Alyssa pressed the phone tighter to her ear and suppressed a sigh. The hard plastic of the toilet seat cover was making her bum numb. The bathroom on the bus was cramped, but it was one of the few places she could have guaranteed privacy.

Bankruptcy.

She listened to the financial woman drone on for a while longer before she decided to interrupt again, even though she already knew the answer. Frustration bubbled over. "But I didn't rack up all that debt on my credit card. My ex-boyfriend did. There should be some way I can make him pay. Or just not pay at all. Or something."

"You'd need to consult a lawyer." The financial advisor her sister Olivia had suggested sounded sympathetic. "I would imagine you'd have to take him to court."

Except he'd grabbed the money and run. Or rather, he'd taken a shit load of products he'd purchased off various websites and disappeared. She'd gone to visit her sister for two weeks and had come back to an empty house and a five-digit credit card debt. She'd been a fool. She could see that now. 

When he'd suggested getting a joint credit card, she'd agreed because it had felt like a commitment. He was committing to something long-term with her. Not just the month-to-month rent but a future. What she hadn't realized was how easily he could make her future a living hell. In the two years they'd been together, she'd thought she'd found a winner. Sure, he'd cheated on her a few times, but no guy was perfect. From her experience, with the right motivation, every man struggled to keep his dick in his pants. She'd proven it again last night with Pasha.

Pasha.

So stoic and strong, and just like all the other men. Stick a hand down his pants, whisper in his ear, and it was game over. The little head won out over the big one every single time.

"The problem," Alyssa said, rubbing her forehead, "is that he seems to have disappeared off the face of the Earth. No trace of him."

"Well," the woman said. "Perhaps hire a private investigator to track him down? I'm no expert on that route, to be honest. Looking at your finances, you're barely keeping your head above water with the credit card debt pulling you under."

Mia Malone and this tour were the only reasons she was still treading water. They'd gotten along well on her Blind Faith tour, so when Alyssa had realized her boyfriend had fucked her, and not in the good way, she'd texted Mia begging for a job on this tour. If she'd had to ask Laura, she'd have been screwed. Timing was everything, and with Laura gone, Mia had softened to other people's crisis, particularly women being done wrong by men. When Mia had called her and Alyssa had relayed her sob story—all true—she'd been offered a job with the Mending Hearts Tour.

Sleeping with Pasha at the club last night had been stupid. Mia's only sticky requirement in her dancers' contracts was a non-fraternization clause. When Alyssa had signed on the dotted line, she'd never considered the clause would be a problem. Mia hired mostly women. Who would Alyssa want to sleep with? 

Drunk and full of an abundance of confidence last night, Alyssa had taken one bet too many. The one hundred dollars she'd gotten from Amy for getting Pasha behind the curtained area wasn't worth her job. Sober Alyssa realized that now, but drunk Alyssa last night had only thought about his broad shoulders, those strong biceps and how he made her feel protected when all she'd felt lately was adrift in a financial storm. Also—when you were broke—one hundred dollars was one hundred dollars.

But the look on Mia's face when she'd seen Alyssa exit the car with Pasha had made her heart race. She could not get fired from the tour. At the moment, she was barely keeping afloat. Without her consistent paycheck from Mia, she'd be sunk, homeless, forced to either move in with her sister and her husband or live on the streets. Neither appealed to her. 

Her sister's taste in men mirrored her own—horrible. Not that she had much of a home to go back to when the tour finished. An empty house. Perhaps a manageable credit card debt if she was very careful on tour, and endless auditions to secure her next job. There'd be nothing tucked away for a rainy day or to tide her over.

"Just think," the financial advisor said. "Bankruptcy doesn't stay on your record forever."

For her, bankruptcy was defeat, and she hated to lose. She'd made a bet on her ex-boyfriend, a bad one, and now she was paying the price, literally. As long as she could keep this job, her head would be above water. "Okay," Alyssa said. "Yeah, I'll think about it." As an absolute last resort before she started sleeping on the street.

When she hung up, she stared at the phone in her hand and then sighed as she stood to examine herself in the mirror. Smeared mascara under her eyes, pale skin, tangled hair. One too many drinks last night. At twenty-seven, she should know better, about a lot of things.

~ * ~

Backstage while they waited for their cue to take the stage, Alyssa avoided looking at Jazz, but she could sense she was being watched.

"Did you fuck him?" Jazz blurted out.

Thankfully, they were the last two dancers waiting for their cue. She hated talking during this time in case she missed her entrance window. Mia forgave a lot of missteps, but a missed entrance was a big no-no. "I don't see how that's any of your business."

"You let it be Amy's business when you bet her you could do it."

Alyssa held up a finger but refused to look at Jazz. Truthfully, she didn't like her very much. Gossipy, and a try-hard in the worst way. "Nope. I bet her I could get him behind the privacy curtain." She smirked. "I never said I'd have sex with him." That much was true. That hadn't been their bet. She'd told Amy it was vulgar to wager on sex and establishing proof would be gross or impossible. "He's quite a conversationalist." 

Why had she slept with him? A test drive, maybe. Or perhaps just to see if it was possible. Last tour and for the majority of this one he'd been glued to Mia's side. They'd probably slept together. It was the only logical explanation for what Alyssa saw a puppy love on Pasha's part. Whatever feelings were between them mystified her. The sex had been hot. Maybe Mia, Tyler, and Pasha were into three-ways? He'd known his way around a woman's body with a lot more confidence than she'd expected given that he didn't sleep around on the tour.

The music swelled and Jazz burst out onto the stage, nailing their entrance, leaving Alyssa behind, consumed by her thoughts. She'd done enough shows to fake her way through a missed cue, but it pissed her off she'd been so lost in her own head she'd screwed up. To have Jazz best her was even worse. Any of the other women wouldn't have phased her, but Jazz set her teeth on edge.

At the end of the show, Amy looped her arm through Alyssa's and leaned in close. "He's watching you."

"What else is new?" Alyssa smiled. A snarky comment, but also true. She'd caught him watching her a few times on the last tour, more so on this one. Before she'd made those bets last night, she'd known he was interested. In what? Well, she hadn't been completely sure. His relationship with Mia mystified her. But he was a man, and men were simple creatures.

Amy laughed and squeezed her tighter. "You're brutal."

"Brutally honest," Alyssa agreed.

"Did you hear Mia and Tyler got engaged last night? He sang her a song he wrote."

She frowned and tried to remember any time Tyler had seemed musically inclined. "A song? And he sang? Can he sing? Does he even know how to play an instrument?"

"Rumor has it he cannot sing. At least not very well. But Mia's been raving to everyone who'll listen about how romantic the whole thing was."

A proposal. The closest she'd ever come was with Ricky the scheming runaway. Maybe that hadn't even been close. She'd been blindsided by his betrayal, or at least the financial part of it, and she was trying to figure out how to trust her instincts again. "Do you think Mia's ever slept with anyone who worked for her?"

Amy eyed her. "Doubt it. Not after what happened to her with that producer and then the contract she makes everyone else sign."

"People are hypocrites."

"Sure, but does she seem like that to you? I don't know. Maybe I'm not reading her right. You've been on tour with her more than once. She seems pretty genuine to me. Kinda demanding and detail-oriented, but fair, mostly."

Why was she speculating about Mia's private life? She'd given her a job, a chance to keep treading water under the crushing financial weight. Whether she'd slept with half her male staff or just one of them was none of her business.

She glanced over her shoulder just before she went into the dressing room. Down the hall, outside Mia's room, Pasha stood. He glanced in her direction and their eyes locked. Amy passed into the room ahead of her, but Alyssa hesitated at the doorway. Like always, she couldn't read the expression on his face, but the memory of their encounter surfaced in a rush. 

His rough hands, his soft lips, the way his biceps had contracted with each thrust, those words he'd mumbled in her ear. Russian, she assumed. They hadn't been English. He nodded his head ever so slightly at her, an acknowledgment, a remembrance, and that tiny moment caused her stomach to clench.

There was no denying his attractiveness. Close cropped sandy hair, angular face, piercing blue eyes, built wide like a football player but leaner. All the dancers had noticed him at one point or another.  He rarely acknowledged anyone but Mia and now Tyler and Victoria too. It still amazed Alyssa that Mia had been pregnant on the last tour. Superhuman, that's what Mia was. The kind of woman who didn't let anything get her down. She wondered what it was like to have such a perfect life.

Maybe someday she'd come close, not right now. Stay away from Pasha and keep treading. Otherwise, she'd drown in lost opportunities, her happiness sailing off without her, too far to signal. 

Now called The Bodyguard and the Dancer on Radish Fiction. The full story will be available there. ♥

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