Anyway, I like when Cal drives. It lets me sneak glances at him while his attention is fixed on the road.

Every time we’re alone together, the energy seems to shift. There’s a thick tension in the air, and my mind starts inevitably wandering back to what we did the last time we were alone.

Since I’m thinking of such pleasant things, I’m startled when Callum says, “Why did you break up with Oliver Castle?”

It jolts me, and makes me remember, uncomfortably, how Oliver accosted me on campus earlier. How does he keep running into me like that? At first when he would find me at every party, I assumed my friends were texting him. But even later—

“Well?” Callum interrupts.

I sigh, annoyed to be talking about this again. And without the likelihood of kinky jealousy-fueled sex afterward.

“It just never felt right,” I say. “It was like putting a shoe on the wrong foot. Right away it was awkward, and the longer it went on, the worse it got.”

“So you weren’t in love with him? When we met?” Callum asks.

There’s the tiniest hint of vulnerability in his question.

I’ve never heard Callum be vulnerable. Not even one percent. I desperately want to look at him, but I use all my willpower to keep my eyes pointed forward. I feel like we’re actually being honest for a minute, and I don’t want to ruin it.

“I never loved him,” I tell Cal, my voice steady and sure.

He exhales, and I know, I just know, there’s relief in that sigh.

I have to smile, thinking of something poetic.

“What?” Callum asks.

“Well, ironically, when I broke up with Oliver, I thought I should find someone more compatible. Someone more like me.”

Cal has to laugh, too.

“Instead you got the exact opposite,” he says.

“Right,” I say.

Opposites have a kind of symmetry. Fire and ice. Stern and playful. Impulsive and restrained. In a way, they belong together.

Oliver and I were more like two objects selected at random: a pen and an owl. A cookie and a shovel.

That’s why there was no emotion on my side, just indifference.

You need push and pull to feel love. Or hate.

We pull up in front of Pole. It’s a cabaret club on the west end of the city. Dark, low-ceilinged, sprawling and seedy. But also wildly popular, because it’s not your run-of-the-mill strip club. The performances are dark, kinky, and fetish-based. Some of the dancers are semi-famous in Chicago, including Francie Ross, who’s one of the headliners. It doesn’t surprise me that she caught Zajac’s eye.

“Have you been here before?” I ask Callum.

“No,” he says carelessly. “Is it good?”

“You’ll see.” I grin.

The bouncers check our IDs and we head inside.

The thumping bass makes the air feel thick. I smell the sharp scent of alcohol, and the earthy tones of vape pens. The light is deep red, making everything else look like shades of black and gray.

The interior feels like a gothic dollhouse. Plush booths, botanical wallpaper, ornate mirrors. The waitresses are dressed up in strappy leather harnesses, some with leather animal ears and matching fur tails—bunnies, foxes, and cats, mostly.

I spy a table emptying out close to the stage, and I drag Callum over before someone else can snag it.

“Shouldn’t we be looking for your friend?” he says.

“We might be in her section. If not, I’ll go find her.”

He looks around at the busty waitresses, and the bartenders who are wearing skin-tight pleather bodysuits, unzipped to the navel.

“So this is what Zajac’s into, huh?” he says.

“I think everybody’s into this, to one degree or another,” I reply, biting the edge of my lip and grinning just a little.

“Oh yeah?” Callum says. He’s looking at me, curious and more than a little distracted. “Tell me more.”

I nod to the corner of our booth, where a pair of silver handcuffs dangle down from a hook.

“I could see you making good use of those,” I say.

“Depends,” Callum growls, his eyes dark. “On how you behave yourself tonight . . .”

Before I can answer, our waitress comes to take our order. It’s not my friend Jada. But she says Jada is working.

“Can you send her over?” I ask.

“Sure,” the girl nods.

While we wait, the lights lower even further, and the DJ drops the music.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he croons. “Please welcome to the stage the one . . . the only . . . Eduardo!”

“Oh, you’re going to like this,” I whisper to Callum.

“Who’s Eduardo?” he mutters back.

“Shh!” I say.

A spotlight follows a slim young man who poses for a moment in its light, then saunters down to the stage. He’s wearing a fedora and zoot suit— well-tailored, with exaggerated shoulders. He has a mustache and a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

His presence is magnetic. Every eye in the room is fixed on him and on his outrageous swagger.

Right before he ascends to the stage, he pauses next to a slim, pretty blonde girl in the front row. He grabs her hand and drags her up on stage, despite her protests and obvious shyness.

Then he goes through a little comedy routine where he instructs the girl to hold a flower for him. The top of the flower immediately falls off, tumbling down the front of the girl’s blouse. Eduardo plucks it out again before she can move, making her shriek. Then he teaches her a dance routine, a very seductive tango, which he performs masterfully, whipping her around like a mannequin.

All the while he’s keeping up a patter of jokes and insults, making the audience howl with laughter. He has a low, smooth voice, with a slight accent.

Finally, he tells the girl that he’s finished, and asks for a kiss on the cheek. When she reluctantly puckers up her lips, he holds out his cheek to her, then turns his head at the last minute, kissing her square on the mouth.

Of course the crowd eats it up. They’re cheering and chanting, “Eduardo! Eduardo!”

“Thank you my friends. But before I go—one last dance!” he shouts.

As the music plays, he dances across the stage, swift and sharp. He grabs his fedora and yanks it off his head, letting down a spill of white-blonde hair. He tears off his mustache, then rips open the front of his suit to reveal two absolutely spectacular breasts, full and bare, except for a pair of red tassels covering the nipples. “Eduardo” hops and shimmies to make the tassels spin round, then blows the crowd a kiss, bows, and leaves the stage.

Callum looks like he got slapped in the face. I’m laughing so hard that tears are running down my cheeks. I’ve seen Francie’s show three times now, and it still blows me away. Her ability to walk and dance and speak like a man, even laugh like one, is just incredible. She never breaks character for a second, not until the very end.

“That’s Francie Ross,” I say to Callum, in case he still hasn’t figured it out.

“That’s the Butcher’s girlfriend?” he says in astonishment.

“Yup. If the rumors are true.”

I get my chance to ask Jada when she brings over our drinks. She passes a whiskey on the rocks to Callum, a vodka cranberry to me.