This Love

Chapter 2

SCARLETT PARKER

"I'll have two packs of Marlboros, and then all of this shit," I gesture to the glass casing between me and the man behind the register.

Under his half-moon glasses, he inspects the pile of sweets and junk, then slowly lifts his gaze to me again. I raise my brows like I'm waiting for him to either say something or make a move, to which he clears his throat and starts to ring up my items.

"You shouldn't smoke, you know," he says as I jam my credit card into the reader facing me, "it'll kill you."

I take one of the cigarettes from the back and stick it in my mouth, yanking my card out to drop loosely in my bag. "Only if I'm lucky."

His lips part as I shoot him a wink, snatching the plastic bag of treats from the counter before I turn on my heels to leave the station. I wait until I'm inside my car and out of the cold to light my cigarette, more than relieved to feel that first nicotine rush of the day. And now that that's out of the way, I rip open the bag of chewy sour candies and disregard the ones that fell onto the car floor as I place two on my tongue and feel them start to dissolve.

With all the gas pumps being taken, I hear a car honk behind me as I linger in my space with the engine running. I ignore them to take another puff from my cigarette and find my phone in my bag to see a text from my mother, asking if I'm back in town. I ignore that too.

"Fucking fuck, alright!" I yell at the car through the rearview mirror as if they can hear me, and when they gesture for me to leave, I raise my middle finger to make sure they can at least see that before I jerk the gear shift into drive and push the car forward to let them have the spot.

I do have somewhere I need to be anyway, but I was just hoping I'd be able to bide my time for a bit longer. I'm not good at begging or making a case for myself, though I have a feeling that's exactly what I'm going to have to do as I pull up in front of my old job. The annoying thing is that I know the begging will be in vain; my boss will take me back no matter what, he'll just want to hear me say please.

It's easy enough to find street parking in this part of London on a Sunday, but I don't have to be inside the nightclub to know that it's packed with men who either have no families, or men who have families but don't care to leave them in exchange to see a girl less than half their age walk around in her underwear.

I hit my cigarette as I climb out of my car and look up at the club across the street, which you really can't miss with the giant sign lit up in neon purple letters, reading the simple word, Pleasing. Robbie is standing out front, letting in three men before he laughs at the mere sight of me coming toward him.

"I thought you were dead," he says.

"You're not that fortunate," I reach up on my toes to hug him. "How've you been?"

"Alright," he nods down at me. "Missed my smoking buddy, though."

"I missed you too," I tilt my head. "I missed you so much, in fact, that I came to get my job back just to see you again."

He deadpans. "First of all, don't insult me. Second, there's no way Bruce is going to give you your job back. He's still livid."

"We'll see about that," I let myself into the club, and it feels like home in a strange and horrifically depressing way.

The decor inside is incredibly eclectic, very much a 1960s and 70s maximalist aesthetic. The air is still a cruelly cold temperature, considering the women have to walk around in nothing but their lingerie, but it doesn't smell quite as foul as I remember for some reason. I guess Sundays always did have a different scent than Saturdays.