First Star I See Tonight

  ***

  “When I said I’d be at the gym, it wasn’t an invitation for you to show up.” Coop had to shout over the scream of Norwegian black metal blaring through the speakers. A bead of sweat flew from his jaw as he delivered a violent left-right combination to the punching bag. Piper barely stopped herself from pointing out that it was not only bad form, but also counterproductive, to go after the bag with all that force.

  Pro Title Gym was the smelly, windowless, hole-in-the-wall mecca of Chicago’s most elite athletes—a stripped-down space with cinder block walls, dented black rubber mats, and rusty squat racks lining a wall that held an American flag and a yellowed sign with a quote from Fight Club that read listen up, maggots. you are not special. The place reeked of sweat and rubber. No juice bars or trendy workout clothes. Pro Title was hard-core, expensive, and exclusive.

  “How did you get in here?” Coop snarled like a Rottweiler.

  “I slept with the dude at the front desk,” she retorted over the shrieking, distorted guitars.

  “Bull.” An uppercut to the bag.

  In fact, all she’d had to do was explain that she worked for Coop. Wearing her chauffeur’s uniform instead of being dressed like a football groupie gave her credibility, and the guy had let her in. “It’s my story, and I’ll tell it how I want.”

  He delivered another punishing jab. “Go away.”

  That was fine with her. She hadn’t expected to conduct their meeting here, merely to show him that she took her job seriously. But she didn’t immediately move. She couldn’t. Not when the muscles under Coop’s sweat-stained T-shirt rippled like wind over water every time he punched. She had to stop this. Right now. Because if she didn’t, she might start thinking about growing her fricking hair! She spun toward the door.

  “Hold it!” Another Rottweiler bark. “Why are you dressed like that? You look like a mortician.”

  She calmed herself down enough to tell him who she was driving for. “Only during the daytime,” she shouted over the music. “This is my chauffeur’s uniform.”

  “It’s ugly.” Another annihilating punch at the bag.

  “So’s your disposition.”

  That bounced right off him. “Do you care at all how you look?”

  “Not much.”

  He stopped punishing the bag and regarded her critically. “You’ve worn the same dress every time you’ve been in the club.”

  “Said the man in cowboy boots.”

  “It’s my trademark,” he retorted. “Go buy some new clothes. You’re making the place look bad.”

  She watched a rivulet of sweat roll down his neck. He smelled like good sweat, the healthy smell of a guy who always wore clean clothes to the gym. Until this moment, she hadn’t realized there was such a thing as a good sweat smell. Now she knew, and she wished she didn’t because thinking about anything that had to do with his body was a distraction she couldn’t afford. “New clothes aren’t in my budget.”

  He returned to the bag. “Send me the bill. You need to look like you fit in.”

  He had a point, but still . . . “I’m not buying anything uncomfortable.”

  “By that, I assume you mean anything that looks decent? Yeah, that’d be a real deal breaker.”

  “Try being female for a while. Then you can talk.”

  ***

  Coop couldn’t get used to it. No conversation was ever straightforward with her. Abandoning the bag, he grabbed a scuffed black iron kettlebell and crouched down, extending the weight in front of him and trying to ignore her. He felt the strain in his delts, the hard pull in his thighs. He’d always liked brutal workouts, but he’d never needed them like he did now, when he was trapped at Spiral night after night.

  Not trapped. He loved the energy of the club, the challenge of once again proving himself. He just wasn’t used to spending so many hours inside.

  He fought the urge to switch hands by glaring at Sherlock Holmes. She wasn’t so impervious to fashion that she’d done up the top button of her blouse. Too bad she hadn’t opened the next one.

  His arm began to spasm. A bead of sweat dripped into his eye. He changed hands. “I’m going shopping with you.” He yelled it out, but the music blaring from the speaker over his head abruptly ended so that his voice echoed off the cinder block walls. A White Sox pitcher on the next mat looked over at him. So did Piper, staring at him with those big blue eyes that didn’t miss a thing. Had he really just volunteered to go clothes shopping with a woman?

  “Goody,” she said, with a snide expression he’d make damn sure he never saw on her face once he got her naked. “Let’s get manis and pedis, while we’re at it. And invite our girlfriends.”

  She killed him with that mouth of hers, but he roped in a smile and matched her sarcasm with cool. “I don’t trust your judgment.”

  “But you trust your own?”

  “I know what I like.”

  “I’m sure you do, but pasties and a G-string don’t seem all that appropriate for work.”

  She was killing him and doing it so gleefully.

  He came up with a sneer. “I’m busy until next week. Try to keep it together until then. I’ll meet your wise ass at BellaLana. It’s on Oak Street.”

  That got a satisfying rile out of her. “I’m not shopping on Oak Street! Do you have any idea what clothes cost in those stores?”

  “Pocket change.”

  That made her blood boil, as he’d known it would. He lowered the kettlebell. “Get the hell out of here so I can finish my workout.” And smack himself in the head a couple of times for letting her get to him.

  Still, his offer wasn’t entirely irrational. Sherlock had a habit of being everywhere at once when she was in the club, and he liked knowing another set of eyes was looking out for his interests—a set of eyes he could absolutely trust. You could say a lot of negative things about Sherlock—lack of deference to her employer being number one—but that woman was serious about her ethics.

  Not that he intended to tell her how valuable she was proving to be. Just as he didn’t intend to tell her what he was going to do to her once he got her in bed.

  ***

  The next night, Piper spotted Dell, one of the bouncers, near the bar. He was a blond surfer type with a tat of a jaguar running up the side of his neck. He’d had a short-lived career with the Bears and was especially popular with the female customers—so popular that he seemed oblivious to anything else that might be happening in the club.

  She couldn’t stand it any longer. She pulled him away from his admirers with the excuse that she wanted to interview him for a Web site profile. Instead, she pointed out a group crowding Coop on the other side of the room. “Those women with Coop are drunk and getting obnoxious. That redhead especially. She’s hanging all over him. Maybe you could go over and distract her so he has some room?”

  Dell looked down at her as if she were a gnat to be crushed. “You telling me how to do my job?”

  “Yeah, she’s getting good at that.” Jonah had come up behind them, and the two men, all bulging muscle and sour belligerence, formed a wall between her and the rest of the room.

  “Look, guys, I’m just suggesting you watch Coop a little more closely.”

  Jonah smirked. “And I’m suggesting you mind your own fucking business. What is that, anyway? Sending out cute little tweets and posting pretty pictures?”

  The bouncers weren’t her responsibility, and she should have kept her mouth shut, but when had she ever? “Thanks for the reminder. I’ve got a sweet one of you making kissy-faces in the mirror.”

  Yep, she knew how to get along with her coworkers, all right.

  ***

  Over the next few days, she drove the minor princesses and their servants shopping as part of a five-car, sometimes six-car motorcade that included at least two vans to transport their mountain of purchases back to the hotel, everything paid for in cash. But instead of envy, Piper began to feel pity, especially for the teenage miniprincesses. Som
etimes she saw the identical yearning in their eyes that she’d seen in Faiza’s, a yearning that couldn’t be satisfied with a dozen trips to the Apple store. A yearning to walk unaccompanied along the sidewalk with the same carefree strides as the American girls they watched through the darkened windows of their SUVs.

  ***

  On the day of her dreaded dress-shopping appointment, Princess K’s sister took forever at her facialist, which made Piper ten minutes late arriving at BellaLana, where Coop was leaning against a jewelry case and chatting comfortably with the female staff. If Piper had been prone to hives, one look at the racks of expensive clothes on display would have given them to her.

  The black, white, and silver decor gave the place an industrial, op art, fin de siècle vibe—both luxurious and somehow condescending, as if daring its customers not to find it chic. Of all the things she didn’t want to be wearing right now, her chauffeur’s uniform was at the top of her list, especially since she’d sweated out the armpits under her suit jacket as she’d run from the parking lot.

  Coop looked up. His lips formed a smile, but his eyes told her he’d noted the fact that she’d once again kept him waiting. The saleswomen regarded her with various degrees of incredulity, unable to believe someone so odd-looking could be with Chicago’s most eligible bachelor.

  “Ladies, this is Piper,” Coop said. “She’s given up her career as a mortician, but she’s having a hard time breaking old fashion habits.”

  Piper reined in a laugh.

  “You’ve come to the right place,” an überstylish redhead said. “Working as a mortician must have been super depressing.”

  “Not so much as you’d think,” Piper said. “That’s how I met Coop. Burying the ashes of his career.”

  Coop snorted. The redheaded saleswoman clearly recognized she was in over her head and hustled Piper toward a dressing room.

  “Nothing too crazy,” Coop called out. “She’s got enough of that going on in her head.”

  The first dress was a drab forest green, but there was nothing drab about the skintight fit or the hemline, which barely cleared her butt. Thankfully, she’d shaved her legs, but still . . . “This isn’t exactly my style.”

  “No fly?” Coop said from the other side of the dressing room door.

  Okay, Piper had to laugh at that.

  The saleswoman, whose name was Louise, looked mystified. “It’s really fashion forward.”

  Piper winced at her reflection. An eternity stretched between the bottom of the dress and her bare feet. “I think I need to go a few steps fashion backward.” Or take a fast trip to H&M, which was where she really belonged.

  “Lemme see,” Coop said.

  The saleswoman pushed the dressing room door open. Coop sat on one of the big square silver-and-black ottomans not far from the mirrors. Piper tried to tug down the hem. “I look like a pine tree.”

  “With really good legs,” Heath Champion said from the front entrance. He wandered into the store and sprawled on the ottoman next to Coop’s. “I like it.”

  “I don’t,” Coop said, his eyes on her thighs. “Too conservative.”

  She gaped at him. “In what universe is this conservative?”

  He shook his head sadly. “You have to remember you’re not a mortician any longer.”

  Heath grinned.

  She gestured toward the sports agent. “What’s he doing here, Coop? Not that it isn’t a pleasure to see you, Mr. Champion, but why here?”

  “Coop told me to show up, and what could I do? I’ve made millions off the guy.”

  “I needed another opinion,” Coop said. “He’s more used to buying women clothes than I am.”

  Louise appeared with another armload of dresses and hustled Piper back into the dressing room. In the next half hour, Piper modeled a slinky red number missing a middle, a dark blue number missing a front, and a gold thingy that made her look like a Little League trophy. “I’m an investigator,” she hissed at both men, “not a pitcher for the Peewee Penguins.”

  Heath grinned. “I like this woman.”

  “No mystery why,” Coop retorted.

  It was a mystery to Piper, but she had something more pressing on her mind. “This is clearly not working,” she declared as Louise went off to gather up more dresses Piper didn’t want to wear. “I’d freeze to death in every one of these. Not to mention that I can’t do my job if I’m worrying the whole time about my . . . my cooter hanging out!”

  That cracked them both up, clearly signaling that it was time for Piper to take charge. “Louise, you and I need to talk . . .”

  8

  After much wrangling, Piper ended up with a mulberry knit that had long, tight sleeves and a hem that nearly made it to her knees. The dress was high in the front but had enough dip in the back to be nightclub appropriate. Coop also insisted on a minuscule cobalt-blue bodycon dress that was only saved from sluttery by a longer, sheer black overlay. One glance at the final tab and she got light-headed. “I could have bought fifteen dresses at H&M for what one of these cost.”

  “Your big mistake was not making him buy a couple more,” Heath said as they stepped into the sunny early-October afternoon.

  A middle-aged man coming out of Starbucks spotted Coop and called out to him. “Hey, Coop! You’re the best!”

  Coop waved at the guy.

  “Piper’s gonna need shoes,” Champion said.

  “She’ll have to put it on my bill, because I can’t stand listening to any more of her complaining.” Coop acted as if she weren’t standing right next to him. “I never met a woman so averse to spending my money.”

  She sighed. “Unlike you two rich boys, I have to get back to work.”

  “Don’t forget where your real job is,” Coop warned. “And next time you’re late, I’m docking your pay.”

  “Yes, sir.” She peeled off toward the parking garage.

  ***

  As the two men watched her disappear, Heath shook his head. “She doesn’t have a clue, does she?”

  “Nope.” Coop refused to say more.

  They passed a men’s boutique featuring plaid pants he wouldn’t have been caught dead in. Splashes of fallen leaves brightened a black-and-white store awning. More leaves lay like rusty fifty-dollar bills on the sidewalks.

  “She kind of sneaks up on you,” Heath said. “It’s those legs.”

  It was the whole damn package. Piper’s curves were right where they belonged, with nothing exaggerated, everything strong and efficient. But mostly it was her eyes. And her irreverence. And that crazy kind of decency lying underneath all her attitude.

  “She reminds me of Annabelle,” Heath said. “The first time I met her.”

  Coop knew what he meant. Annabelle had the same kind of feistiness. But there was a big difference. “Annabelle’s sweet and Piper’s a viper.”

  “Obviously you haven’t spent enough time around my wife.” Heath glanced toward a bra and panty set in the window of Agent Provocateur.

  “Just as long as the two of them never meet,” Coop said.

  “I think it’d be entertaining.”

  Coop shuddered. He liked Annabelle, but he didn’t like the way she wanted to poke her nose into his relationships. “Make sure it never happens.”

  “I’m promising nothin’, pal. And for the record . . . Why did you really want me here?”

  It took a few beats too long for Coop to respond. “Exactly what I said. You have more experience with women’s clothes.”

  Heath hadn’t gotten where he was by being stupid, and Coop expected to be called on his bullshit, but Heath merely smiled his python’s smile. “And she’s never been in People magazine,” he said. “This gets more and more interesting.” He slapped Coop on the shoulder and headed back to the bra and panties at Agent Provocateur.

  “Dude!” Two teens who should have been in school dashed across the street to high-five him. Coop welcomed the interruption. Inviting Heath to show up had backfired. He’d been so sure
his agent would be bored. Not that Heath would have shown it—he was too slick—but he’d have been texting the whole time, and that’s all it would have taken. Seeing Sherlock through his agent’s jaded eyes would have restored Coop to sanity. He would have remembered all the women more beautiful, more accomplished, more Coop-like who were part of his world. Instead, Heath’s cell had stayed in his pocket. But then Heath liked quirky women. Witness Annabelle. The two of them—the matchmaker and the sports agent—were a love story for the books.

  Coop knew exactly what women on the hunt looked like, felt like, smelled like, and Sherlock had none of the characteristics. She refused to come on to him. All she wanted was a job, and once he lost that hold, he’d be no more important to her than those dresses he’d bought.

  This would require careful strategy, something he was very good at.

  ***

  Piper wore the cobalt dress that night—her fourth night on duty at the club—but instead of making her blend in with the trendy crowd, it attracted more attention than she wanted. A couple of guys asked to buy her drinks, and PhairoZ, the club’s guest DJ, singled her out during his break.

  PhairoZ—real name Jason Schmidt—looked like a tatted-up European soccer star. Coop was a smart businessman. He understood that he was the lure drawing customers in for their first visit, but the club itself had to draw them back, so he hired the best DJs to keep things fresh, as well as a good-looking male staff. Where the women were, the male customers would follow.

  “So you want to hang after I get off?” PhairoZ leaned one palm against the wall behind her.

  “Thanks, but seriously . . .” She regarded him with earnest eyes and what she hoped was a semi-shy expression. “You’re way too hot for me.”

  “That just means I can warm you up faster.”

  She resisted her natural tendency for put-downs. “I’m too insecure.” She gave his arm a friendly squeeze, ducked under it, and walked away.

  That night, she hovered in Spiral’s basement behind an industrial-size water heater, the same place she’d waited for the past two nights. Overhead, she heard the staff closing up for the night—or early morning, since it was a little after three. She yawned. She’d broken up a tussle in the ladies’ room; tailed Dell, the useless bouncer; and made sure some very drunk women found a cab. But in five hours, she had to be at the Peninsula to take one of the older princesses to her plastic surgeon’s office, and she wanted to go to bed.