Shutout

CHAPTER ONE-2

“I didn’t realize you meant we’d eat here. I assumed we’d eat in a real restaurant. You know, where the girls wear clothes.” Alison whispered the last part as they sat down at the bar.

“I’m getting takeout, so stop your bitching.” Hailee waved and smiled to a girl with dark black and blue hair. “Hey, Sasha! Do you know if my order is ready yet?”

“Hey girl.” The goth looking girl grinned. “I think I saw it at the window. Let me go look.” She strutted over to the order window and searched for the name on the bag. “Here it is!”

“Thanks, Sasha,” Hailee said as the girl handed the bag to her. “See you tomorrow!” She hopped off the bar stool and waved as Alison followed.

“I’ll never get used to that place,” Alison complained.

“I don’t know why you let it bother you.” The neon sign outside the building shone the club’s name, The Cat House, brightly in the dusk.

“Did you work on New Year’s Eve?”

Hailee nodded. “Yeah, I had a double shift because they were packed. Lots of needy, lonely men out there I guess, but it was a good night for tips.”

“I suppose that depends on what you had to do for those tips.” Alison grimaced as though she had just eaten a lemon.

“Nothing more than usual.” Hailee winked one eye. That meant letting them ogle her and grab at her while she still had her top on, but once she was down to just her pasties it was a hands-off policy. Not that some drunks didn’t try. The secret rooms behind the back rooms, well, that’s where the real money was made, and she wanted no part of that. Dancing was one thing, but she wasn’t for sale. “How was your party?”

“Eh.” Alison shrugged. “It was full of my brother’s frat house buddies. Nothing like fending off drunk handsy college boys all night. I cut out early and stopped in the Cupcakery. They were having a champagne toast at midnight, and unveiling their new cupcake — Champagne Kisses. It’s my new favorite flavor. The icing really does taste like champagne, and it has tiny red and pink hearts sprinkled onto the white icing. The batter is so fluffy and light I wouldn’t be surprised if it had champagne in it too.”

Hailee loved the Pink Ribbon Cupcakery. It was such a cute little store, and now thanks to all the cupcake talk, she was craving a cupcake. It’d been a while since she’d had one. Maybe she’d treat herself for her birthday. “Sounds like I’ll have to stop by and try one of those.”

“I just wish you would get out of this neighborhood. I’m sure you could find a nice apartment by me, and you know I could use the help at the pet salon. Wouldn’t it be awesome if we were neighbors?” Alison said, as they both walked away from The Cat House and past the neighboring bar to a doorway. “We’d see each other all the time and you could go to the Cupcakery every day; I know you love their cupcakes!”

Hailee sighed. If Alison only knew that was the goal. Plus, a daily stop into the Cupcakery sounded wonderful. But she didn’t need a lecture; she just wanted to eat. Alison was an awesome friend, but she was good at lecturing, and as much as Hailee loved her, that could get annoying.

“Home, sweet home.” Hailee unlocked the heavy steel door. Turning on the hallway light, she let Alison in first, then locked the door behind them. “And I like my loft, thank you very much.”

Alison looked back at her and shook her head, keeping her hands away from the walls as they approached the stairs. “I’ll never understand why,” she said. “You’re on the third floor above a bar and a strip club. There are stains on the walls here in the hallway and stairwell that I’d rather not know what they are, and it’s so dingy looking.”

Alison complained about Hailee’s loft all the time; it wasn’t somewhere she would opt to live. This was sub-par compared to her frilly pink and white life. Alison’s apartment was right above her pet salon in a charming old school neighborhood filled with clean sidewalks, cute little shops, and lots of foot traffic. Even the garbage cans on the street were sparkly clean; Hailee swore someone must come along and scrub them every night. To overdose on the cuteness, the streets were even paved with brick. The truth was, that place was adorable and Hailee was a little jealous of her friend. But this was where she called home.

“I’ll help out at the pet salon any time that I can, you know that. And if it weren’t for me, your books would never get done,” Hailee said proudly.

The top of the two-flight stairwell opened up to a spacious loft. One time it was probably an office space that was full of cubicles, back before this neighborhood was taken over by bars and less than desirable clientele. Now it was one big rent-controlled loft, and Hailee made the best out of it. Even though there were no walls to separate the kitchen, the living area, and the bedroom, she had done her best to make it homey.

“I actually meant you could consider working there full-time, you know—”

“Quit the club. Yeah, I know that’s what you want, Ali. Maybe someday I’ll consider it, but right now I’m fine. I wouldn’t make nearly as much anywhere else as I do at the club. You know you can’t pay me that kind of money, and I don’t expect you to.”

It wasn’t just the money that kept her working at the strip club. It was the fact that no one judged her there. Not her choice of hair color, not her tattoos, not even her nose ring. She was able to just do her job and go home. No drama. She had tried waitressing and temp administrative jobs, but they all wanted her to cover her ink and change her hair to a “normal” color. Like it mattered, when she was sitting inside an office doing filing work, whether she had blond hair or pink.

Hailee wasn’t planning on working at The Cat House forever, just long enough. How long that would be, she wasn’t sure. She wanted to have enough income so that even if the cost of renting the space for her gallery went up, she’d still feel secure financially. Returning to The Cat House because she ran out of money was out of the question. That kind of defeat could never happen.

“Are you at least seeing anyone yet?”

“No,” she mumbled, but of course, Ali knew that already. Hailee couldn’t remember the last person she’d dated that she actually liked. Oh yeah, she could, and that was a lifetime ago. He was the reason she stopped following hockey. She had left him and those dreams years ago.

It wasn’t the hockey life that scared her, it was the fact that he wanted to “take care of her”. That meant him out earning the money while she stayed home, cooking, cleaning, watching soap operas, she guessed, raising a family, and waiting for him to return home from whatever city he was playing at. Not to mention, holding her breath with every hit he took, and praying he was going to get up afterward. Hockey could be dangerous.

But that’s not what scared her. Losing herself did. She wasn’t a stay-at-home wife and mommy type. She wanted to excel at painting and selling her art, as well as to help other up and coming artists do the same. She wanted to run her own art gallery.

When Hailee was growing up, her mom had worked, and her dad had worked. Her mom loved her job as a Real Estate Associate, and her dad was a highly respected construction foreman. Hailee had started her first job at age sixteen as well, and had worked ever since.

Dominic hadn’t understood that. He had wanted Hailee to travel with him and enjoy the hockey life, then settle down in some lavish neighborhood and be a hockey wife and a hockey mom. This wasn’t the 1930’s; women didn’t belong in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant. Hailee was proud that she earned her own living, bought her own car, and paid her own way; she didn’t need a man to do that for her.

But Dominic was from a hockey dynasty and had the burden of his family’s high expectations on his shoulders. He was determined to achieve those goals, with a happily ever after planned at the end of it all. His attitudes about family weren’t the same as hers, and even though she loved him, she believed that wasn’t enough. When he had proposed to her, he’d wanted a long engagement, but that meant staying put in Vaughn, Ontario and pushing her dreams aside. She wasn’t that girl.

Her love of painting and following her dream of owning her own art gallery had brought her to Pittsburgh to the Art Institute, a prestige and privately owned art school that had opened in 1921. The school had produced many great designers, and pursuing this dream was something she needed to do for herself.

Tomorrow would mark three years since she’d left her home. Three years since she had made a new life for herself. Three years since she began reinventing herself and doing it all on her own. That’s how she was raised; stand on your own two feet.

Leaving Dominic had been the hardest thing she’d ever had to do. But a clean break was necessary if she was going to find herself. Last she heard, he was a star goalie somewhere in Toronto, and that’s when she stopped paying any attention to the hockey world.

Since then she’d avoided all hockey news and games. She didn’t know where Dominic was and she didn’t care. The few people she still talked to from back home knew better than to utter his name to her. As much as she had wanted him to be, he wasn’t her future. Period.

In two days, it would be her twenty-second birthday, but it was just another day to her. She’d been planning to get a new tattoo tomorrow and then do some painting, maybe even drink enough to forget… everything. But she had been asked to work that next day, her birthday, and a massive hangover would not be a good idea. Some big name clients were having a private party, and she seemed to be a favorite amongst that type of clientele. When the men spent more, not only did she make more, but so did the club. Everyone won.

“Any big plans for tomorrow?”

“You know my birthday isn’t for two days, right?”

“Of course I know that, Hay. I also know you’re working on your birthday. I don’t like that you have to spend your birthday there. So we’ll just have to pretend tomorrow is the big day. Any plans?”

Hailee shook her head as she pulled out a chair at her fifties style kitchen table, and opened up the bag. The aroma of burgers and fries filled the loft. Grabbing a few fries, she shoved them in her mouth to avoid any additional birthday conversation.

“Good, then I’m taking you out.” With her mouth full, Hailee couldn’t even object before Alison added with a sly smile, “And that’s not up for debate. You can’t say no, because it’s my gift to you. Just remember, if anyone asks, it’s your birthday.”

“Whatever.” There was no sense in arguing with her. Apparently birthdays didn’t mean as much to her as they did to Alison.

Hailee took a glance around her loft. This was hers. All the reminiscing about Dominic made her forget how far she’d come. She could see her goal; it was within reach. Just a little more work and she’d have what she’d dreamed of.