King of Hearts

Jennifer Stevenson

When she witnesses King Dave’s humiliation at the hands of his ex-wife, preacher's daughter Nadine gains control of King Dave — and becomes his target.

King Dave, son of the president of Chicago’s stagehands, has never been bested. He will stop at nothing to recover his stolen machismo.

A Backstage Boys romantic comedy!

Chapter One

King Dave Flaherty was despicable. That’s what Nadine Fisher would say to him if he ever dared to make an advance to her. King Dave, she would say, looking down her nose, You have a nerve coming on to me after everything I’ve heard about you! You’re despicable!

She took the empty coffeepots back to the Bunn machine near the Café les Auteurs restrooms and rinsed them out one at a time, watching out the window. Across the grimy alley outside, two roadies on dinner break came out of the stage door of the Auditorium theatre and walked up the alley toward the nearest bar.

Nadine swirled water into the carafes over the sink.

Nope, he wouldn’t get very far with her. King Dave was lucky he was Mister Somebody in a big city, boy. Back in Goreville, he’d have to answer for his misbehavior before the entire congregation. And Nadine would take great pleasure in paying him a visit to administer spiritual correction.

Imagining it, she allowed herself a moment of satisfaction, running her hands under the warm water.

King Dave, she would say, you may be old FX Flaherty’s only son, but you’re a disgrace. It’s a sin how spoiled you are. Pride goeth before a fall. You ought to use your social power for good, the way I do. And don’t you dare look at me like that.

I’m a minister’s daughter and a pure woman.

Not that anyone believes that anymore. Her heart sank. I was as proud as him, once.

She changed out the filters on the Bunn and put in fresh coffee, keeping her eye on the stage door across the dimly-lit alley. The door opened again, but it was only the production manager for Miss Saigon and a local carpenter. They followed the roadies.

Her imagination skittered. What if he took that “pure woman” thing as a challenge?

He might.

She’d heard some awful, awful stories about King Dave.

On a bet, King Dave had slept with every waitress at Corbett’s, including one who was engaged at the time.

King Dave and four other guys had almost set fire to the Cadillac Theatre by peeing on the transformer vault, and one guy had gone to the emergency room with an unusual electrical burn.

King Dave had punched out the head electrician at the Shubert Theatre for hassling a waitress, and the electrician, knowing better than to lay a finger on the son of FX Flaherty, had done nothing.

King Dave owed money to his ex-wife. Nadine had witnessed a scene right here in Café “Liz Otter’s” when Tammy tracked him down and demanded payment in front of the entire crew from the Auditorium.

Nadine could have told her it was no use.

King Dave cared for nobody. His poopers didn’t stink.

She scowled out the window at the stage door. More stagehands trickled out of the theatre and headed toward the bars. She knew most of them by name. Liz Otter’s was next door, open twenty-four hours. They all came in sooner or later.

She’d made the coffee. Now what? The water glass rack needed straightening. And she could fill glasses.

Maybe he hadn’t come to work tonight. He’d meant to. She’d overheard the guys say so this morning. Too busy chasing skirts, she speculated contemptuously. Though why girls fell for blue eyes and city charm, when they must know what kind of man he was!

Nadine jammed a stainless steel water pitcher into the big ice machine and yelped as an ice cube bounced up and leapt down the front of her starched white uniform. She reached into her cleavage to fish out the ice cube, peeking guiltily through the window, just as King Dave Flaherty raised his head from his cell phone not twenty feet away.

She yanked her hand out of her dress. King Dave didn’t seem to notice her in the window. He leaned back against the dirty bricks of the Auditorium’s back wall and put one foot up, so that the yellow light from the streetlight washed down over his rippling muscle shirt and highlighted the curve of his thigh.

There was a smug smile on his angel face. Had he seen her at the window after all?

With a delicious thrill of horror, she saw him stuff his cell phone in his jeans pocket, reach out a lazy hand, and beckon with two fingers.

Her heart pounded. She ducked behind the Bunn machine.

Was he beckoning to her?

From behind the Bunn, she peered out the window one way and then the other, trying to see up and down the alley.

She touched her tongue to her lips. If he summoned her into the alley, it wouldn’t be for anything good.

Of course, if she went out there, she could give him that piece of her mind she had ready for him.

Best to make sure.

With assumed casualness she stepped out from behind the Bunn, raising one haughty eyebrow.

He was talking to a harlot. Nadine ducked back out of sight, her heart pounding.

No mistaking the harlot’s intentions. Nadine scowled at her fishnet stockings. Her five-inch heels. Okay, it was summertime in the city, but shouldn’t she have something on her behind besides those itty-bitty shiny red hot pants?

The harlot turned slightly and Nadine saw two things. One, this was King Dave’s ex wife, Tammy, who had screamed until the glasses rang in Liz Otter’s, not a month ago. And two, she saw most of Tammy’s front. Word around town was, King Dave was a breast man. Tammy had them.

King Dave spread his arms wide in a “knock yourself out” gesture. Nadine stiffened. Tammy bent over his belt buckle.

I should look away. I should go back to work. I should march right out there and tell him he’s a disgrace to his mother, his God, and his country. With a shiver, she saw his head tip back against the brick wall. A look of unholy bliss crossed his face. She wet her lips again.

Don’t think about him. Think about how he’s degrading that poor woman out there. That poor woman’s bottom wiggled back and forth, imperfectly concealed by teeny red hot pants.

Then Tammy reached into her big purse, which she had set down the better to degrade herself, and took something out—a can of hair spray? She uncapped it and threw the cap behind her, picking up her bag in the other hand and backing away from King Dave.

Nadine’s mouth dropped open.

Up came the spray can. Out came a cloud. Tammy put fingers to her lips. Nadine heard her whistle faintly through the window. In the depths of the alley, a car gunned its engine.

King Dave took forever to open his eyes. Tammy had backed away, clear across the alley til she stood near Nadine’s window, holding something up to her face. King Dave stood slack-handed with a dumb look on his face and a great big patch of day-glo orange paint on his crotch.

Flash! Flash!

King Dave winced and put a hand up.

Flash! Flash! Flash!

Nadine blinked, also blinded by the camera flash.

The car squealed around the alley corner and pulled up between King Dave and Tammy. Tammy jumped into the back seat. Now she was shouting what Nadine could tell were bad words even through the shut coffeeshop window.

The car roared away. King Dave stumbled out into the middle of the alley, open-mouthed and staring, with his jeans unbuttoned and his day-glo orange dignities hanging in the breeze.

Nadine’s heart pinched for him.

The last thing she’d ever expected was to feel sympathy for King Dave Flaherty. Suddenly, she knew exactly how he felt.

It was mighty hard to fall from top of the heap into disgrace.

She shook her head at the thought and, at her movement, King Dave saw her.

Across the alley, through the window, his eyes met hers.

A parade of emotions crossed his face. She read them as if they were written in letters of fire. Astonishment. Rage. The quick look down at his fly and the quick fumble to button it up with orange fingers. The full realization of what Tammy had done.

And then he looked back up at Nadine, and she knew he had caught up with her.

Nadine’s heart filled to bursting as she realized, in one thump of blood to her brain, that she now had King Dave by the short, orange, and curlies.

He glared at her through the window for a long moment. Then he marched toward the street—and the front door of Liz Otter’s.

I’m in real trouble now, she thought gleefully.

Chapter Two

In the thirty seconds it took King Dave Flaherty to get to the door of Liz Otter’s, he scoped the situation.

He decided to take a high moral tone with the waitress in the window.

He had her pegged. She was a tight-ass, a snooty little snip, always passing judgment on him, giving him vocabulary. He would simply scold her for being where she shouldn’t have been. Nice girls didn’t work the night shift, she ought to know that. And even the night shift girls didn’t look out the back window into the alley in case they saw something they shouldn’t see.

So she better keep her trap shut.

His anxiety cranked up a notch.

If she didn’t keep quiet, he was in trouble.

Look at it more carefully. He was doomed.

The pictures didn’t worry him. Tammy wanted a down payment on a Porsche. Okay, she would get it. She had him fair and square, he could buy her off. It was only money.

But this little waitress could ruin him in the Local by telling the story of what she’d seen. Tammy might back her up, bought off or no. And then what?

King Dave knew damned well what. The end of tolerable life as he knew it.

King Dave knew he had a lot of latitude—hell, he knew. He was King Dave Flaherty, son of the president of the Local. His shit didn’t stink. Now and then he admitted to himself that maybe his shit should stink. He was still young. A guy needed to cut loose now and then.

But the old man’s name wasn’t going to cover this one. It was too ridiculous. He’d never hear the end of it.

King Dave looked into a future of pushing boxes and running follow-spots and manning the flies and focusing lights. And everywhere, in backstage corners all over town, he would find the pictures—eight-by-ten glossies duct-taped to a stage weight carriage, soaped to the mirror in the men’s room, hot-melt-glued to the side of his own workbox or Super Trouper follow spot.

Full-color photos of his day-glo orange dick.

Unless he bought Tammy off. Okay, he’d buy her off.

But that wasn’t the worst possible consequence, he realized with fresh horror.

Naturally they would hang another moniker on him. There was a no-brainer.

Dayglo Dick Dave.

He shivered, aghast. Quite a comedown from King Dave.

Hell, he knew guys who would never call him Dave again. Just “Dayglo Dick.” The very thought made him cringe down to his socks. Creative sons of bitches that they were, they could come up with a dozen variants, he’d never beat it out of ‘em. Popsicle Peter. Glow-worm. Ouch.

They didn’t need the photos to do that to him. He could pay Tammy off and this waitress could still ruin his life. The guys would love the story. The moniker would stick.

It could go on for years. It might never end.

He glanced around the coffeeshop as he walked through the door. Thank heaven, nobody from the Local was in here right now.

King Dave filled himself with a lungful of righteous hot air and walked slam into that snippy waitress.

Hot coffee cascaded down his tee-shirt, scalding his nipples. He yipped.

“What th—why can’t you—oh, it’s you.” He was off to a bad start. He met her eyes. The shock literally rocked him back on his heels. Whatever advantage he may have had, he realized he wasn’t going to recover it.

She smiled at him. It was a warm, kind smile, the smile you get from the day-shift waitresses at Liz Otter’s—not the skinny young ones in black lipstick with studs in their noses, but the big-hair, big-bra old babes who’ve seen it all and forgiven all, short of a check stiff. Her smile told him what he most feared.

She’d seen everything. She knew who he was. She knew what she could do to him. And she knew he couldn’t do a thing about it.

“King Dave, you get yourself right back to the men’s room,” she said warmly.

He opened his mouth and shut it. She was tall enough to look straight into his eyes. Her golden hair was piled up on her head like a queen’s. Her usually lazy-eyed aloofness was transformed. As if she’d suddenly, finally noticed he was a man, goddammit, and at the absolute worst moment.

Someday she’d be old enough to wear the big bra and boss him and the other boys around. But not yet.

In self defense King Dave ogled her, meaning to slap her down with his eyes. She was wearing health sneakers. Jesus. In heels she might be taller than he was. Her body was all curves under her Liz Otter’s white uniform, curvy but strong.

There wasn’t a drop of coffee on her.

His tee shirt was drenched. He flushed.

She ignored his hey-baby look. She put her hand on his shoulder and said in a motherly, half-scolding tone, “Go right back there. I’ll see if the cook has a spare pair of pants. You lock the door. Clean yourself up. I’ll knock when I’ve found you some clean clothes.”

She glanced down at his coffee- and paint-stained shirt and then, for an instant, a little lower, at the orange fingerprints all over the fly of his Levis. King Dave felt himself go hot. It was already starting. Damn her.

Then she turned him by the shoulders and shooed him back toward the men’s. “Get along.”

There was definitely, definitely a hint of laughter in her voice. God damn her.

King Dave shut his gaping mouth and allowed himself to be hustled to the little boys’ room. He took some satisfaction in shooting the lock noisily shut. Was that a giggle outside the door? Grrr! After sixty futile seconds glaring into the mirror, he stripped and got down to the awkward business of trying to wash orange spray paint out of his pubic hair.

oOo

Nadine fled back to her coffee station. Heart hammering, she poured a new cup of decaf and delivered it to booth six. Her breath came in halts. Something strange was happening in her head, a kind of dizzy singing silence that made it hard for her to concentrate.

She shut her eyes and remembered their collision in the doorway. Lord, he was attractive up close. In the instant before she spoke, as the coffee doused him, she had looked straight into his eyes. She knew. King Dave Flaherty, a god among men, was completely in her hands.

And she realized that she wanted him.

What appallingly bad judgment. What a delicious cave-woman feeling.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Nadine was a practical girl. If she were not to go down in day-glo orange flames herself, the butt of stagehand humor until the day she quit Liz Otter’s and scurried back home to Daddy with her tail between her legs, she would have to plan her next moves very carefully.

The main thing was never to let him see her off balance.

She begged Miguel the cook for his spare pair of whites and snitched a Cafè Les Auteurs tee-shirt from the pile under the cash register. As she passed the shiny Bunn machine, she whipped out her lipstick and freshened her makeup.

Daddy would have conniptions to see her in lipstick. She flushed, remembering Daddy’s condemnation and the humiliation of slinking out of town. Oh, King Dave, I’ve been there.

Which was why she would never betray what she’d seen.

If her plan was to succeed, however, King Dave must never know that.

She could feel his gaze on the front of her body like a fingerprint. He was furious. He was anxious. He didn’t trust her.

Well, she’d have to make him trust her. If she didn’t, she knew well, he was capable of doing something supremely nutty and unpleasant to make himself safe. King Dave Flaherty would not let her take him down without a fight.

She knew she ought to be scared.

Nadine smiled. It was a tender, affectionate smile for a wayward boy who badly wanted his butt smacked and his face kissed, in that order. She made sure the butt-smacking part of her smile was uppermost when she knocked on the men’s room door.

“King Dave, honey?” she murmured.

The door was jerked open. King Dave glared through an inch crack.

“Here.” She shoved the pants and tee-shirt into his hands.

He took them and started to shut the door in her face.

“And King Dave,” she added in her sternest waitress voice. The door stopped moving. She could see past his head to the men’s room mirror. In the mirror, she could see all of him from behind. He was naked to his socks. His back looked as sculpted and muscular as his chest. She felt a hot spike of lust shoot up through her body.

“Now King Dave,” she said in her most motherly voice, “don’t you worry about a thing. Nobody was in here who knows you.”

He stared at her through the crack in the door, his face a picture of doubt and heart-stopping vulnerability.

“So all you’ve got to worry about is the women.”

His look said as plainly as words, You’re one of them.

Her smile said back, Well of course I am. But you’re going to have to trust me anyway.

The door slammed and locked again.

Chapter Three

With shaking hands, King Dave donned the tee shirt and the cook’s spare pants. No way was this waitress gonna get the better of him, no way. Snippy, superior, attitudinal little—okay, not little. Hell, she was so curvy and tall, she might outweigh him.

She shook him. Unacceptable. Not acceptable at all. Did she even know who he was?

King Dave honey, don’t you worry about a thing.

That was a Yes.

All you’ve got to worry about is the women.

How dare she threaten him? Enraged, he yanked the doorknob, forgetting it was locked. Then he heard voices outside the door.

“I think somebody’s in there, honey,” said the voice of the evil waitress.

“Guess I’ll go back to work,” said the voice of Bobbyjay Morton, his best buddy.

King Dave let go the doorknob and fell back against the wall, pressing his hands over his eyes. Shit.

His hands smelled like spray paint. He checked them, front and back. There was still a thin orange line under two fingernails. The stuff dried in a heartbeat. Don’t think about his short hairs. He wouldn’t be able to use the health club for days. This would cut deep into his social life, unless he felt like dousing himself with paint thinner. His aching brain whirred, trying to keep up with all the implications, all the details of clean up, cover up, denial, retrieval, revenge.

Well, there was one person he knew he could deal with. Miss Tammy would receive a visit way sooner than she imagined.

He fished his cell phone out of his desecrated jeans and called Bobbyjay.

“Hey, bud, listen, I’ve come down with a real bad flu all of a sudden. Yeah, it hit me when I went out for a phone call, wham. Can you tell the steward for me?”

Bobbyjay sounded innocently sympathetic. “No problem. I’ll get Doofus up from the main rag to cover you. He’s only got one more cue tonight.” Not a hint of sarcasm or humor in his voice.

King Dave breathed a tiny bit easier. He flushed the toilet to add sound effects. “Thanks, pal.”

Now to deal with Tammy.

He emptied the bathroom wastebasket on the floor. Let Miss Snippety clean up. Then he bundled his orange clothes into a roll, stuffed them into the plastic trash bag, and cracked open the door. No one in sight.

He whisked out of the bathroom and slipped through the kitchen to the back door, sprinted down the alley, and headed for Wabash Avenue, where his Camaro was parked. If he knew Tammy, she’d go to ground as soon as her dirty deed was done.

But on Wabash he found a note on the Camaro’s windshield.

Dear King Dave you deadbeat,

Davy Junior is at your Mom’s house. You’ll never guess where I am. You promised me a down payment on a Porsche, so pay up. Give the money to your Mom. Watch your mailbox.

Signed, a smiley face

Damn! King Dave kicked the Camaro’s tire and almost broke a toe. “Ow, ow, ow!” He had hoped for a straight exchange, cash for the film. The bitch wanted to drag this out.

He crushed the letter and breathed slow and hard. He couldn’t lay hands on Tammy yet, but he knew where to find that waitress.

oOo

His plan to silence the waitress developed on the walk back to Liz Otter’s. First, he would have to face the fact, she wasn’t a pushover. She didn’t look more than twenty, but she’d turned the tables on him in the first two seconds. She’d poured hot coffee on him, too. Was that deliberate?

He scowled. If she was in it with Tammy, he was screwed.

Or not. Tammy wouldn’t blow the story unless she was positive she wouldn’t get her money. So if the waitress and Tammy were working together, he could count on the waitress to keep her mouth shut at least until he had paid up.

He recalled her open-mouthed look of shock as Tammy sped away, and the way her eyes had widened through the restaurant window when he spotted her.

No, she probably wasn’t in it with Tammy.

Okay, now what? Did he have any leverage at all?

Standing at a traffic light, King Dave squeezed his eyes shut in an effort of memory. What did he know about her?

Damn little. She was built, which had caught his eye on her first day working Liz Otter’s, but she had the smile and the cool, hands-off manner of a waitress thirty years her senior.

She didn’t date stagehands. He would have known if she did. No ring—he always checked first for a ring. Not for him the black eyes and bullet holes of stagehands who messed with married women. So she was available, probably, maybe.

He had a sudden memory of her face, flushed and staring into his, in the moment they body-slammed each other across the coffee pot this evening. She’d blushed and looked down at his orangey front. Surely there had been a little ka-ching.

She couldn’t be totally immune to King Dave Flaherty.

King Dave sweated into his borrowed tee shirt and pants. We’ll have to see.

oOo

Nadine was pouring coffee for the Auditorium crew when King Dave stalked in, looking like an angel whose harp had hit a sour note. Her heart bumped in her chest. In the white Liz Otter’s tee shirt and white pants, all he needed was a flaming sword and the look would be perfect.

“There he is,” Bobbyjay Morton said. “You feeling better, King Dave?”

“Shitting my brains out,” King Dave snapped. Nadine winced. “Gimme decaf,” he said to her with a look that dislocated several of her internal organs.

If she let him get the better of her now, all her leverage would dribble away.

Nadine pulled on her armor of waitressness. “Sure, honey,” she said, pouring. “But do you think you should? You were in the bathroom an awful long time.”

She bent over him and peered into his face with concern.

The shock of meeting those angry blue eyes nearly ruined her act. “Are you feeling better?” she said breathlessly.

“I’m fine,” he said in a clipped voice.

“Well, I think your color is still a little off,” she said, as she put a full cream pitcher on the table. “You look kinda orange around the edges.”

King Dave slopped cream into his decaf, holding her gaze with his glare.

Don’t you f-word with me, b-word, his look said.

But his scowl definitely backed off.

Bobbyjay said, “King Dave, we were just talking about the new Galaxy Performing Arts Center. You heard who’s going for the department heads yet?”

“No idea,” King Dave said. “The city is bringing in an outside production manager.”

“You’re serious!” Weasel Rooney said. “You mean the Local’s got no say whatever? Not even King Dave?”

“That’s what I hear,” King Dave said. “And don’t call me King Dave like that.”

“No, your majesty,” Weasel said, and Bobbyjay grinned.

Reluctantly Nadine moved on to her other tables. She took orders at tables two and six and delivered them to the cook.

“What are you thinking about?” said a velvety voice in her ear.

Nadine’s pulse kicked like a mule. She turned slowly. “Why, King Dave, how you startled me.”

He edged closer. His body heat warmed her. “Don’t mess with me, your highness. What are you gonna do?”

“King Dave,” she said. “I’ve always wondered why they call you that.”

He flushed, and she knew she’d hit another nerve. “It’s too f—too easy to get a name hung on you in this Local.”

“I know what you mean,” she said. “I’m from Goreville myself.”

“Small town, huh?” he said, eyeing her in a way that made her regret admitting that much. He was standing practically on top of her Stride Rites.

“Extremely small,” she said. He smelled like soap and sweat and spray paint.

King Dave inched closer. “Place like that, you can get stuck with a terrible nickname. For the least little thing,” he added meaningfully. “It can happen to anybody. Thinking about it should give a nice girl the shivers.”

Nadine shivered, but not from fear of some piddly nickname. Her tongue was cleaving to the roof of her mouth.

“Atta girl. Think with the big head,” he said, glancing at her hair. He smiled cockily into her eyes.

He turned and went back to Bobbyjay and Weasel’s table.

Nadine took a minute to fuss over the spanakopita for table six and get her breath back.

So that’s how it was going to be. He would try to hang some despicable nickname on her if she dared to talk about his escapade in the alley. Nadine breathed in through her nostrils and sent twin jets of flame shooting out of them.

Then she returned to King Dave’s table. “Here’s your orange juice, honey,” she said in her best waitress voice, setting the glass in front of him.

King Dave scowled at her.

“I was asking him why they call him King Dave,” she remarked to Weasel and Bobbyjay, and added in an innocent, injured tone, “He won’t say.”

King Dave produced a dollar in quarters from the pocket of the cook’s spare white pants. “I gotta get back to work,” he growled. He threw the coins onto the table and stomped out.

Cranky. Usually he tipped her two bucks for coffee.

“Whatever’s the matter with him?” Nadine said, staring after him with what she hoped was a guileless look of surprise. Her heart pounded.

“He don’t like being reminded that his old man is the president of the Local,” Bobbyjay said.

“Is he?” Nadine said, still playing dumb.

Weasel put a finger alongside his nose. “He loves it that his old man’s the president. What he don’t like is people saying he couldn’t get work without the connection.”

She widened her eyes for real now. “Is that what the nickname means?”

“It’s just a nickname,” Bobbyjay said in a rough tone.

To Nadine’s certain knowledge Bobbyjay was the fifth living member of his family named Robert Morton, and his grandfather was on the executive board. All five were stagehands in the Local. Maybe he was sensitive about it. Or maybe he was protecting his best friend, King Dave.

“Want to know why they call me Weasel?” Weasel asked, grinning slyly up at her.

Nadine smiled. “Have some more coffee, Harold.”

Weasel’s grin faded. “Hey, call me Weasel,” he said.

Chapter Four

Nadine half expected to find King Dave lurking outside Liz Otter’s when she came off shift at midnight. He’d seemed really, really determined. But no King Dave.

As she sank into a seat on a northbound 22 bus, she recalled he was working the Opera House night gang, as he did most nights during the season, eight hours of grueling labor shoving scenery starting at ten p.m. The thought that he’d be working in the cook’s spare whites and tee shirt made her smile.

Plus, he was probably still orange down south. Unless he’d found a way to get it out. She fell asleep trying to recall if lighter fluid would take spray paint off skin. Too toxic. She ought to warn him. Maybe lard. Rubbed well and gently in. She dreamed about rubbing lard gently into King Dave Flaherty’s short, orange, curly hairs until she had to bolt off the bus.

He’d sure looked mad.

By now probably he was over it, she hoped. He’d got angry out of shock, sure, any guy would be. A double shift, good night’s sleep, a soothing soak in a bubble bath, and he would feel more charitable toward her, if not toward his ex wife.

Nadine had a hard time picturing King Dave in a bubble bath.

So when she heard his voice the next day as she stood in line at the Chicago Theatre box office for Dixie Chicks tickets, she wasn’t surprised by the outrage in his tone.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“Goodness, King Dave, don’t sneak up on me like that!” she said, pressing her hand over her heart.

He looked at her hand and flushed. “I don’t sneak. Unlike some people I could name.” He still had on those white pants and Liz Otter’s tee shirt. His beard looked two days old.

“You didn’t get home yet!”

“How the hell can I get home? I’m putting in the Chicks.”

“But you worked night gang,” she said stupidly. Didn’t he ever sleep?

“Christ, you sound like a stagehand’s wife,” he grumbled. “Night gang is double time. So now you can report back to Tammy I’ve been stuck in these fucking clothes since last night.”

She frowned. “King Dave, I don’t know your wife.”

“Then why in the hell are you busting my balls like this?”

The skin under his eyes was puffy with fatigue. The dummy was working himself to death. Like every other guy in the Local. If King Dave used his father’s pull to get work, at least he was a total stranger to the sin of sloth.

Though he did cuss too much.

She lifted one finger to touch his shoulder. “You ought to get some sleep.”

“Move the line!” someone yelled from way back in the box office queue.

Nadine realized where she was just as King Dave grabbed her by the hand and pulled her out of line.

“What are you doing here?” he repeated. “Jesus, don’t you know enough deckhands by now?”

“Quit swearing!” she said. “I was waiting in line for a ticket like a civilized person.”

“Well, what for?” he complained. He lowered his voice. “I can get you in for nothing.” He still had hold of her hand. He was just tall enough to look down into her eyes. He smiled. “All you gotta do is ask.”

She melted. “I can’t ask you to do that, King Dave. Though it’s nice of you to offer. Would—would you like me to get you some clean clothes? You must be miserable.”

“I am. I’m hot, I’m sweaty, I’m stinky, and I stick to these f—these godda—these—”

“Pants,” she supplied.

“—and I need something to eat. Listen, can we go eat somewhere?” he said, rubbing his free hand over his face. With his eyes closed he looked exhausted and kissable.

She swallowed. She hoped he wouldn’t notice he was still holding her hand. “I only have lunch today to get that ticket.”

“I’ll get you the ticket. You come with me for a sandwich and I’ll pay you with the ticket. Deal? One seat for tonight?”

A nice girl should be offended at the suggestion she would barter her company in exchange for a Dixie Chicks ticket. Nadine licked her lips. “Deal. One for tomorrow night.”

“Sure you don’t want two? Maybe your mother wants to come with,” he said, pulling her hand into the crook of his arm and leading her down the long queue in front of the ticket office.

It ought to embarrass her, holding hands with a man so scruffy-looking. She felt like royalty. “My momma’s dead.”

His head came around. “Oh. Sorry.” He really did look sorry.

At the corner deli, he bought her a carryout sandwich and took her back to the only open booth, the last smelly booth in back where the waitresses usually sat. A half-drunk cola and a clipboard lay on the table. He shoved them aside and sat down.

“Uh, King Dave, I think someone’s sitting here.”

“Hannah knows me,” he said, putting their sandwiches on the table.

That’s right, Hannah would. Every waitress in town must know him. To be fair, they knew every stagehand. Especially those who worked as hard as King Dave. That got her thinking about Weasel’s remark again. How could King Dave possibly need his daddy to get him work? He never stood still.

“This bull—this business is cutting into my work time,” King Dave grumbled around a bite of sandwich. “I had to go check on my kid this morning, on top of everything else.”

Nadine’s heart warmed. He’d found time in all this to visit his kid!

“Tammy dumps him on my mother and splits. Now Mom’s mad at me. If Tammy’s gonna blackmail me, the least she can do is take my kid with her,” he groused, and Nadine cooled off. “I got two consecutive shifts with the Chicks and night gang tonight.”

“King Dave, you ought to get some sleep.”

He put down his corned beef on rye and stared at her. “How long you been working at Liz Otter’s?” he said patiently.

“Nine months.”

“And you don’t know about stagehands yet?” He picked up his sandwich. “I get two more shifts of double-time today. That’s three shifts of double-time inside of thirty hours. Not a record, but da—darn good. I’ll sleep tomorrow.”

Nadine frowned at him over her grilled cheese. It was true, all the boys worked like maniacs. It was part of their appeal. She had met rock stars and actors in Liz Otter’s egalitarian confines and they didn’t impress her: painted, pampered, emotionally fragile, and thin, so very, very thin. Many were strung out on drugs. Okay, a few of the stagehand boys seemed to use drugs, too. Cocaine to stay awake and work for four straight days. Then demon rum to go to sleep. My land, think of all that double-time! She’d like to spank them all with a hairbrush.

She looked down at King Dave’s triple-shot latte. King Dave never had a coke sniffle. At least he had that much respect for the Lord’s temple.

“When are you going to get some sleep?” she said again.

“I’ll grab two hours between running the Chicks and night gang. Mother,” he added. “Satisfied? Cr—ipes, if I’d known it would be like this I would have handed you the f—reakin’ ticket outside the go—shdarned theatre.”

“Quit swearing,” she said.

He exploded. “I am not swearing! I’m knocking myself sideways trying not to swear! Do you ever cut a guy any slack?”

Nadine blinked. “You don’t have to shout.”

He stared at her for a long moment. She thought she saw the wheels start to turn in his head. Then his long lashes fell over the angel blue eyes and he picked up his latte. “What’s it like in Goreville, your highness?”

She hunched a shoulder. “Dull.”

“Didn’t you like being a PK?”

“How do you know I’m a preacher’s kid?” Maybe he’d been asking questions about her!

He snorted. “Sticks out all over you.” His gaze ran over her upper body and a hot rush prickled her neck. She hunched both shoulders. Wasn’t her fault she was a double D cup.

“Most girls show what they’ve got better,” he purred. He reached out with the latte-holding hand and brushed his knuckles against her lemonade-holding hand. “That’s the difference between a city girl and a hick.”

Her heart raced. “You’re mean.”

“Only trying to help. You came to Chicago for adventure, so you need a little advice from a city boy.”

“How do you know what I came here for?” she said, putting up her chin. Shivers ran up her arm from where his knuckles touched her.

“Told you, it sticks out a mile. Goreville’s dull. Prissy preacher’s kid runs away to Chicago. And now you’re hanging with the stars at Liz Otter’s. It ain’t rocket science, babe.”

He looked straight into her eyes and took her breath away. With his forefinger, he rubbed a line along her forefinger.

A tingle ran up the back of her neck.

She darned near spilled her lemonade.

Strange disturbances were rocking her foundation garments.

His glance fell to their hands. He jumped. One moment he was gazing into her eyes, making her shiver, and the next he was on his feet.

“Shit, I gotta get to work. Uh, sorry,” he said.

Her insides shrank up cold.

He dug into the cook’s spare white pants and threw a five dollar bill on the table. Then he ran for the door.

“Don’t you want change?” she called after him.

“It’s for Hannah, for taking her table!” he called. “I’ll send that ticket over to Liz Otter’s tonight!” Then he was gone.

The rat.

“He’s very thoughtful,” said a voice behind Nadine. She turned. A young waitress in a black skirt and low-cut white tee shirt was pocketing King Dave’s five, eyeing Nadine.

“Beg pardon?” Nadine said.

“I said, King Dave’s very thoughtful. You’ll have fun.” The waitress stuck her hand out. “I’m Hannah. Where you working? Corbett’s?” she said, naming a stagehand bar.

“Liz Otter’s,” Nadine said faintly. She shook hands. “Pleased to meet you, Hannah.” Hannah was pretty and petite. She looked a city girl, through and through.

“His attention span’s kinda short. But he’s a good guy while it lasts.” Hannah bent closer. “Have you tried the thing with the butter and the grape popsicles? Don’t be put off by the sound of it. It’s amazing.”

Nadine stiffened. “I—I have to go to work now.”

Hannah laughed. “Relax, Tex. You couldn’t ask for a nicer guy to get your cherry.”

It shows, Nadine thought, horrified. Can everybody tell I’m a virgin?

o0o

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Copyright © 2010 Jennifer Stevenson

Cover by Julie Ortolon