The Dancer

Dakota wasn’t speaking to Gemma.

She was beyond mad because she had to wait three hours for her to come up to the room. Then, to make matters worse, the next morning after she’d done the worst part of the job, sleeping next to the drugged man and waking up to him, she had to wait an additional thirty minutes to be picked up.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Gemma said as they made their way to the house.

Dakota still didn’t say anything.

“If it makes things better, mom gave me the mail this morning from yesterday. This came for you,” Gemma said, reaching into the backseat for something.

She brought forward a letter that was addressed to Dakota. Seeing the name in the left-hand corner, she flipped over and ripped it open.

“Holy fuck,” Dakota said, reading it.

“Is it from the audition?”

“Yes,” Dakota said. “They want me as a dancer. I’m one of five girls to go on stage. They want me to come to Long Beach next weekend for a run-through.”

“When is the concert?” Gemma asked.

“Next month on the seventh.”

“That is literally four weeks away.”

“They’re filming for a DVD, Gemma. They want everything to be perfect.”

“Yeah, whatever. Still, you’d think they’d wait a while. I mean, shit, are you dancing the whole time?”

“I don’t know,” Dakota said, frowning.

Now she had to spend more money to get out to Long Beach for the weekend. She’d have to ask off for it, drive out there, get a hotel, and spend money. She hated asking her mom for money like this. Actually, she hated having to ask for money, period. She was twenty-four for God's sake. Most people her age weren't even living at home.

Every time they made a decent score on a conquest, Gemma immediately took the money to their mom. The checks they got from the club went directly into their mother’s bank accounts. The only money Dakota got to keep for herself was the money she made on tips, and most of the time her mom made her give that over as well. Fortunately for her, her mom didn’t know exactly how much she made in tips. She thought of the hundred dollar bill hidden in the seam of her purse, the hole she’d created to hide things, and how her mom wasn’t going to find it.

Since they’d become “women” as their mom liked to say, she’d taught them how to do the entire conquest thing. Hell, she’d become rich by marrying rich and then he’d died. It also wasn’t as if they were going to go broke if she asked for the money; they definitely weren’t. Her mom, unfortunately, just liked to spend the money on mostly herself. She had lung cancer from years of smoking, and got work done on her body every other month. She bathed herself in lavish things and the girls had to ask for any money they needed which was just bullshit in Dakota’s mind.

They pulled into the driveway and Dakota climbed out of the car and into the house where she ran upstairs to shower as quickly as possible. She had a few things to do before her six o’clock class that night.

Once she was dressed, she threw her hair into a wet, messy bun and hurtled herself down the steps, barely saying goodbye to her mom or her sister who were hollering at her to stop.



“You’ve been on the computer a lot,” Zacky said.

He opened Brian’s door in their hotel suite to find his fellow guitarist sitting with his laptop on his lap. He had a few browser pages opened and he fell onto the bed beside Brian to see what he was looking at.

“She’s hot,” he said, seeing the Facebook page Brian had up. “That’s not Missy, though.”

“No, it’s not Missy,” Brian said and frowned.

Melissa was his on-again-off-again…thing. He wasn’t a relationship type of person, and she knew that but didn’t want to accept it. She kept trying to get him into a monogamous relationship and each time, he didn’t call her for a week. Unfortunately, she knew he’d come back, which he did, for the sex, until she brought up wanting more. She was great and all, but he didn’t want a relationship…especially not with her.

He hadn’t thought of Missy in the week since he’d seen the dark-haired vixen at the audition. He’d gotten her information from his manager. Dakota Fleming was a stunning girl. Her hair was so dark it was almost black, and in her profile picture, she had blue streaks running through it. Her moss-green eyes were played up by dark make-up, and her tanned skin complemented her perfectly. Her smile was broad and wide standing next to the blonde Brian recognized from the audition.

Las Vegas, Nevada, her profile said. That was a long way to come for an audition, but with her lower back tattoo, he didn’t doubt why she came. He wasn’t even sure what it was about her that made him intrigued, but he was. He found himself staring at her page constantly. He himself didn’t have a Facebook, so he couldn’t go look at more than a few pictures, but it was still better than nothing.

“Who is that?” Zacky asked.

“It’s one of our dancers for the Long Beach concert,” Brian explained, closing out of the page.

“So you’re going to their practice this weekend, right?”

“I didn’t even know about it,” he replied, frowning.

“Yeah, they’re all meeting up this weekend to do a run through of what’ll happen. We were invited to go.”

“Are you going?” Brian asked.

“I will if you are. That’s why I came in, to see if you were going.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” he replied, thinking.

He’d go see her dance, talk to her for a few minutes and be satisfied. He may even try to sleep with her. Hell, if he did, he’d be sated, right? She was just a back-up dancer for one concert they were doing. He’d seen her for all of three minutes and she was invading his every thought. No matter where he looked, he saw something that reminded him of her, which bothered him to no end.

“Yeah, I’m going,” he told Zacky.