6 - Dominique of Heber Springs

It had taken eight long too-short days of insane debauchery, but Reika was finally feeling like she belonged. They were passing into Arkansas, this had been the only time she had left Oklahoma by the road. She’d gone by plane to Japan when she was six and to Disney World when she was eleven, but otherwise she’d played close to home.

The thought of a cross-country road trip with her family, let alone hauling a camper in a pickup truck, had been outside of her imagination.

Now, she had girlfriends who really wanted the best for her and would kiss her boo-boos and make her feel better.

“Oh god!” she groaned as Casey pulled Reika’s asscheeks opened and swirled an agile tongue around the butthole. “Oh sweet god.”

Her forehead was pressed down into Hale’s thigh, his saliva-wet spent cock clinging by adhesive force to her lower lip. Her right leg shook and kicked.

All five girls rode inside Betty’s cab. After about twenty-four hours of playing with their new toy, it had become a “just for when we’re parked” destination. Hale all but always drove Betty, and fitting six girls and five stuffies in the cab worked.

“Shit! Baby! Fuck!” Reika squealed. Casey had started fingering the Japanese teen’s pussy as she rimmed the asshole. Reika was an expressive cummer, not as much vocally as the other girls, but her body was quakes and tremors.

“I’m thinking we head up Highway 65 out of Conway,” Alicia was saying, stretched out across Ivy and Dakota in the backseat making Reika’s Ryuko swordfight against Ranger. “We loop through Heber Springs and hit up the Red Rock Roadhouse.”

“What?” Dakota asked why.

“My god! Oh shit!” Reika gasped. She cooed when Hale began petting her hair with her left hand.

“I’ve got family in Heber Springs,” Alicia said. “Wanna show off my man and my new friends. Plus, they own the Roadhouse and I bet I can score us at least a free round.”

“Casey! Don’t stop! A little faster!”

“Cum! Cum! Cum! Cum!” Ivy stopped chanting when Alicia stuck a toe in her mouth. Alicia moaned giddily.

“Here,” Alicia said, handing her phone to Dakota.

“We’re going to miss out on Little Rock,” Dakota said.

“Whoop-de-shit,” Alicia scoffed. “It’s summer, we got clear skies and warm sun. Let’s find some lakes, nature, and country bars. Like god intended.”

“God! God!” Reika started squealing.

“See, she backs the plan,” Alicia said.

“We’ve been doing a lot of hanging out in cities and fucking,” Hale said. “Casey and I packed tents and the rest when we set out. We’ve never got to do that so much yet.”

“Oh! Casey! Ca~asey!” The next scream out of Reika was confused and not the same was the others hand been.

A cool silver ring rolled out of Hale’s hand down her neck, off her shoulderblade and bounced down to the floor.

“Well fuck,” Hale said, laughing. “Throw Reika in the back and find that, Casey.”

Every girl but Casey screamed next as Casey pitched Reika with a hard shove and a giggle.

Terry laid in bed, seething at his wife. Linda had abandoned their quest to slap some sense into their son and return the inheritance he didn’t deserve! Soren was no help, Terry had long since called in all of his favors on that front anyways. All he knew was that Hale was driving East and clearly he was in command of the Draupnir.

He didn’t know what he was doing!

It wasn’t enough to get some pretty sluts. A real master of the ring would be calculating, finding the right heiresses or political wives to actually build something.

He was a teenager! Such power couldn’t be trusted in such hands. It definitely couldn’t be respected.

Terry looked at the map on his tablet. He had flagged everywhere Hale had stopped. He was taking the I40. It was imperative to find him in the next couple of weeks.

“Little Rock,” he decided.

Sighing, he called Linda again.

She’d be such a better wife if he had a ring on her.

After they talked, he failed to sleep for badly he was steaming. No, Linda would never deserve a ring.

Hale caught Casey’s hands as she jumped out of Betty’s cab and he swung her until her flip-flops landed on the ground.

“Ring?” he asked.

She patted the fanny pack she was wearing over her bikini bottoms.

“Good,” he swatted her ass and turned to catch a giggling Reika. He looked at the three girls waiting to get out of the back seat. “You all have working legs.”

“Catch me! Catch me! Daddy!” Ivy said.

“What she said,” Dakota said, voice raspy as she blushed.

He slammed the front door and opened the back. The ground was soft from yesterday’s rain, but there wasn’t a puddle to dodge for them like there had been for Casey and Reika.

He swatted and grabbed every ass as he dropped them down on the ground. The sun set was quickly shifting from orange to purple to black. He and Casey went to set up the tent. Dakota and Reika went to the camper to run the stove. Alicia and Ivy had little to do chores-wise and went down to the lakeside to wade their feet.

“No one else but us,” Alicia said, happily.

“Yeah, we’ll find a blonde soon though,” Ivy promised her.

“How many girls is too many?” Alicia asked.

“One more than the number of rings,” Ivy answered.

“I guess that’s right,” Alicia said. She reached up and untied her bikini top. She whistled loudly as she raised her arm and flew her battle flag.

“Everywhere we go,” Hale said, hammering in the last tent stake. The pop-up tent was much quicker to go up than come back down, “We can always make our fun.”

“Is anyone around?” Casey shouted over to the girls at the water.

“Coast is clear,” Ivy said, bikini top in hand.

“C’mon, let’s work up an appetite while the nerds cook!” Alicia said.

“I’ll go leave the ring with Dakota,” Casey said, kissing Hale under the ear. “You go bounce those big titties.”

Hale grabbed Casey and dipped her low before slamming her with a big kiss. Ivy whistled, four fingers in her mouth. Alicia tapped her foot impatiently.

“Oh, stop being a brat,” Ivy said, grabbing Alicia’s big breasts from behind.

“Do you know how long it’s been since he fucked me?! Twenty-four hours!”

“Hale! She’s going into withdrawal!” Ivy shouted, panicked. “She needs an injection! STAT!”

“Did you have to shout in my ear?”

“Yes,” Ivy said, aggressively playing with Alicia’s tits. They were both grinning. Hale was racing over to them in just his trunks and sneakers. He lunged, tackling Alicia around the belly, rolling her out of Ivy’s grasp and splashing into the knee-deep lakewater.

Alicia was kicking and laughing. She cried out in joy when he ran his hand up and under her bikini bottom. Ivy threw herself at Alicia and Hale sending them crashing deeper into the lake. The lake dropped off quickly and less than two more paces out they were deep enough that Alicia’s huge breasts were beginning to float. Or they would, if Hale and Ivy hadn’t flipped her upside down, her hair sweeping the lakebottom, as they pulled off her bottoms and tossed them back to shore.

Alicia twisted, kicked, and suppressed the urge to panic. She cartwheeled out of grip and splashed out of the water. Her brown hair whipping high over head, releasing a huge wave of mist and causing a little rainbow to those not watching her big breasts splash free of the water.

Ivy had jumped and wrapped her thighs around Hale’s waist, rising up and burying his face into her tits. She looked over her shoulder. She smiled at Alicia: “If you want his cock, it’s under my ass.”

Hale’s finger slipped into Ivy’s asshole as Alicia dove underwater to remove Hale’s trunks.

“Eat up!” Ivy squealed when Hale bit her nipple.

“Ooh!” Alicia glugged out bubbles. She grinned as a big penis came free, bobbing under the clenched curve of Ivy’s ass. Alicia twisted, bending herself until her ass pressed up and into Ivy’s, she backed up, reaching under and between her legs to grab Hale’s shaft and guide him into her needy tunnel.

Alicia’s head broke the surface, gasping for air. She was bent perpendicular, only able to breathe when she arched her back to its limit. Her hair spread across the surface of the water like a brown halo.

She grabbed her own knees, thrusting her hips backwards. Ivy’s weight on her ass, Hale’s heat in her pussy. She’d have been struggling to breathe even if she wasn’t risking mouthfuls of lake water.

Ivy giggled, grinding her crotch on Hale’s abs as he had handfuls of Alicia’s wide hips. He was really giving it to her. Ivy reached back, grabbing a fistful of Alicia’s hair and yanking. She easily pulled her gasping, gurgling mouth and nose out of the water.

“Th-thank you!” Alicia howled.

Ivy grinned and held the breathy brunette’s head up by her hair, slinging her arm across the back of Hale’s head. She was attempting to drown him in tit. He seemed happy to let that be the way he went out. She grinned and moaned.

“You gonna cum? It’s been 24 hours, you must be so hard up for dick you’re madder than a March hare,” Ivy taunted.

Alicia made a sound that was half-affirmative, half-wet choke. “Fuck her harder, Hale,” Ivy whispered in his ear. “She’s already breathed her fair share today.”

Alicia twisted her pelvis and sloshed more water. Her toes curled in her flip-flops. Her tongue was stiff and dangling, water droplets stuck to her lips as Ivy gave her hair another jerky yank upwards.

“Oh god!” she shouted, cumming with her eyes rolling back, her muscles straining and her heart beating so hard she almost wished it would just stop rather than shatter her ribs from the inside.

Hale grunted around Ivy’s tits. His fingers squeezed tighter into Alicia’s skin. The water rippled out from their motion, the entire once-placid lake buying into the energy of the fuck.

“I know that look!” Ivy said, giggling as she swept Hale’s hair back under her fingers. “C’mon baby. Spray the big bad Texan slut full of spermies.”

“Buh-bitch!” Alicia gasped, strangled. She fully arched her back and popped her eyes open, she saw stars and black as Hale ground his hips against her ass with his last strokes. She shuddered as his cum joined the lake.

Alicia groaned and fell forward off of Hale’s cock and into the lake. Ivy’s ass, once resting on Alicia’s ass dropped like a bomb. She had eased her leg grip on Hale’s ass and fell explosively into the water.

“Soup’s on!” Dakota called with a whistle. “Do they need a lifeguard?”

“They should be fine,” Hale said, with a flick of his eyes. He walked out of the lake, Dakota grinning as his cock broke the surface and he headed towards her.

“Uh, I better check on them anyways,” Dakota said, licking her fingers and slapping Hale’s dick before heading out to the water.

“Did you get any sleep?” Casey found Hale sitting at the lakeshore at sunrise.

“A few hours,” he said. She sat down on his left, she leaned her head so it rested on his shoulder. He squeezed her thigh. “We’ll need to hit a diner with coffee.”

“There’s nothing saying we have to get going first thing,” Casey said. “Why not take another of couple of hours. I can force a ‘just cuddling’ order.”

“How about you?” he asked.

“Did I get any sleep?” she asked. “Yeah, six or seven hours. But I think we all appreciate it a little when someone needs to tag out for a few hours.”

“Except for me.”

“You never try to,” she said. “You just keep going.”

He ran his ring up his dick, hardening it.

“Can’t ignore magic,” he said, smirking. She didn’t move from the warm cuddle on his shoulder.

“No, you really can’t.”

The voice pulled their attention up the lakeshore. There was one coyote looking over three smaller pups as they slaked their first.

“Wake everyone up,” Hale said. “We’re getting on the road.”

“Already on it,” Casey said.

She nuzzled and kissed him before popping up to her feet and shouting at the tent. “Up and at ‘em ladies!”

“Hey Maman!” Dominique pulled off her work clothes the moment she stepped into her mother’s trailer home. She tossed it, her apron, and her hair clip on a pile of old magazines. Her boots clicked on the fake wood floors. “Maman!”

“What?” Jeanne called from the couch.

“You’re not in the shower, good,” Dominique tossed her bra on the kitchen counter and headed down to the bathroom. She opened the door.

“You got plans for tonight, cherie?”

“Working a shift at the roadhouse,” she said. “You?”

“One of these nights they’re going to ask for your ID,” Jeanne said.

“Even when they do, they just make sure I’m over 18,” Dominique said. She ignored whatever Jeanne called next, she kicked off her sneakers, stepped on the heel of her sock even as she pushed her shorts down. She picked the thong out of her ass before leaving it on the pile. She got in the shower just as her mother walked in to the toilet.

“Merde ... I swear it was easier sharing a bathroom with sixteen girls at college,” Dominique muttered.

“I grabbed thirty dollars out of your tips for gas,” Jeanne said.

“I already filled the car,” Dominique said. She sighed. She finished the pre-dental part of college. 4 more years and she would be able to handle her mother better.

“You gonna out with girlfriends?” Jeanne asked. “I don’t like when you go alone.”

“I don’t like when you pull money out of my apron before asking,” Dominique said, turning up the heat.

“You’re a good kid,” Jeanne said. “Smart. Be smart tonight as well. I didn’t want to freeze you, so flush for me when you’re done, petite.”

Just for that, Dominique swore to herself she was going to be as dumb as possible tonight.

“It’s a strip club?” Reika said, sitting up on her knees and looking over Alicia’s shoulder to the sign advertising the Red Rock Roadhouse.

“They have topless bartenders,” Alicia said. “No dancers. Apparently the paperwork you had to swim through wasn’t worth it when they set up, and they just kept it going.”

“Seems pretty dead,” Hale said.

“It’s four in the afternoon,” Alicia said. “C’mon, park and I’ll introduce you to my cousins.”

“Did you text them, let them know we were coming?” Dakota asked from cuddle. She had the knack for getting the coveted seat. If Hale hadn’t told her to let the other girls get it sometimes, she’d probably always have it.

“No, where’s the fun in that?” Alicia laughed. “Over here, so your trailer’s not in the way.”

Hale followed her finger and moved to park Betty and the trailer. A bouncer in a loose tank top and military pants was walking over. He was at least six inches taller than Hale. Ivy waved, hopping out first.

“You girls working? Because it’s one thing to get cabbed to the motel up the road and it’s another to have beds out in the lot.”

“Yep! That’s us, hookers,” Ivy said. Casey slapped her in the back of the head with Ranger.

“Hey,” Alicia said, standing out the passenger side door and leaning over the roof. “Billy and Dave in?”

“David’s up in the office,” the bouncer said. “Seriously though--”

“No, it’s cool. He used to babysit me,” Alicia said. “Park it up and c’mon.”

The bouncer scratched his bald head. He looked at Hale. “You’re not their pimp?”

“They’re not for hire,” Hale answered. He smirked. “I’m their security.”

“Good, I guess...” the bouncer said, looking him up and down with dismissal.

“Hey, nice tattoo,” Casey said, pointing to the army ink on the bouncer’s shoulder. She waved Hale over. “That your dad’s unit?”

Hale tilted his head. “No.”

“Who’s your dad?” the bouncer asked.

“Staff Sergeant Richard Valmont,” Hale said.

The bouncer frowned. “Not the same unit, but he was there for our basic. He taught you how to fight?”

“Best he could,” Hale said.

“Right,” the bouncer said. “I guess follow the one who clearly knows where she’s going.”

“Hurry up guys!” Alicia shouted, opening the door and entering the Roadhouse.

“Thanks. Hale,” Hale extended a hand.

“Darryl,” Darryl grabbed Hale’s and and proved he had a stronger grip. Didn’t feel as special when Hale took off after his five girls. They didn’t feel like hookers. They felt like adventurers.

The Red Rock Roadhouse was an expansive night club, the left half was more tavern the right half more strip club. There were two bars, but the one by the raised dance floor was unattended. Alicia had made a beeline for it, jumping knees down atop the stool and leaning over the bar with her ass wiggling back at Hale and the girls.

Arleen, an attractive woman in her mid-thirties, flicked a head full of bottle-blonde hair and looked over her shoulder from the shelf she was stocking. She was dressed in a leather miniskirt and pink bikini top.

“Help you, sweetness?” she offered to Alicia.

“Dave and Billy? They around?”

“David and William?” Arleen said.

“Well lah-dee-dah!” Alicia laughed. “Back in the office?”

Alicia pointed to the red door.

“David is, but--”

Alicia hopped off the stool and grabbed Hale’s wrist. “C’mon, you girls might want to get started.” She gestured to Arleen.

“Get started?” Reika asked.

“Drinking!” Ivy said, slapping Reika’s ass. “C’mon, I’ll get you started on something tasty.”

Reika blushed, having heard those exact words two nights ago.

“You girls dancing tonight?” Arleen asked.

“Hell yeah!” Ivy said.

“I think she means strippin’,” Alicia called back.

“That too, but not for money and not for anyone but Hale.” Ivy blew a kiss after Alicia and Hale. He shook his head, dragged through the swinging doors, by the cleaning station, and straight into the office without a knock.

“‘Scuse you!” An accented voice snarled at Alicia. That voice came from a tall small-chested dirty blonde in Daisy Duke cut-offs and a loose wife-beater tank top. She put her hand on her hip and glared.

“‘licia! Dad said you might be coming out this way!” Hale couldn’t see the family resemblance between David and Alicia. Alicia was a tan outdoorsy rough-and-tumble brunette. David was a tall skinny carrot topped sloucher. Alicia couidn’t even see David.

“David?”

“Family from out of state,” he said. “Sorry, ‘Nique, if you want to make more money bartend with your tits out, not just in the bikini.”

She left in a huff. Alicia followed her path out of the office, hanging on the doorjamb as Dominique wiggled to the back rooms.

“Oh! She’s cute and blonde!” Alicia said, grabbing Hale’s shirt and practically glowing as she stared him in the eyes. “Right? Right?!”

“A bit of a handful,” David said.

“Comes with the territory,” Hale said. “Alicia, you were going to introduce me to your cousin.”

“Oh, that’s Dave.” A waving point was all he got. Alicia was looking around the corner. Where’d she go?”

“Leave her be until she clocks in,” Dave said. “She only gets a few moments to herself with her mother. Why’re you guys here?”

“Drink, dancing, and debauchery,” Alicia said. “This is Hale by the way. He’s my boyfriend. C’mon, I want to introduce you to our girlfriends!”

“What?” Dave frowned “Has she hit herself on the head?”

“We use a padded headboard,” Hale quipped. Dave tossed his arm around Alicia.

“Careful how you talk about family,” Dave said.

Hale nodded. Now he could see some of the resemblance.

Word got around that there were new gorgeous girls at The Red Rock Roadhouse. The local girls were doing such good money because the new bitches were snobs. There was that kinda handsome boyish kid with the nice hair. And they all loved him.

Dominique didn’t get it. But by the number of drinks the girls had been bought, without pretending to lead anyone, was racking up tips like it was Valentine’s Day.

Not that Dominique got to work their busiest day of the year, college kid. She only did the job over the summer, even with the tourists, it was good money not great money.

“He~ey! Hey! Hey!” The cute Japanese girl, Reika, was slurring her speech. “I like you. You’re pretty and you give me tasty things.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dominique said. “On Hale’s tab or is some new guy trying to get in your pants?”

“They were hitting on me?!” Japanese girl’s eyes went wide. She broke out into giggles. “Like, oh my god! I’m popular! They buy me drinks even when Alicia’s jugs are right there! Like right there!”

She pointed down the bar to where Dave and his cousin were talking.

“It’s like a fuckin’ harem anime, y’know? Even with the cute woodland creature,” Reika said.

“I’m sure it is,” Dominique said, not wanting to diminish a tip.

“Why’re you here?”

“I’m working,” Dominique said. “I’m getting people drinks. Such as you, what are you drinking?”

“What was the pink one called?”

“The cosmo?” Dominique asked, starting to mix it.

“Cosmo ... Like space?”

“You’re a bit airheaded when you’re drunk,” Dominique said. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”

“Nuh uh! You’re cute!” she said, earnestly.

“Thanks, petite,” Dominique said.

“Yeah, I’m petite ... Oh! The pink one! What’s it called?”

“It’s called I’m not serving you another tonight,” Dominique said, adding the bill to Hale’s tab.

“I’m here with someone, thank you,” Dakota said, putting her hand on the boy’s shoulder so she could shout in his ear. The music wasn’t that loud, but her normal speaking voice wasn’t cutting it. She waited in line until the bikini-topped Dominique slid over in front of her.

“Whiskey and ginger ale,” Dominique remembered.

“How come you’re not topless like the other bartenders?” Dakota asked.

“Not my thing,” Dominique answered.

“It could be, you’re lovely,” Dakota said.

“All you girls have been washing up desperate boys who won’t be caught dead not tipping in front of a girl,” Dominique said. “And yet, all the compliments I’m getting are from you ladies.”

“You deserve them,” Dakota said. “Your accent, Cajun?”

“Oui, oui,” she said.

“You’re not out of place in Heber Springs?”

“Moved up here when I was very little, after Katrina,” Dominique said. “You good, chere? I got others.”

“Just wiggle when you walk away,” Dakota said, channeling her best Ivy.

Dominique laughed, slapping her ass at Dakota and heading down the line.

Ivy and Casey were dancing together in a circle of boys. “I hate it! Hate it!”

“No you don’t,” Casey countered. “You’re smiling and giggling like a lunatic.”

“She’s the best, and I saw ten tits tonight. Only eight worked here!” Ivy put her hands on Casey’s hips and slid her thigh in between the taller redhead’s legs. “The music’s great. Where’s Hale?”

“Alicia’s been playing with him.”

“See that’s why I hate it!” Ivy said. “She found the blonde. I wanted to get him a blonde.”

“She’s only barely a blonde,” Casey said. “It’s not like she’s Khaleesi from Game of Thrones.”

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better!” Ivy said.

“You’re glowing like Nagasaki,” Casey said. “You don’t need cheering up, you need to ring the new girl and drag her into the trailer.”

“Well, I want Hale to do the dragging,” Ivy said. “Ooga booga! Caveman take new bride!”

“God, you’re the worst,” Casey said, kissing Ivy deeply. “I kinda love you, you know?”

“If you love me, get my girl’s finger gift-wrapped! You should be with Hale on that plan,” Ivy said. “You have the ring, right?!”

“Always,” Casey said. “I’ve even drank less than you guys did to stay alert.”

“You better get distracted when we get our new girl!” Ivy said. “Or else.”

“Or else what?”

“I’ll think of something when I’m less drunk and giggly,” Ivy said. “Let’s go get more drinks.”

“Ivy, not like that,” Casey sighed as Ivy grabbed two boys by the shirt collars.

“Buy us drinks and we’ll get you laid by the black haired and red haired chicks over there,” Ivy said.

“The cougars?” the first guy said. “They’re easier than pie.”

“Take ‘em out for pie,” Casey suggested. “You don’t have to buy us drinks. We can--”

“Do it! Do it! Do it!” Ivy said, even a few more times after Casey pinched her repeatedly.

Alicia was giggling and having a blast. She hung off of Hale and ran him ragged around the Roadhouse. Hale had never been to a strip club before, let alone one so country and back woods. It wasn’t really a strip club, there was a stage and there were girls who climbed up and drunkenly pulled their clothes off on it, but they were all patrons. They were honestly trying to steal attention back from his own girls.

He was doing his best to keep his eye on everyone.

Reika was the hardest, she was chatting up everyone, and seemed surprised to learn that guys were hitting on her.

Dakota would go on adventures into the crowd to bring Reika back, but as the night went on, the Japanese girl got more and more slippery. She had a lot of social lubricant.

Thankfully, Ivy and Casey were keeping each other just at the edge of trouble. They clearly had each other’s backs.

That left Alicia, who had been holding his hand like a grade school girlfriend all night. She was showing off that she was taken, always leaning on him, dancing with him, cuddling up to him. Especially, when she had her cousins or other guys around.

There was one thread throughout the night though.

“The bartender? I think her name is Dominominque?” Reika would jump and point and burble, and before Hale could grab her around the waist she was off to her next conversation.

“I really like her,” Dakota had said. “Her accent makes my knees wobbly. I like playing with Ivy, but I’d be gay for her.”

“Excuse me?” Hale said, grinning and probing for more, but Dakota disappeared in the crowd like smoke.

“Hale! You gotta get her! You just gotta! Alicia found you such a pretty present and we gotta unwrap her! It’s not fair, all the other bartenders got their tits out but she doesn’t! It’s not fair, Hale! Do something!”

Ivy was giggling and hiccupping like a drunk cartoon Goofy.

“She’s really quite sweet,” Casey said. “And we’ve been trying her patience all night. Throw in the ring and she’ll be golden.”

“So how do we do it?” Alicia asked. “I didn’t get to see Reika, I wanna see magic.”

“You were there when I got the ring on you,” Hale said.

“Should we wait until she’s going for her car tonight and jump her?” Alicia asked, brightly.

Hale shook his head.

He didn’t want to do this outside. There were coyotes outside. Ever since he was told he now owed the coyote a favor, he stopped seeing the ring-spirit as a good omen.

But more than that, he didn’t want to physically jump a girl. From a personal safety point of view, there were four really large bouncers who would most assuredly be watching the girls get out to the cars, plus, from the few excursions he had pulling Reika back out of the tide of people, he honestly suspected this was a cop bar.

Yet, that wasn’t the issue.

Grabbing a girl and forcing a ring down her finger? That felt like it was at odds with the promises he had made to Casey way back in Barstow.

“I got a better plan,” he said.

“You got a plan?!” Alicia said, jumping, giggling, and kissing him madly.

“Calm down,” Hale said, laughing. “Everyone’s got a plan until they get punched in the face.”

“You’re not gonna punch her?!” Alicia said, wide-eyed. She slapped his arm before he could respond in reassurances. “Relax, I know who Conor MacGregor is.”

“What? No. Way off, It was--”

“Plan!” she said.

“Right, c’mon.”

“You two are trouble,” Dominique said when Casey and Ivy waved their drinks and whisked away into the crowd. She served the next two guests when the man of the evening showed up.

She looked Hale up and down.

Cute hair.

Nice build.

Maybe a little skinny.

All of these girls? Was he rich? Were they on drugs?

“Hey! Thanks for taking care of everyone tonight,” he said, the big-titted cousin of the boss bimbo was hanging off his elbow.

“It’s my job,” Dominique said. “What can I get for you?”

“I just wanted to say thank you, how about we share a shot? You down, Alicia?”

“Oh yeah!” Alicia said. “Mix us up your favorite.”

“Yeah?” Dominique said. “We can do that.”

The other girls did it all the time, get the barflies to buy and extra drink and loosen up a bit to keep up with the night. Dominique wasn’t asked as often, the bikini top. But it wasn’t technically a topless bar and William couldn’t make her, so long as she brought in the money and was a great employee.

She mixed up three sweet shots with a kick of rum and slid them out.

“To those who take care of us,” Hale said, clinking glasses with her. He then knocked his special ring into Alicia’s. They shared a secret laugh. And downed their glasses.

“I’ll see you soon, Dominique. Gotta bring the other other friends around to say thank you.”