Hooked #3 (The Hooked Romance Series - Book 3) (2 page)

I led her into my apartment and pushed the door
closed. My face was red, splotched. Mel looked at me, gripping her hands together,
her eyebrows high on her face.
“Darling.
What’s going
on over here?” she asked. “I haven’t heard from you in days—not since I saw you
and Drew at our place. Darling, what’s going on? Is it that bastard’s fault? I
mean. I know how he can be with women.” She punched her hips for a moment
lightly, as if deep in thought.

I shook my head. “It’s not the womanizing thing,
Mel,” I murmured. I collapsed into a chair once more. “It’s the—it’s the dance
studio. Drew bought the building. That’s why we’re out of business.”

Mel sat down quietly in the stool next to me. I
could feel the worry emanating from her core. She sighed, tapping her fingers
against the wood. “Shit,” she murmured. “I have to say, I didn’t see this
coming.
An affair, sure.
Being an
asshole, sure.
But ruining your entire business?
Now.
That’s a new low.”

My throat sputtered with a short burst of laughter.
I gazed at my friend—at the tired wrinkles beneath her eyes from her brand new
baby. I shook my head. “You know. It doesn’t matter. I knew he was a
womanizer, that
he shouldn’t have ever cared for me. He was
far too rich, anyway. And I—I mean. I live like this.” I gestured around my
apartment, at the broken toaster, at the vase in the corner that was filled
with dead flowers. “I’m trying to make a dance studio work to my advantage,
while he’s able to just scoop it up—eat it, like a big corporate monster—and do
whatever he pleases.” I shrugged. “Perhaps that doesn’t make him a bad person.
But it makes him my own personal demon, or something.”

Mel reached toward me and put her slim hand on my
knee. “You know he really cared for you, right?”

I felt a stirring in my stomach, as if this
information—spoken directly from my only friend in the city—was ill-formed,
false. I wanted to laugh it off, even as I remembered the targeted way his eyes
had looked toward mine as we fucked each other, my body moving over his, my
breasts bouncing onto his chest. In those moments, we had been one.

I slammed my fist on the table. My eyes burned like
wildfire. “Mel. You know. This morning I was so strong. I walked through this
city looking for new spaces to rent. There are places open all over Wicker. I
just have to be strong, be selective. I have to be more like Drew, in a way.
More like a shark. I can get through this fucking—injustice.” I cleared my
throat, standing tall next to the table. Mel stood up as well, a bit shaky on
her feet. “This is all I’ve worked for; it’s all I have.”

“It’s all I have, as well,” Mel whispered toward me.
She cleared her throat. “I’ll help you in any way I can.”

CHAPTER
TWO

Mel waited for me to put on my coat and scarf. We
skirted out the doorway once more, feeling the cold whip across our faces from
the streets below. We grinned at each other, feeling a sense of excitement in
this strange new chapter. “Where have you looked already?” Mel asked, turning
her head left and right when we reached the main road.

I pointed to the left, noting that many of the
business people from the day had scurried into their businesses and offices;
they had left these tired streets behind and found solace behind boredom and
glass windows. “Let’s try over there,” I murmured.

Mel and I walked quickly down the street, peering
into the coffee shops and bustling restaurants. Wicker Park was a continuous
flurry of activity, of song. I stopped sharp before a restaurant that was
called “The Goat,” peering into the window to see a young woman drinking a pint
at the bar, a cell phone in her hand. I looked up at the top of the kitsch-y
pub, noting that the building had a FOR RENT sign. I peered toward Mel,
scratching at my head for a moment—feeling the strange cleanliness of my hair
after so many days of wallowing. Mel shrugged, sensing my interest. “Why not
try it?”

I entered the pub door. The smell of greasy food, of
musty beer entered my nose, and the comfort made my head spin. Mel and I sat
down at the bar, a few seats away from the woman on the telephone. She was
speaking with such exactness, with such fortitude, that I understood; she owned
this place. I peered around me, feeling the striking masculinity, the power of
the cute place. How had she done this on her own? What could I learn from her?

A young man—a bartender about my age—walked toward
us languidly, drying a pint glass in his left hand. “Can I get you ladies something
to drink?” he asked us. His smile skirted to the left, then to the right. His
black curly hair was wrapped in a handkerchief. I thought about him at home,
wrapped in the calamity of guitar music and marijuana.

“Two pints.
The dark—the porter,” I nodded toward the tap system. He nodded back, swiping
two glasses from the top shelf.

Mel shuffled a bit on her seat, looking toward me
with a small bit of earnestness. What was my plan? Her eyes wondered.

The woman on the phone finally said her very loud
good byes,
huffing
a bit as she exerted her finger to
the OFF button. She sighed, looking up at the bartender. “Those lunatics,” she
said, shaking her head. She turned toward us, raising her left eyebrow. “I’m so
sorry about that, ladies. Sometimes working out rent issues can be a bit of a
bitch. Chicago rents, you know.” She laughed, showing all of her teeth.

Mel elbowed me in the side as the bartender set the
drinks before us. I felt my heart beating fast in my chest; I had to act now. I
took a slow, steady sip, feeling my eyelids dip languidly over my eyes. I
cleared my throat, turning back toward the woman. “You know. I saw you had a
place open upstairs.”

The woman laughed for a moment, not taking me
seriously. I was, after all, no older than the bartender cleaning her
barstools. “Yes. Well, you see. That’s mostly my problem. It’s a wide-open
space, one that I can’t seem to do much with. I thought about making it an area
for dancing, maybe karaoke on certain nights.” She waved her hand back and
forth. “But we’re not really the scene for that, you know. It wouldn’t really
work.”

I nodded expressively. “Well, I’m looking for a
space right now.
For my dance studio.
We were bought
out by a corporate developer.”

The woman’s dark eyes widened. Her lips slimmed
dangerously into a grim smile. “Those bastards,” she murmured. “They got you
too? It’s not for that bookstore down the street, is it?”

I nodded, shrugging my shoulders. “It’s fine. I
just—obviously—need a new place to be. Maybe even a better place.”

“Well.” The woman turned her eyes to the sky. “This
place gets plenty of light. You’d need it—when?
During the
day?”

“Morning and day time, yeah,” I said.
“Sometimes around dinner time, but only about twice or three times
a week.”
My brain was going over the usual schedule, trying to remember
life before the whirlwind of Drew.

The woman nodded. She stood up, revealing that her
short frame only brought her five feet into the air. She breathed with an air of
determination. “Why don’t we go up and look at it, yeah?” she said. “Bring your
beers.”

I grabbed my slippery glass, and Mel did as well. We
sauntered up the back steps as they revolved in a tight circle. Finally, my
head spinning, we burst into the bright light of the empty room.

I tapped my shoe against the wooden floor, standing
up against the wall. “Wow,” I murmured, shaking my head. The room was longer
than I had expected when I had been in the pub. The wooden boards swept long
and clean across the room, and the windows were strong, zealous. They pointed
toward the east, yielding much more sunlight during the morning and the
afternoon than in the evening
—which
was essential, I
knew.

“What do you think? Pretty grand, right?” the woman asked.

I nodded, peering around the corner. “And there’s
something—“

“An office, over there.
And a bathroom.
What is it you do?”

“Dance instructor,” I answered, nodding my head. Of
course; we had hardly been introduced. I had simply followed her on a mad dash
to this beautiful place. I didn’t know anything; I didn’t even know the rent.
“My name is Molly, by the way.”

“Oh,” the woman murmured, her mouth forming into a
tight OH. “You’re Molly Says Dance, yes?” She grinned. “I’m Carol, by the way.”

I nodded.
“Pleased to meet you.
How did you know about my dance studio?”

“I make it a point to know what’s going on in this
neighborhood. You weren’t competition, no. But a few of my regulars have
daughters who attend your studio. They speak rather highly of you.
And your prices.”
She peered around the empty room, her eyes
tracing each nook and cranny of the old place. “You’ll probably have to raise
your prices a bit to have a studio here. I don’t know what they charged you at
the old place, and I don’t know how you got away with it for so long.
Here—because so many of your customers are my regulars, and this will cause
them to drink more, eat more, everything more—I’ll give you a good deal.”

I tapped my foot, tipping my head to the right. “What
kind of deal?”

Carol stated the number plainly, with a sense of
near-sass. She wasn’t doing this on purpose, no. Rather, she was exerting her
power. She owned the business below; she owned the property. She couldn’t
afford to simply give the place away.

But even so, I felt my heart dip into my stomach
once more. Granted, this had been the best deal I’d heard since I’d begun
canvasing. And I needed to start somewhere. My head started spinning as I
thought of the intricacies of a loan. Was a loan something people did? Was it
something I could do?

“I’ll have to take a look at my finances,” I replied,
looking at her brightly, confidently. I could make this work, if I wanted to. I
could. “I’ll let you know very shortly.”

Carol brought her hand forward to shake mine. Her grip
was so strong, so forceful. “Please let me know as soon as you can. We both
have businesses to run, after all.” Just then her phone began to vibrate,
leaving her to turn away from us and push her hand into her pocket. “Yes. Yes.
Go,” she announced into the phone, telling the other person to begin the spiel,
in this limited timeframe of go-go-go.

I felt rushed. I turned toward Mel, my beer
half-empty in my hand. I grinned at her, shrugging my shoulders half-heartedly.
I mouthed the words to her as we walked back toward the winding staircase. “We
have a dance studio. We have a dance studio.” I allowed the energy to build in
my stomach; I allowed myself to fuel up with this sense of earnest excitement.
I inhaled, exhaled brightly and then burst into the stunning October world
outside the door, a smell of beer on my breath and a feeling of hope in my
heart.

CHAPTER
THREE

After we left The Goat, Mel told me she had to leave
to get her baby from the babysitter. I nodded, understanding. “Baby Jack takes
precedence,” I teased her, bringing her close in a hug. I wanted to tell her I
was so sorry for blaming her—if only in my head—for the whole debacle with Drew
and the studio. But I knew it didn’t matter.

She clapped her hands lightly onto my face, grinning
ear-to-ear. “It’s beautiful, Molly,” she murmured. “You’ll find a way to make
it yours.”

“Ours,” I corrected her. But she merely shrugged and
turned her body toward the subway. She scurried forward, arching her back like
a gazelle—like the dancer she truly was. I watched as she disappeared onto the
train; I listened to the tracks as it took her far across the city, back to her
beautiful baby.

I turned to march back to my apartment, to make
spreadsheet after spreadsheet that would iterate what I would need to do to get
this beautiful new studio above the bar. I imagined us dancing throughout the
day before Mel and I turned our attention to the beers and good conversation. I
imagined myself learning all of the regulars’ names, speaking to them daily,
developing a community—one I had been searching for throughout Chicago since my
arrival!

Something tugged in the pit of my stomach, as I
thought about this new future. My old landlord—the one I hadn’t paid back for
all those months. If I could get a loan for the new studio—if I could make
everything work—then perhaps I could pay him back. I needed to pay him back. I
turned my head to the right as I walked, noting that I was only a few blocks
away from his new offices. Inhaling slightly, I turned toward the office to face
my demons.

A light bell jangled on the door as I opened it,
peering into the small leasing office. His secretary stood up as I approached,
eyeing me with a bit of distrust. I supposed that was warranted; after all, I
hadn’t paid for rent since April. “Hi, Marcia,” I murmured. “Is he here?”

“He’s in back,” she nodded. “Go on. He won’t mind.”

I pushed to the back toward his desk. I found him
sitting there, looking up at me expectantly. His eyes were filled with guilt.
“Hi, Molly.
Please. Sit down.”