Free Tease Me by Dawn Atkins Page B

making.”
    He couldn’t believe how casual she sounded. “Don’t worry. I’ll take you home in a bit. If we wait till Duke gets here, I can ask him about restaurants for you—”
    “The waitresses don’t have to dance, do they?” She was still watching Nevada.
    “No, but—”
    “And they get big tips?”
    “When they look like that.” He tilted his head in the direction of Rox, who passed by wearing a strapless black leather top and silver hot pants.
    Heidi evaluated the passing woman, then turned to him, a determined glint in her eye. “But there’s no required uniform?”
    “No, but—”
    “Then I’ll take the job.”
    “Are you out of your mind?”
    “Not at all. It’ll be fun.” She gave him one of her brilliant smiles, the most confident he’d seen so far. “I’ll start tonight.”
    “Tonight?” he said faintly.
    “I need the money, I’m dressed for it and I’m wearing sturdy shoes.” She looked down at the brown blobs on her feet.
    He opened his mouth to argue, to tell her she’d made her point, but he looked into those fierce blue eyes—so bright they made his own eyes sting—and decided he’d better shut up.
    If Heidi thought cleavage didn’t count, she didn’t know much about men, but if she wanted to try a shift, he wouldn’t be the one to say uncle. “Let’s get the paperwork,” he said on a sigh. His joke had backfired, but he found himself smiling.
     
    T WO HOURS LATER , Heidi climbed onto a stool at a high table in the break room at Moons, exhausted and sweaty and aching all over. The clothes she’d bought at Goodwill to make a point about modesty with Jackson were an un-breathable poly blend, so she’d sweated horribly and the skirt had no kick pleat, so it not only interfered with her stride, it chafed her knees with each step.
    The cheap but sensible shoes were leather and easy on her arches, but they’d given her blisters on the tops of her toes and her heels. At least the sores were in different places than the ones caused by the wedgies.
    She was grateful to Jackson for sending her on break. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, he’d said, a warm hand to her back. He was constantly helping people, she noticed, and seemed to see everything at once. One second he was taking change to a waitress, the next, fetching paper goods for the bartender, supervising the DJ, settling a bar-tab dispute, joking with the customers, making sure the dancers made their cues.
    She lifted her feet from the carpet, which was a bizarrehodgepodge of squares in sixties designs—pink-and-orange stripes, lime-green shag, white daisies in AstroTurf—and planted her stinging heels on the stool beside her.
    She’d asked for the job partly to show Jackson she was no wimp, but she could see she could make decent money if she built her stamina. And got better. She’d transposed one order, been late with three others and forgotten one, but the customers were so transfixed by the dancers on stage and the ones doing lap dances that they hardly noticed when their brandy and sodas came late. She’d get better and faster and smile harder and her tips would grow, without her having to show any more leg or breast.
    Dying of thirst, she gulped the 7-Up she’d gotten from the bartender and tried not to stare at the two bare-breasted dancers standing a few feet away doing their hair in front of makeup mirrors. She hadn’t met these two. Jackson had introduced her to three dancers he’d called “Moons’ stars”—Nevada, who’d bought Heidi’s makeup, Autumn, who’d given her the clothes, and Jasmine, a gypsy with hair she’d bleached a blond all wrong for her skin color. She’d liked all three right off.
    The break room was inside the dancers’ dressing area, so there was a Coke machine, a snack dispenser and a refrigerator, along with two rows of lighted mirrors, one with sinks. The bathroom, or what passed for one, was around the corner. It was just three toilets with low tiled barriers