‘Why do you come if it isn’t interesting?’ she says.
I can’t outright tell her the truth, that I own this place. So I just lie, ‘What else is there to do?’ I don’t look at Amy when I say this.
Then they start to play some rock music. I want to jump onto the dance floor, feel the thud of bodies crash into me. I can feel the music shake my body, like it’s the end of the world, and I don’t give a fuck.
Or is it something else shaking me?
‘Happy to be out?’ I say.
I don’t wanna come back down to Earth. I wanna stay up in the sky with my girl.
‘Happy? I’m only here because you forced me to come.’
Amy suddenly goes cold, her gaze fixed on the disco light on the other side. I know the signs. I can read her now like a book. It’d be easier if it didn’t twist something in my guts, but the spiking heat of pleasure when I’m close to her turns.
I dragged her here, where it’s darker and hotter, like the Devil's back office, and still I’m unsatisfied. I purposefully sat us under the bright neon-blue light. So I can watch her not watching me. To know she could see me and she chooses not to.
We’re twisted in a toxic spiral, Amy. I’m just a fucking narcotic, a fucking painkiller.
I fuck her in the dark so I can’t see her eyes. When I pleasure her, I know she’s turned on. But after the sweet ride is over, she’s cold like frostbite. Numb. Oblivious to my fucking existence.
She won’t look at me in the light. Fuck if being an arsehole is my sick way of getting something out of her. To feel like she feels some thing for me.
‘What do you see when you stare at nothing like that?’ I say, roaming my eyes over her body. I love the shape of her tits, am always conflicted between the urge to worship them and the urge to devour them.
‘Loss. Ugliness. The world’s gone dark, everything alive has gone to dust.’
‘Are you getting philosophical on me, Amy?
‘No.’
Shit load of silence after that.
‘One-word Amy, is it, tonight? Is that all you’re gonna say to me?’
I could try and ignore Amy but watching her sit there, in that pink dress, a flood of suppressed feelings surges under my skin and even though my body, my eyes and my mouth give jack shit away, my emotions are like an out of control rollercoaster.
I feel the caustic anger that only Amy can provoke in me. Amy has all the ammo. Starting to think she knows that, and knows how to use it. Then there’s the desire, that need, that stupid want that comes with having loved someone in every imaginable way and seeing them in the flesh for the first time in five fucking years — too damn long.
And Amy’s half naked in a fuck-me-now dress. Glowing with sweat. In my club. In my domain. And the slickness of the walls and the dense smell of bodies and testosterone and raw sexual energy and everything about the situation brings that feeling of want. But it isn’t the place or the time for those feelings. Amy can’t know. No one can know how royally screwed she has made me.
‘I want to go home,’ Amy says.
‘I’m not debating on this — you’re staying. It’s the only way you’re not gonna allow this wanker of an OCD rule you. You know the alternative.’
‘Do you know I'm not even afraid of you anymore? You make Hitler look like a fluffy bunny and I'm not scared of you.’
‘You say the sweetest things.’
‘It would be like fearing a virus with a hundred-percent fatality rate. The virus does what it does, and you can't reason with it. It just kills because that's what it does.’
‘You used to admire what I was.’
‘Used to.’
Used to love me . . .
I don’t get a chance to rise to the bait. Henry Gold strolls over.
How the fuck did he get into my club? This meathead prick is banned.
I scrub the back of my neck, dampen down my anger. I can’t use my power to kick him out of the warehouse. Not in front of Amy. I’ve got to be damn cautious here. Behave like I’m undercover. One slip up and BOOM! All that hard work down the drain. My lie has come back to kick me in the fucking nut sack.
A new rat tattoo sneaks up Meathead’s forearm. He’s chosen the perfect ink to represent himself, I’ll give him that.
His grey eyes are the coldest film of ice. ‘Is that you, Amy Earhart? Oh, shit, it is you! What in the hell you doing here with this loser? Does your daddy know you’re in The Valley? Is the Mayor of Greystone finally letting you play with the big boys?’
He’s completely hammered.
Arseholes and alcohol.
‘The hell you want to know?’ I say. A vague warning flares in my head.
He flashes his sharp teeth. ‘Why’d you think? Because she’s the hottest babe in here. The kinda chick you wish all girls look like.’
I’m gonna bring the fucking walls down around his head.
‘You really gonna do this?’ I warn him, sweat rolling down my shoulder blades.
Henry’s still pissed with me, still set on the lie that I was hitting on his girl.
He blanks me. Turns to Amy. ‘You look hot, babe.’
My mind pops and a fire sparks inside my head.
If he keeps pushing it, we’re gonna fight. I can taste the certainty of it in the air.
‘You wanna keep your teeth in your mouth?’ I say.
‘Listen,’ Henry says to Amy, ‘I know you’re his date, but he’s a total screw-up.
