sunday manicure appointment. And for me, thirty dollars a month was awesome.

So celebration it was.

“You know, asking around, that Knight Sebring guy owns this club.”

This was Viv shouting in my ear as we walked into Slade, the trendiest nightclub in downtown Denver and that was trendy in a bizarre way where it wasn’t trendy just for a year or two but had been since I started clubbing when I was twenty-one. The cover charge was high but it was the place to see and be seen. It was uncanny since clubs went in and out but Slade stayed popular. So popular, when celebrities hit town, they hit Slade. This was because Slade had small, medium and large VIP seating that was cordoned off from the commoners. Movie stars went there. Rap stars. R&B stars. Broncos. Nuggets. They took their posses to their VIP sections, had their own cocktail waitresses and bouncers and didn’t see but were up on daises so they could be seen.

This was so rare, I had actually given headspace to this phenomenon and came up with the fact that Slade stayed the hotspot because every year it was closed down for a month and the entire inside was gutted and renovated. It was like getting a whole new club and yet it wasn’t. And it was always the best, the coolest, the hippest. A costly but clever ploy, I thought, and it worked.

Not to mention the cocktail waitresses were always gorgeous with amazing bodies, the bartenders were hot and the bouncers and security were huge, scary but all attractive so if you hit Slade there were other treats for both sexes. Not just hot music in a hip atmosphere with well-poured drinks in fantastic glasses but eye candy.

Further, there was a line to get in, every night, even weekdays, and whether you agreed or not it was the right thing to do, the bouncers picked and chose who got in. It wasn’t just about clothes and money. If you were gorgeous, you went to the front of the line. Then, if you looked like you had serious cake, you got in. All others could stand out there for hours and never get in so they’d learned over the years not even to bother.

We got in because Sandrine had her sheet of strawberry blonde hair, fake br**sts an ex-boyfriend bought her and her ability to say no to desserts all the time and therefore her body was slim and perfectly toned. Not to mention, there was Vivica, with her tall, slender frame, dark, flawless midnight skin, unusual tawny eyes, graceful giraffe neckline and perfect skull with her short cropped afro. And, lastly, apparently the new intel was me, who had a face that could launch a thousand hard-ons. Not a flowery compliment but still, it said it all even if it pulled no punches.

Once I noticed this (not, obviously, the bit about me since I didn’t know that until a week and a day ago), this had made me, for a six month stretch, swear off Slade. Sandrine, of course, wore me down and I lifted my ban.