Starlight

Chapter 34: Brother Jumping

"Starlight, you're doing crowd tonight," Dave informed me.

"You got it, big man," I answered.

Tonight was my first night back to work. I spent four weeks moping around about Jai until I realized I'd been moping longer than I'd know him. That made me feel pathetic enough to get my ass into gear.

Kairi and Elle had kept me supplied with ice cream and girls nights the whole time. They were disgusted with me when I told them I like to watch thriller and horror movies when I was sad. Since I was the sad one they sat through them with me.

I didn't miss Elle curling into Kairi every time a jump scare happened. They still weren't dating, or if they were they hadn't told me about it. They did seem to be a lot closer now though. I was forced to watch a couple chick flicks after Elle put her foot down. I sobbed like a baby after each one and they realized why I didn't like watching those movies.

I ended up using the meatloaf ingredients sitting in my fridge to make us a big feast one night. I couldn't let it go to waste but I may have been on the brink of tears the whole time. I didn't admit to Kairi and Elle why I broke things off with Jai. I just told them I didn't want to be involved with his family business. It wasn't a complete lie.

I waited for Sam to show up and collect money I didn't have. He never did. Even though I was a dick to Jai he still kept my payment pushed back. That made me like the little shit even more. It would have been easy to be petty but he wasn't. He did....nothing. I haven't heard a peep from him. Which is good. It's great. It's way better this way.

Regardless, I have work to do. I made my way onto stage to do my one dance before I went into the crowd. I wasn't Evelyn, I was Starlight. That made it a little easier to let all of my thoughts drift to the back of my mind.

Before I knew it I was in the crowd following wave after wave from patrons. My bra and underwear were filling up with cash fast. I was on autopilot until I saw a young face sitting alone at a corner booth.

"Jax, what are you doing here?" I questioned, stopping in front of his table.

"Oh! Starlight, I'm just working on some homework while I wait for my brothers to finish with a client."

That's when I noticed the textbook, paper, and laptop spread out on the table.

"You can focus on differential equations with all this noise?" I asked, impressed.

Jax blinked at me like I had three heads, "You know differential equations?"

"Sure, I loved math. It was my favorite subject," I admitted.

"I think you have a screw lose," Jax informed me.

I chuckled as I slid into the booth beside him.

"You're not still in high school are you?"

"No, freshman in college."

"That one's wrong," I let him know, pointing to a problem.

Jax let out a groan of frustration, "This shit is impossible."

"Nonsense, here give me your pencil. Now, we're going to make this equal to zero. What's that going to do to the rest of the equation?"

"Make it want to shoot it's brain out," Jax mumbled just loud enough to be heard over the music.

I gave him a gentle elbow to the ribs.

"No, it's going to get rid of all of these x's and simplify it. Now, does this set up look at all familiar? Maybe from trig?" I hinted.

"Oh, oh shit. Wait, so I just have to move this to that and solve for the derivative like I would x?"

"Bingo," I told him.

"Damn, Starlight. You're amazing," Jax praised as he snatched the pencil back from me and quickly got to work.

I ruffled his mop of brown hair before I headed back out to the crowd. I lost myself to the music and the wanting glances. I let myself soak in the desire of all the men and a few woman as I pushed my body to the point of sweating. The night was almost over when I noticed Jax waving his arm at me frantically from his booth.

"I will not be giving you a lap dance, just so you know," I teased as I slid back into the booth beside him.

"I was wondering if you could check my answers."

"Of course, hand it over."

I blocked out the beat of the base as I let my eyes trail over Jax's homework. On the third problem down I snatched his pencil from him so I could circle where he made mistakes. I was on the last problem when a voice cleared its throat beside me.

I lifted my head to come face to face with Jason. Panic instantly swept through my body. I put my head down, passed the pencil to Jax, and tried to slide out of the booth. I say tried because Jason was standing in the way and not moving. My heart was in my throat.

"Excuse me, I have to get back to work," I informed him.

"You can after we have a talk," Jason said, arms folding across his chest.

"No, thank you." My heart beat is louder in my ears than the music.

"You think you can jump brothers and not face consequences?" Jason snapped.

"Hey, leave her alone. I asked for her help," Jax defended me.

"Stay out of this, Jax. Jai and I have shielded you from little whores like this so you don't understand."

"I was just helping him with his homework," I quietly tried to defend myself.

"I'm sure. Maybe I'll have to talk to Dave about one of his workers spending her night sitting in a booth instead of doing her job," Jason threatened.

"I'm sorry. It won't happen again, Sir," I said, swallowing my pride.

Over Jason's shoulder I saw Jai walking our way.