“That’s awful. But nicely done.” Maya proffered her glass in salute and Abby clinked it with her beer bottle. “So what are we going to do?” she asked.
Abby pursed her lips, deep in thought. Maya watched her as she scanned the club, searching for inspiration. “How about a little truth or dare?”
“What?” Maya scoffed. “We aren’t twelve anymore. I’m not going to tell you who I like.” She giggled. It seemed that the vodka in her cranberry was working its way through her brain.
“Okay, how about dare, then?”
“Mmm, Abby, I don’t know...” Maya hesitated.
“You said you wanted to have fun,” Abby pleaded. “Come on, I’ll do anything you dare me to do.”
“Well, that’s easy for you,” she said, smiling broadly as she put a comforting hand on her friend’s arm, “because you have no shame.”
Abby laughed. “Even so.” She continued scoping out the club. “Oh, I’ve got it.”
“What?”
She pointed to the bar. Well, she was actually pointing to a gorgeous male specimen who was standing next to it, chatting with the bartender. “See that guy?”
Am I blind? How could I possibly miss a man like that? “Yeah, of course I do.”
Abby pasted on her most devilish smile and directed it at Maya. “Good. Because you are going to walk up to him, wrap your arms around his neck and you’re going to kiss him like you’ve never kissed a man before.”
“I am absolutely not doing that,” Maya insisted.
“It’s a little harmless dare. What have you got to lose?”
“My pride, my dignity...” Maya trailed off. She looked at the man. It looked as though he had left work and came to the nightclub. He wore tailored pants that showed off his very nice, round behind. He had unbuttoned the top button of his shirt and had rolled up his sleeves. She watched him laugh as the bartender said something to him. What could it hurt to walk up to him and kiss him? It’s not like I’ll ever see him again, a city this size...
She thought of her sad, little, unexciting Facebook profile and Maya slammed her glass down, sloshing some of the pink liquid over the edge and onto her fingers and the table. What the hell? Abby was right. It had been a long time since she’d done anything other than what was expected of her. “Okay.” She looked determinedly at the man. “I’m going to do it.”
“Yay!” Abby raised her arms giddily in celebration as Maya walked away from the table.
* * *
JAMIE SELLERS TOOK a satisfied look around his packed club. As the owner, if there waS one person to thank for the popularity of Swerve Nightclub, it was him. In fact, he owned all twelve Swerve nightclubs located throughout the country, from Vancouver to St. John’s. His clubs were frequented by celebrities and professional athletes, and even some royalty graced his establishments. And quite often, his picture was posted on gossip blogs right alongside them, with headlines like “Jamie Sellers Lands a Princess”, “Sellers and the Heiress” and “Nightclub Mogul Parties Hard with Hockey Team.” Jamie shook his head, chuckling at the latest story linking him with the daughter of a prominent local politician.
He was young, single, rich and good-looking. That’s what people saw when they looked at him. When people saw a picture of him standing next to a beautiful woman, he was automatically sleeping with her. If he’d actually slept with every woman that the so-called press had reported he did...well, he certainly wouldn’t have time to be the nightclub mogul they proclaimed him to be. While it would be nice if he found himself frequently in the beds of actresses and celebutantes, it simply, sadly, was not the case.
If a picture of him holding a beer bottle or a glass of whisky surfaced? Automatically, he was portrayed as an alcoholic, a chronic drug user, a degenerate who partied too hard every night. At first, he found it easy to laugh at how inaccurate the stories were—any press is good press, right?—but it was starting to wear thin. The fifteen-hour days that he typically put into his work were starting to exhaust him, and the extreme workdays had gotten far more frequent and longer since his assistant quit. Typically, he found only just enough free time in a day to eat, shower, hopefully hit the gym and maybe get a few hours of sleep.
Sure. Maybe ten years ago that reputation would have been warranted. Jamie had grown up with nothing and his first taste of success had been sweet. He had admittedly overindulged in his youth, in alcohol, women, wild antics. But it was local reporter scumbag John Power who had been the catalyst for his turnaround. Power had gotten a hold of a picture of Jamie with a model enjoying a, ahem, private moment, and then he uncovered more and more of Jamie’s bad deeds. He’d dredged up the details of Jamie’s less-than-ideal childhood, with an absentee father and a drug-addict mother, a past that Jamie had guarded carefully. To say it was embarrassing was an understatement. Jamie had been cannon fodder for the reporter, who seemingly made a career of gathering information on him.
Since then, Jamie had kept it clean. He no longer overindulged. He never partied. He focused on business and it had paid off. Jamie had enjoyed an unimaginable level of success. Still, no matter how many nightclubs he opened, how much he gave to charity or how often his company showed up on lists of preferred employers, people still saw him as the millionaire, bad boy womanizer.
“Not bad for a Thursday,” Jamie remarked to Trevor—one of his best friends, and definitely the best bartender he had ever met—sipping the cola Trevor had handed him.
Trevor finished pouring a pair of martinis and handed them off to a waitress. “Yeah, it must be the warm weather. Normally the end of semester makes the students hunker down, studying. But this place is clearly bumping tonight,” he said, throwing an appreciative glance over the scantily clad women dancing against each other on the dance floor.
“Keep it professional, Trev,” Jamie warned with a glare, before laughing. He knew that he had nothing to worry about with his friend. Trevor was a pro and would never overserve a guest, or use his position to take advantage of the young women who patronized the club. But it didn’t stop him from appreciating the female beauty that was in front of him.
Jamie bit back a yawn, and Trevor regarded him carefully. “Why don’t you go on home? I’ve got this.”
“I know you do. But I’ve got a few things to finish up tonight. It’s been crazy since Martin left.” Jamie frowned at the thought of his former assistant. “I’ve got a couple of early morning meetings tomorrow and then I have to head to the university and give a talk with some graduate class about entrepreneurship, and entertainment, and hospitality, and yada yada yada.”
“Really? That doesn’t sound like something you would normally do,” Trevor said, raising an eyebrow. “Sounds like somebody is hot for teacher?”
Jamie was almost too tired to smirk at the quip. “It’s nothing like that, smart guy. The professor is Dr. Carmichael.”
“I see.”
“So, I owe him. It’s really the least I can do.”
“Oh, of course.” Trevor nodded. “Dr. C. And you’re doing this at the expense of any sleep you might get tonight?”
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” Jamie took another sip of his drink and turned to survey his nightclub.
A packed club was always good news for Jamie, and there had been plenty of that as of late. All of his nightclubs were outperforming expectations on a nightly basis. But his brain was always working, knowing that he had to keep the guest experience fresh in each of his clubs to keep people coming back. Every time he looked around, he saw areas for improvement. Ways to make the continuous lineup to the front door more efficient, an enhanced VIP experience, flair bartenders and entertainers, A-list DJs and performers, the list was always growing.
It was while he was surveying his domain,