at some point.
Amber was adventurous and wild, the kind of girl who would gladly make out with the cute guy checking her out and have a doomed whirlwind romance that inevitably imploded two weeks later, but gave her amazing stories to tell. Leslie had given Tiffany Black some of those adventures in her stories.
“Maybe,” Leslie shrugged.
“Maybe? Are you freaking kidding me?” Amber looked at Leslie, baffled, perplexed, and extremely pumped, like Christmas had just come early for her. The look was so adorable and so completely captivating that Leslie felt like she was obligated to go just so the expression wasn’t wasted on a false hope. “Josie, go get her the dress.”
“The dress?” Leslie lifted an eyebrow nervously. What had she just gotten herself into?
Josie drained her glass and ran across the hallway, her auburn hair flying as she raced with all her speed, no doubt making Mr. Vargas feel compelled to complain to the superintendent again that the three gorgeous women around him were making too much noise. The Super, Mr. Rutherford, usually told him to enjoy the view and stop complaining. He embodied the thoughts Leslie had on the situation completely. Half of the time, Amber and Josie were showing more skin than they were clothes and they were always nice to him. What more could an old bachelor want?
When Josie returned, she was holding a true red dress that was going to show off more than Leslie was ready for. She could already feel her heart palpitating at the thought of going out in it, but there was something inside the back of her mind that screamed, Ooooooh, pretty! Inevitably, it won out as she took it from Josie.
“Whoever said redheads shouldn’t wear red was an idiot,” Amber said sternly. “You’re going to look incredible in it. I promise you. If you don’t, I’ll buy you two slices.”
“Three,” Leslie bartered, chewing on her lower lip nervously. “My hair’s auburn. Not red. It’s brown with just hints of a reddish color.” She swallowed hard. “Fine, I’ll go.”
Chapter 4
A mber’s club was the kind of pulsating, hypnotic dungeon Leslie had suspected it was going to be. Walking in, Leslie and Josie were immediately noticed like fresh blood in the water by every man in the building. Leslie could feel eyes crawling all over her and she immediately hated it. Everything about the decision to show up was beginning to race through her, tainted with regret and remorse. She should never have come. This was more trouble than she was interested in.
By the time they made it to the bar, Leslie felt like she was being washed up on the shore of some island after being shipwrecked. She had enough money to buy this club and a hundred more like it, and yet she felt like she was a novice to everything about it.
Josie walked the club, looking like a pro in this kind of environment. She had been here enough that she had all the confidence that Leslie was lacking.
Behind the bar, Amber looked like the platinum goddess that she was, drawing the eyes of every lustful man in the entire building who stared at her with mesmerized and transfixed eyes, begging for her to enter their lives as she made a thousand elixirs at a time.
Leslie watched her work and genuinely found it entertaining. It gave her a chance to catch her breath and not regret coming through the front door.
“I’m so glad you came!” Amber shouted over the thundering music. The dance floor was flooded with people who were letting the music take over their bodies. “Whatever you want, it’s on me.”
“Tom Collins,” Leslie said, turning to Josie who ordered something that turned out to be an extremely fruity and fluorescent drink that was beyond Leslie’s ability to comprehend. Amber made them with such ease and grace that it baffled Leslie, who asked a thousand different questions, all of which Amber answered with a strange command and authority that Leslie had never seen. She knew everything about drinking