Bought A Stripper Husband

Chapter 11: Evalyne's Midnight Confession

The hallway off the semi-private area was dimmer, lit by a string of blue bulbs. Doors lined one side, each with a small frosted glass panel painted with a crescent moon. Soft thuds of bass bled through the walls, but the noise of the crowd faded as the door to the main room swung shut behind them.

Nightlight let her lead, matching her pace. He seemed more cautious now, the professional bravado tempered.

"Uh," he said after a few seconds. "Just so you know, these are... not the couches."

"I gathered," Evalyne said, heartbeat pounding.

She stopped in front of an empty room, the light above the door glowing green. Before she could lose her nerve, she pushed it open.

The room was small and low-lit, awash in blue. A loveseat sat against one wall, a narrow bed against the other. A small table with a box of tissues and a bottle of sanitizer occupied the corner. It smelled faintly of cologne and strawberry lip gloss.

It was exactly the sort of room she had mentally filed under never in my life.

She stepped inside anyway.

Nightlight lingered at the threshold, very suddenly less sure.

"Uh... just so you're clear, uh... Evie," he said, voice quiet, "this is... for full service. That's a separate booking. You don't have me for that."

Evalyne turned, mortified heat already creeping up her neck.

"I am not here to have s*x with you," she said.

He blinked. "Okay."

"I just..." She looked past him, toward the hallway, where Anna's distant laughter was swallowed by a cheer. "I needed to get away from her. And the... screaming. For a moment."

He relaxed. Just a little. "Got it. Sanctuary, not... anything else."

"Yes," she said stiffly.

He stepped inside, closing the door behind them. The sound muted the music from distant tsunami to dull throb.

"Just so you know," he said, leaning against the door, "if management thinks I ducked into a s*x room off the clock, they're going to assume I'm breaking rules. And they really like their rules."

"I did not think this through," Evalyne said.

He smiled. "It's okay. I'll tell them we were... talking."

She sank onto the loveseat, suddenly exhausted. "Which we are," she said. "Or will be."

He crossed to the opposite end of the couch and sat, leaving a polite gap between them. The proximity felt strangely intimate, more than when he'd been on her lap. There was something honest about this distance.

He draped the open edges of his shirt together loosely, more out of habit than modesty. Glitter still dusted his collarbones, the hollow of his throat.

"So," he said. "What do you want to talk about?"

She stared at her hands.

Objectively, this was ridiculous. She was in a strip club private room with a twenty-something stranger named Nightlight, and her first instinct was to conduct a performance review on herself as a parent.

But something about him—the way he'd asked for consent, the way he'd slowed down when she'd gone stiff, the way he kept checking on her—made it feel... weirdly safe.

"My daughter," she said before she could overthink it.

He nodded, not surprised like the dates had been. "Okay. How old is she?"

"Five," Evalyne said. "Her name is Theresa."

"Pretty," he said. "Theresa. She here with you?"

She gave him a look.

He grinned. "Kidding. Trying to lighten the mood."

"It does not need to be lightened," she said, then caught herself. "That was a lie. It absolutely does."

He chuckled softly. "Go on."

She exhaled. The words came in a trickle at first. Then a flood.

"She does not talk to me," Evalyne said. "Not really. She speaks. To her nanny. To her teachers. But with me it is... I ask her about school and she says 'fine.' I ask about her day and she says 'okay.' I ask what she wants for dinner and she says 'anything.' It is like trying to crack a safe with a spoon."

He listened, elbows on his knees, hands laced loosely.

"She used to cling to me," Evalyne went on. "When she was smaller. Even when I was working. She would toddle around the office. Fall asleep on my chest. Now she... watches me. Like I am a stranger she has seen on television, and she is not sure if she wants to approach."

"Kids change," he said quietly.

"She changed when her father left," Evalyne said. "When I divorced him."

He nodded slowly. "He cheated."

She shot him a sharp look. "How did you—"

"You said 'left' with venom," he said. "It wasn't 'we grew apart.' It was 'he bailed.'"

She huffed. "He did more than bail. He had an affair when she was one. I was in Tokyo on a business trip. He sent me a photo of himself with a girl in our bed. The baby monitor was on in the background."

Jack winced. "That's... impressively shitty."

"Yes," Evalyne said. "He told me I chose work over family, so he went to someone who made time for him. As if fidelity were a time management issue."

"And you kicked him out," he said.

"I divorced him," she said. "I kept the company. I kept Theresa. He got a condo and visitation rights he barely uses."

"And now you feel like you broke something in her," he said.

She stared at the blue-lit wall. "Perhaps I did. Perhaps it was already cracked. She was always quiet. I am quiet. But since the divorce she has been... taking pieces of herself indoors and locking the doors."

"You think she blames you," he said.

"I don't know," Evalyne said. "She doesn't say. She just... looks at me like I am a weather event she cannot predict. And when she does speak, it is to point out that I am late. Or that I missed something. Her recital. Her parent-teacher conference. She doesn't yell. She just says, 'You forgot.' It is... worse somehow."

He nodded, gaze steady. "That's rough."

"I am not... there," she said, shame slipping under the surface. "Not enough. I am at work, or on a plane, or in a car, or on a call. I tell myself I am doing it for her. So she has security. Stability. A future that does not depend on any man's mood. But children do not care about balance sheets. They care who reads them stories at night."

She laughed once, harsh. "And while I am building an empire, she is learning to build walls."

Silence settled briefly, broken only by the distant thump of bass.

"I went on a date last week," she said. "The man—an accountant—asked about her. I could not remember her favorite book. He looked at me like I had confessed to a crime. He said it was a red flag. That a parent who does not know their own child's favorite things is... suspect."

"And you believed him," Jack said.

"Was he wrong," she shot back.

He considered that.

"Knowing what your kid likes is important," he said slowly. "Shows you pay attention. But... if all it took to be a good parent was knowing favorite books, a lot fewer kids would be screwed up."

She looked at him. "You speak from experience."

Nightlight let out a slow breath through his nose.

"I'm not a parent," he said. "I'm barely an adult some days. And I definitely am not a therapist."

"And yet," she said dryly, "I am telling you things I have not said to mine."

He smiled at that, small but real.

"But," he added, "I've seen bad parents. The kind who drag their kids in here and leave them with staff so they can blow their rent money on bottle service. The kind who don't even remember their birthdays. You don't... sound like that."

"I forget pick-up times," she said sharply, because if she was going to confess, she might as well do it fully. "I miss recitals. I did not know her favorite book when a man on a date asked me. He looked at me like I had admitted to murder."

"If a dude judges your entire motherhood based on whether you know the name of a picture book," Nightlight said, "he's an idiot."

"You knew your mother's favorite book when you were five?" Evalyne asked.

He paused. The expression that crossed his face was gone almost as quickly as it came.

"No," he said. "I knew her favorite vodka. That didn't help me much, and she is the reason I work here."

She frowned. "I'm sorry."

He shrugged one shoulder, an old habit. "Point is, knowing trivia about your kid doesn't make you a good mom. Caring enough to sit in a sleazy back room and panic about being a bad one... that's something."

"No one else sees it that way," she said.

"Everyone else doesn't matter," he replied. "The kid does."

The simple realignment of priority made something loosen under her ribs.

"Is that what you tell all your clients," she asked, trying to inject some cool back into her tone, "or am I privileged to receive a bespoke sermon?"

He smirked. "Most of my clients want me to tell them they're sexy and that their exes are idiots. You're a special case."

"Unfortunate me," she said.

"Could be worse," he said. "You could be the bachelorette who keeps trying to lick my abs."

She made a noise that might have been a laugh if it didn't sound so close to a sob.

There was another knock at the door, sharp and impatient.