Him & I

Hell On Heels

I'm hell on heels, say what you will
I've done made the devil a deal
He made me pretty
He made me smart
I'm gonna break me a million hearts
I'm hell on heels, Sugar Daddy I'm comin' for you
——Hell On Heels, Pistol Annies

October 25, 2018

Grayson had arrived in New Orleans and settled into the team hotel.  He had plans to have dinner with Jah and Frank the next night.  But for today, he was sticking with his own teammates.  Unfortunately, that meant that he was at The Masquerade, a nightclub on Canal Street. 

"You guys have seen me dance," Grayson objected.  "No one wants to witness that again."

"That," Donovan told him, "is for damn sure.  But we don't play until Saturday and we're goin' out.  You can hold our table, Rook."

Grayson sighed and ordered orange juice, hoping no one would notice that he wasn't drinking.  But he almost never drank during basketball season.  And he wasn't about to do anything stupid on his very first long trip.

His teammates randomly headed out to dance or chat up girls. Joe Ingles called it a night early, off to talk to his wife and kids. But most of the rest of them were having a good time.

Across the club, Stacy watched Grayson intently, as she fended off advances from men who where decidedly not NBA players. She'd had her hair done again, just a shade darker. She had colored contacts that made her eyes emerald green. And she was wearing a really killer pair of red heels with a low cut black dress.

She wanted to try good old fashioned seduction before she resorted to anything else.  She hoped that with her altered appearance and the dim lighting in the club, Grayson wouldn't recognize her.  She actually wasn't sure her own mother would recognize her right now.

And although she wasn't above fracturing the law, she wasn't going to go there if it wasn't necessary.  The hacking that she'd done to this point would only get her a minor slap on the wrist.  But using the GHB in her purse would be a significantly more serious offense.  That wasn't something she intended to do where there were potential witnesses.  And she wasn't about to get desperate and do something stupid. She had plenty of time to make this work.

*****

Cait had contacted their landlord and gotten permission to have the alarm system installed.  They'd even agreed to split the cost as long as she paid the monthly monitoring fee.  And she'd contacted a company to install the alarm as soon as she returned home next week.

Brennan had forwarded her a copy of the report that he'd gotten and she had read it twice.  They'd located a lease that Stacy had signed on an apartment and employment information. Cait was debating hiring a private investigator herself.  But she was trying not to overreact. 

Now she sat in her apartment just worrying.  She never thought she'd be thankful for Grayson being away, but right now she was. 

She was tempted to talk to her father.  But she wasn't sure that she should run to Daddy about this.  There wasn't anything he could do that she couldn't do for herself. And he was busy with Connor.

*****

Grayson appeared to be drinking screwdrivers.  At least, that was the only drink Stacy could fathom that looked like orange juice.  She waited until the waitress had delivered the fourth one.  And until he was alone.