Anywhere With You Read online

  I didn’t realize it would be this hard. I know, woes of the rich white girl never having struggled before now, but because of my rich parents, I couldn’t qualify for financial aid. The lady in the financial aid office actually looked at me like I was crazy when she reviewed my paperwork. Even when I explained my extenuating circumstances–that my parents had cut me off before I’d even made it to South Carolina–the uncaring woman had said there was nothing she could do. I didn’t meet the financial requirements. She’d suggested I apply for a loan.

  I could do that, but then I’d leave this school with a massive pile of debt, and then what? I’d heard the horror stories of students graduating, hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and the best job they could find was flipping burgers at a fast food joint. I read in an article somewhere that stress levels in recent graduates entering the job market were higher than ever before. So were the numbers of those taking anti-anxiety meds and anti-depressants to cope.

  I’d never paid attention to the economy before, never had to worry about it, but even I knew the world was upside down right now and I didn’t even know what I wanted to do. I was only one semester in. I hadn’t declared a major yet, and what if I ended up going to school for six years, or eight years? How much would that be in loans? A fuck-of-a-lot. That’s how much.

  No. I had to figure something else out. I’d made it this far. I had to find a way, because there was no going back.

  All my life I’d been a daughter, sister, granddaughter. The weight of my family’s name and the expectations had been suffocating. Now I was free of them. Free to discover who I was as just Celia. Yet it didn’t feel like freedom. It felt a lot like being lost with no clue of which direction to go. Not for the first time, I wondered if I should have tried harder to be the daughter my parents wanted. Was this worry and stress truly so much better than being placed in a box and told who to be?

  The answer had to be yes, because you can never be something you’re not. No matter who demands it or how much you wish it. I would have withered and died in that box.

  I threw the letter down and gathered my bag for my shift at the library. Maybe if it was slow I could look into scholarships and see if I qualified for any. Supposedly, there was all this free money out there somewhere.

  My roommate wasn’t back from class yet, so I locked the door to our room on my way out and made the trek across campus to the library.

  It was still early in the semester, so even though there were plenty of students in and out all evening, it was nothing like end of term cramming when the place was packed from open to close. After checking in returns and restacking books, I had plenty of quiet time to do my own research.

  Unfortunately, what I found wasn’t very promising. Sure, there were plenty of scholarships out there, but most were awarded to high school seniors, and almost all of them were awarded at the end of one school year for the next year. I found nothing that would help me now.

  I printed the paperwork for a student loan as a last resort. Sadly, I was almost at that point. Out of options. Except one.

  One phone call to Aunt Liza and I wouldn’t have to worry about the tuition. I knew she’d do it, but she was already putting my cousin Morgan through Princeton, and I wasn’t her responsibility. She’d already done enough for me.

  I’d feel worse calling her than I would accepting the stupid loan. She believed in me. I told her I could do it. I told her and my mother that I would be able to make it on my own, yet I wasn’t even through my first year and already I was failing.

  Nancy, the head librarian, let me leave a few minutes early since the library was empty at closing time. The campus was quiet, given that it was a Tuesday night, but it wasn’t dead. I passed a handful of other students and faculty on my walk back to the dorm.

  Natalie was sprawled across her bed with Netflix open on her computer when I walked into our room. She looked up and hit pause on whatever she was watching. “How was the library tonight?”

  Natalie and I got along well enough. She was easy to live with; not messy, low drama, and nice. I’d lucked out in the roommate department. I knew that much, having heard nightmare stories of roommate hell.

  “It was fine.” I dropped my book bag to the floor and shrugged out of my coat, tossing it on my bed.

  “Did you get more hours like you wanted?”

  “There aren’t any more hours to give,” I told her. She knew I was in a bit of a bind and had been looking for a solution since before the semester started.

  “I’m sorry. That sucks.” Her face scrunched into a sympathetic sort of frown. “I saw the letter on your desk. I wasn’t snooping, just borrowing a pen. Do you know what you’re going to do?”

  I plopped down on my bed which sat opposite hers in the small space that made up our dorm. “No idea. I tried finding scholarships and grants, but even if I got one, I wouldn’t have that money until the start of next school year, or maybe summer semester at the earliest. Nothing that helps me right now. I can’t get financial aid, and I don’t know of any jobs out there that will pay enough and work around my class schedule.” With a tired sigh, I let myself fall backward and stare up at the white ceiling. “I’m probably going to have to take a loan, which I don’t want to do, or ask my aunt for the money, which I really don’t want to do.”

  “I might know of something else,” Natalie said hesitantly.

  I jerked upright. “What is it?” At this point, I’d take just about anything if it would get me the money I needed. Aside from selling drugs or prostituting myself on a street corner.

  Natalie bit her lip. “It’s not exactly … I mean, I don’t know if you’d even do it.”

  “Nat, at this point I’m pretty damn desperate, but we won’t know until you tell me, so what is it?”

  “My older sister knows this girl that pays for her schooling by stripping.” She grimaced just saying it and my mouth fell open slightly. It wasn’t what I expected. I don’t know what I’d expected, maybe the drug dealing.

  “I know, it sounds crazy. It was just a suggestion. My sister’s friend is paying for med school by stripping.”

  “They make that much?” I cringed. In my head I was picturing a dirty, seedy club with nasty men grabbing at the women and demanding lap dances for dollar bills and leading them off into dark, sketchy back rooms for other “services.” No way could I do that.

  “Some do, I guess. I don’t think it’s typical, I mean unless you’re in Vegas, but there’s supposed to be this club in Myrtle Beach. It’s not your typical strip joint. Men are required to have a membership just to get in. I guess it’s a real swanky place. Anyway, that’s what I heard. That’s where Desire, the girl my sister knows, worked until she transferred to a med school in Florida.”

  “You were right, that does sound crazy.” Or did it?

  “I know, I just, I’m not trying to say you look like a stripper, but you could totally do it and make a killing. I figured you could at least check it out, and if it looks awful, then take the loan or call your aunt. I don’t know. I’m just trying to help.”

  “I know you are, and I appreciate it.” I really did. No matter how crazy a suggestion it was. The truly crazy thing was that the more I thought about it, the more I actually began to consider it. “Really, once I get past the whole stripper notion, is it really so bad? I mean, taking my clothes off for money isn’t exactly a life goal of mine or anything, and it’s not the most respectable profession out there, but … but maybe I could do it. You know, maybe if it wasn’t a full nude club. Some of them are just lingerie and that’s not so bad. As long as I don’t have to let anyone touch me or … God, I don’t know. Maybe I really am just this desperate and I’m trying to rationalize it.”

  “I don’t think it would hurt to check it out. And you wouldn’t have to tell anyone, and I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

  I gave her a come on look. “Nat, you really think it’s the sort of thing that stays secret?”

  “I don’t know,”
she shrugged. “It is membership only. Those kinds of places are all about privacy.”

  “Maybe,” I sighed.

  “Are you going to do it?”

  “I don’t know,” I told her honestly. “I’m thinking about it. If the money is good … God, is that what hookers tell themselves?”

  “You wouldn’t be a hooker, Celia.”

  “No, just a stripper.”

  “A dancer,” she countered, trying to make me feel better about it. “And if you do decide to check it out, it’s called The Wild Orchid.”

  I laid back and played the possibility over and over in my mind. After a while, Nat closed her laptop and said she was going over to her boyfriend’s dorm. I was left alone with my musings, that damn letter from the school mocking me from across the room.

  I climbed from the bed and went to stand in front of the full length mirror we hung on the back of the closet door, and tried to look at myself objectively.

  Long, thick, silky, blonde hair that fell down my back in natural waves. Eyes a bright blue, like the sky when there wasn’t a cloud in sight. High cheek bones. Full lips with a cupid’s bow. Softly tanned skin. I was a little over the average height for a woman at five-eight. Full, round breasts–a solid C cup. I gave them a little squeeze and lift, then dropped my hands. Trim waist, curvy hips, and a round ass that no amount of time on the elliptical did anything about.

  “Cover yourself up,” I could hear my mother’s voice. “You don’t want people to get the wrong idea about you.” As if simply by looking the way I did instead of trying to hide my body beneath the unflattering wardrobe my mother attempted to force me into, people–men in particular–would get ideas about me. If they did, that was their problem not mine, and yet my mother would have had me believe otherwise. I still remembered the prom dress I picked out and then she forced me to return because she said the décolletage was inappropriate and I looked like an escort.

  I’d cried and almost told my boyfriend I didn’t want to go to the dance. I managed to find a high-necked dress that wasn’t awful, but I’d felt so self-conscious the entire time I’d worn it and so mad at my mother for years’ worth of making me feel ashamed of my body.

  Shame that I still felt creep back while I stood here looking in the mirror, especially with what I was considering doing. Sometimes I wished I could be more plain like my sister, not that she was ugly in any way, but she didn’t stand out the way I did. She was passably pretty with a slighter build more like Mom’s. Maybe if I looked more like Tabbi, I wouldn’t be here. In this place. In this state. In this situation. The last two years might not have happened.

  I pressed my head against the cool glass.

  It’s not your fault, Ci.

  I’d been telling myself that for almost two years and I didn’t believe it any more now than I did then. My choices were my own. My actions couldn’t be blamed on anyone else. I was here because of what I’d done. Now I had to live with that.

  I crossed the room to where I’d discarded my bag and dug my cell out of the pocket. I made sure the door was locked so no one could pop their head in unexpectedly before I connected my phone to the little speaker that sat on my desk. I cued up a song I’d danced to many a time at school dances and parties, then I walked back over to the mirror.

  Might as well see if I was even cut out for this. Usher’s smooth voice filled the room and I closed my eyes, getting into the rhythm. Then I opened them and gave myself my best sultry look in the mirror. My expression almost broke at how ridiculous this was, but I took a breath and kept going, swaying my body to the music.

  When I was really in the groove, I reached for the hem of my tee and slowly raised it, keeping my eyes fixed on my slutty reflection. In my attempt to smoothly and sexily remove my shirt, my elbow got caught and then my head was stuck. As I tugged, I stumbled backward and tripped over what felt like a boot. I landed on my rear, and only then did I manage to free myself from the shirt.

  “Well, that went well,” I muttered to nobody. Then I reminded myself that all the strippers I’d seen in movies and on TV usually started with very little on, and what they did wear had buttons and shit that was easy to remove. Probably for exactly this reason. Strip teases were apparently no joke when someone was fully dressed. There was also a chance I just wasn’t cut out for it. I expelled a deep breath and then picked myself up to shut off the music.

  I needed to talk to Aunt Liza. She’d understand, and I knew she’d give me the money. I’d hate disappointing her, having to tell her that I couldn’t cut it on my own, but she wouldn’t make me feel bad about it the way my parents would.

  While the phone rang, I tried to bolster my nerves and work out how I would tell her that the first semester hadn’t gone as planned. I didn’t have long, because she answered on the third ring.

  “Celia, I was just thinking of you, about to call you myself.”

  “Oh, how’s everything in California? Sunny and beautiful as always? I miss the sunshine.”

  “It’s a little overcast today, but nothing to complain about. At least not with the weather. I actually have something I need to tell you, though.”

  “What is it?” I expected her to relay a conversation she’d had with my parents, or some news regarding my family. If it was something big, I would have expected Mitch to call. My brother was the only one I was still speaking to.

  It was twenty minutes later that I hung up the phone still reeling and fighting back tears at the unfairness of everything. She said they found it early. She said the doctors were optimistic, but my brain had stopped processing everything after cancer.

  Eight

  Cici

  Present

  I slid my glass across the bar and watched the friendly bartender with the dark eyes and dimpled grin make my second pineapple and rum drink. Everywhere I looked in this city it was like a hot guy smorgasbord. A girl could get used to this.

  These bartenders would be going home with full wallets tonight, and if they wanted, their beds wouldn’t be empty either. They flashed their panty-dropping grins, tossed winks left and right, laying on the charm extra thick. It was damn effective, and shit if I wasn’t still feeling extra hot from that dance. With Luke.

  I definitely took it a little too far tonight. I hadn’t been able to help it though. I don’t know what came over me, but with his hands on me I sort of let myself get consumed by the desire coming off him, and to be honest, it wasn’t only his desire. Mine had come out in a dark way as well. It’d been too long. I forgot I was only supposed to be playing with him, riling him up and then leaving him wanting, the way I always did.

  Instead, he left me out on that dance floor panting and feeling unbalanced as hell. Enough that I almost considered asking this sexy man obliging me with alcohol if he could take a fifteen and oblige me with something else. Something that would take the edge off and replace the image in my head of my body twisted around Luke’s with something else. I needed quick, hard, and meaningless.

  Bad idea Ci, I told myself. I needed to be in control during all of my encounters, and I was feeling anything but in control at the moment. Still, the way this guy was toying with his lip ring as he poured had me considering it anyway.

  I’d settle for flirting shamelessly and see how crazy I could drive him. At the end of the night, I’d forget about him, but he’d go home with a nice tip and maybe remember me long enough to work one out in the shower and go to bed with a grin on his lips. Or maybe he’d curse me for being a tease.

  But who the fuck cares? After six years, I couldn’t just turn it off. Cold turkey wasn’t working for me. I needed an outlet or I would go crazy and probably attack Luke in his sleep. That could not happen.

  If avoiding that meant batting this hot bartender around like a kitty cat with a ball of string, all the more fun for me.

  Shae appeared at my side as the bartender finished my drink and slid it in front of me. “There ya go, beautiful. Enjoy.”

  I thought about asking hi
s name, but it was better if I didn’t know. No personal touches. That was one of the first lessons I learned. Make it personal and suddenly a guy might get the wrong idea.

  “I plan to,” I replied as I wrapped my lips around the straw. He flicked the hoop in his lip again as one side of that sexy mouth curled up, but then his attention was called away.

  “You know, it isn’t nice to torture the boys,” Shae chided teasingly.

  “But it’s fun.”

  She laughed, only I could see it was forced. She knew I wasn’t kidding, that I really did enjoy it, and she didn’t know what to do with that. “You have any more fun tonight and you’re going to get yourself arrested.”

  I hmphed, “The only time I ever got arrested, it was Luke’s fault. He was the one that dared me to get in the ocean naked after a few drinks.”

  “Why does this not surprise me?”

  “He’s the real trouble maker. I’m just an instigator of fun, and in your case, it looks like I need to do a little instigating.” I stole the bartender’s attention again before he could slip away. “How about two shots of Captain?”

  “Sure thing, sweetheart.” He grabbed two shot glasses.

  Shae laid her hand out on the bar. “I’ll do one shot with you, but only one.”

  “Of course. Just one.” I kept my gaze locked on the bartender’s as he poured our shots without breaking eye contact or spilling a drop. He slid the spiced rum in front of us and I lifted mine to my lips and threw it back. It burned pleasantly on the way down and I ran my tongue strategically over my bottom lip.

  I knew I had him when I saw those dark chocolate eyes blaze with heat, but before I could take it a step further, Shae grabbed my arm.