Book 3 [ The Untitled Series ]

Chapter Twenty-Three

Ashley

I went straight from dropping Leon off at the barber shop, to work.

" bitch you're glowing." Carmen screamed when I walked into the club. She had been standing at the base of one of the stripper poles with her back to me, instructing one lone girl on how to support herself so that she could flip upside down. When she heard me approaching she turned immediately and smiled. " but that fucking head though..."

I laughed. " bitch fuck you." Subconsciously I reached a hand up to smooth fallen hair away from my face.

" I'm playing, mama. How you doing? You dead just left me."

Rolling my eyes I sighed. " Girl, I know you've heard what happened by now.

" I mean-" Both of our eyes turned to the woman at the pole when she lost her footing, her ankles bending outward unnaturally as she tried to keep her balance. For a moment I thought she was going to fall. I even reached out to catch her but she straightened herself quickly. " you can't even stand in your heels? You have to have a stronger core if you wanna work here, babe. Try again in six months."

Carmen was about to turn back to me when the young woman sucked her teeth. " ion need this place." She vacated her spot at the pole, grabbing a black backpack that was stashed on the side. " I ain't wanna work in your funky ass club anyway."

" thanks so much." Carmen said, smiling with malice dripping from her tone. We both watched as the girl did her best to storm away- stumbling several times before she was out of the door and out of sight. " Anyway, yeah, I heard. How you holding up?"

I shook my head. " it's not the first time."

" I didn't ask that, I asked how you were holding up."

" I'm fine, Carmen. You know I always bounce back. More importantly, how's business?"

She rolled her eyes and grabbed my arm, pulling me across the empty club to the staircase on the other side. " business is fucking business, girl. The money don't stop. You know that."

" you sound like Leon."

She didn't respond, just continued to drag me up the staircase - even when I tried to pull away- and into our office. I went over to my desk, stopping my purse on top and rounded it to plop down into my chair. I tried to ignore the small stack of papers on my desk but Carmen leaned over the desk and started flipping though the pages, pointing shit out to me.

" this is the weekly alcohol expense report from last week. You weren't here to sign off on it so I did." She flipped another page." This is the estimate for this weeks alcohol procurement. You need to look over it and make sure the number are right so I can go ahead and make the orders. I checked and double checked it though, and I cross referenced it with-"

" you can sign off on a fucking alcohol report, Carmen. I trust you, babe."

" fine." She took of the first five or so pages and started in again. " this is the background check for one the new girls I hired yesterday. She has some petty theft priors but nothing that-"

" hired? Why? I thought we were full."

She shrugged. " some girl fell off of the stage on Saturday and... well... she won't be coming back any time soon."

" during business hours?" I asked.

" no, just practicing thankfully." She chuckled. " and she took another girl down with her. They were practicing some couples thing- I don't know."

I rolled my eyes. " what else?"

I had missed barely three days of work and there was so much shit to look over. It was shortly after 1 in the afternoon when Leon called me which I was thankful for. I missed being around my family. The last thing I wanted to do was spent the day with my head buried in paper work.