Cole swallowed down the urge to retch. He turned back and sat down.

"I know you must have earned it," Logan said, and Cole tilted his head to the side because he did not understand why that would make Logan look like he swallowed glass. "Gideon wants to schedule an appointment for another session."

Cole's eyebrows shot up. Logan did not make appointments. He was not really running a prostitution ring, at least not in his mind. He was just providing extra services. Keeping a schedule of meetings between his dancers and their clients would make him face what he does a little too head-on. Better to keep the business spontaneous in dark corners and behind curtains. That way, if a dancer got caught, he could say he had nothing to do with it.

"He wants to see you again tomorrow night."

Cole's eyes flicked to the stacks of candy-heart-themed cocktail menus in their glittery gold frames, waiting to be put on every table tomorrow night. "Valentine's Day," he said flatly. No wonder Logan was so upset.

"Yes," Logan agreed. Cole barked out a laugh, then slapped his hand over his mouth when he got a warning look. He cleared his throat.

"How much money is he offering you?" Cole asked because he could not help himself. It had to be enough that Logan literally could not turn it down. Because he was the one that Cole always spent Valentine's Day with.

In the very beginning, Logan treated Cole like he was special. He would not pay off just any boy's debt, after all. It did not take Cole long to remove the rose-colored glasses and see the situation for what it was – coercion instead of a relationship. But Logan was so twisted inside that he really believed he and Cole were soulmates or something. He was taking care of Cole by tracking his debt in that evil book. To this day - even when he slept with other dancers - Cole was the old standby, and they always spent Valentine's Day together.

Gideon must have offered a truly psychotic amount of money for Logan to put aside his fantasy that he was Cole's romantic sugar daddy and face the reality that he was just Cole's pimp, using him to make money. And even if the money was too much to turn down, the sting to his pride had to hurt. Which was why Logan was glaring at Cole like it was all his fault.

"It doesn't matter," he gritted out.

Another laugh burst from between Cole's lips before he could help himself, but he did not stifle it this time, going for gold because this whole thing felt totally unreal. As he kept saying, there was something fractured in his brain, and his words spilled out no matter how hard he tried to stop them. "It doesn't matter? Who are you? Oh, that's right, you're fucking that new kid...Angel or whatever, right? You can just have him instead."

Logan was around the table in a flash, looming over Cole with one hand on the back of the chair and the other wrapped around his throat. Cole cowered back, arm flying out and knocking the ashtray off the table. But he stilled when Logan squeezed his throat just to let him know he could. "What's it to you who I fuck?"

Cole sneered up at him. Logan did not like that. He moved his hand to Cole's face, digging his fingers in and squishing his cheeks up. "I can fuck whoever I like whenever I like. And you will fuck whoever I want whenever I want. Capiche?"

Logan was the type of guy to say Capiche while menacing somebody.

"Just remember that you only live as good as you do because of my favor," he continued, like some high and mighty emperor. "I can take it all away. Some other boy will get all the attention and the money. So don't bore me with this tiresome attitude of yours. I'm tired of your whining."

Like Cole wanted attention or money. He was getting tired of the nasty fingernails digging into his cheeks, though, so he said, "Got it." It came out all squished because of how Logan was squinching his face up. 

He pushed Logan back and managed to get up out of the chair so he could put a couple feet of distance between them. He took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair. This felt more like when he first came here and had not caught onto the fact that playing along with Logan's weird fantasies made his life easier at the end of the day. 

"Where's this attitude coming from?" Logan glared at him. "Are you jealous? I can take you out any other night of the year, you know."

Cole glared at the ceiling, then laughed again. The thing just bubbled right out of his chest despite his best attempts to throttle it. "Jealous? Are you kidding me? I'm about to go home and pop a bottle of fucking champagne in celebration of not having to put up with your fake-ass date night."

Logan crossed the space between them and backhanded him. It was such a surprise that he stumbled to the side and his feet tripped over the ashtray, sending him right down to his hands and knees, the edge of the desk smacking the side of his face. He stayed down on the ground, clutching his cheek in shock as it throbbed.

"Oh great," Logan said behind him. "Here. Get up."

Cole shoved the hands away when Logan tried to pull him to his feet. It was nothing new for him to be rough with Cole, but he was also careful of the merchandise. He almost never hit in the face. Mostly just grabbed a little too tightly around the wrist. So this sequence of events stunned Cole.

"Don't make me the bad guy here." Logan kept going while Cole picked himself up off the floor. "Jesus, why did you fall like that? Look at your face."

There was probably a big red splotch blooming across Cole's cheekbone where it caught the desk and a nice handprint on the other side. His head was ringing, but that was mostly out of total shock.

"Jesus," Logan sighed, "You're a mess. Don't try to go back out on the floor tonight. You'd better just go home. And be here tomorrow for your session with Gideon. It's three hours, and he gets whatever he wants."

Cole gladly pushed past him, eyes still lowered somewhere near the vicinity of the floorboard. This had all been inevitable. Logan had been waiting to snap on him, upset because over his own choice to hand Cole over to some other guy since, deep down, he was only about the money.

He shut the door and sagged against the wall for a couple of seconds, letting himself rub his eyes and feel pathetic until a group of dancers flooded the hallway to relieve the guys who had been on stage for the past couple of songs. One of them patted Cole on the shoulder, and Cole sent him a quick smile, lips pressed together and not all that happy. The dancer's eyes lingered on the angry red marks on his cheeks, but he did not say anything.

Cole still had a few things to take care of before he could get out of here. Navigating the floor was much easier in sneakers and a baggy pair of sweatpants instead of heels and skin. When Elijah saw him coming, he said something to end the conversation he was having with one of the customers and stepped into a shadowed corner.

"Here," Cole pulled the money from his pocket and handed over a hundred. Elijah tucked it into the breast pocket of his t-shirt.

"You want a ride home, sweetie?" He asked, looking Cole up and down, probably noticing the marks and the slumped curve of his shoulders. Sounded nice, but Cole did not want any special treatment from Elijah or anyone else here. He already got enough attention for being Logan's favorite. So, like every night Elijah offered, he turned him down.

Next, he had to go behind the bar and wait for an opportunity to hand over fifty bucks to Alexis and the other bartender who always drummed up business for him. Alexis took a moment to eyeball his face, then leaned in and told Cole to ask Elijah for a ride home. He just rolled his eyes and gave her a wave goodbye.

The bass faded into a background thrum as he finally pushed into the changing rooms to gather up his bag. From the thousands he made tonight, he had two-hundred fifty-five to his name, most of which needed to go straight toward his fund for rent. The extra hundred was a blessing. He would be able to buy something other than dried beans, one-dollar white bread, and bruised, rejected fruit. Maybe he would get a burger somewhere.

He did take a moment to peer at his face in the mirror. Behind him, Juan chattered away in rapid Spanish on the phone, earlier meltdown forgotten. His eyes went big when he noticed Cole, and he muttered into his phone before hanging it up and coming over.

"Ay dios," he said, shaking his head critically at the bruising skin as Cole poked it and grimaced. "He left you alone for so long, baby. What happened this time?"

"Well, it's Valentine's Day, so..."

Juan rolled his eyes. Anyone who worked here long enough picked up on the fact that Logan not only favored Cole but thought of him as his boyfriend or whatever. They definitely did not use the word boyfriend, though. Cole spat that word out one time during an argument and did not see a client for a whole week. Dancing barely paid the bills, let alone scraping away at his debt. He would honestly take a slap before that freezing-out nonsense. The debt was the big thing Logan had over him, and it worked every time.

Cole shook his head at himself. "He wants me to work tomorrow."

Juan, who had been here for a couple of years now, lifted his eyebrows. "No romantic date?"

"No," Cole grinned, even though it hurt his face like hell, "Some client is paying way too much money for him to turn down. He's just pissed about that. Never did like it when the curtain was lifted."

Cole was pretty sure he would have found a way to smack him around or withhold clients or whatever other punishment he decided Cole deserved for attracting Gideon's attention no matter what. It was just as well that Cole talked back and gave him a reason.

"That's going to bruise, you know." Juan pointed in the mirror. "Your client might not like that."

"That's what make-up is for." Cole straightened back up, grabbed his bag, and turned to pat Juan on the shoulder. "I'm outta here for the night. See you tomorrow."

Outside, it was cold. Cole let out a shaky breath, watched it cloud in the air, and laughed.

He did not have to sit across from Logan at dinner and pretend that they were friendly. Sure, he had to do it with someone else, but he would take any breaks he could get. He allowed himself luxuriate in the blanket of relief that settled over him. And maybe feel a stroke of excitement that Gideon had requested to see him again. And paid an apparently exorbitant amount to do so. He scratched his nose, shoved his hands in his pockets, and walked out of the alley with a smile on his face.