Dance, Lust And Them

Chapter 5

 Vance texted Janelle after hanging up the phone to let her know he would be fifteen minutes late. She sighed and rolled her eyes but told him that would be fine. She wasn’t doing anything else at the moment, aside from sipping her coffee and thinking about her confrontation with Monique. Vance was obviously keeping something from her. He’d told Janelle that he and Monique hadn’t been together in a long time, and he also made a point to tell Janelle he hadn’t even tried talking to her. Monique was from a different part of his life, a dangerous part of his life.

 Janelle had people like that too; old friends that had tried to get her into trouble on more than one occasion. In fact, Mads had been a bit like Vance up until recently. She’d been dabbling in selling and stealing gold, though Janelle had no idea why she did it. Every time she tried to ask Mads, she was always given a weird reason or a breezy response about how it put bread on the table, and why did Janelle care in the first place? Mads used to clean houses for a living and she was always getting fired for stealing jewelry. The problem was that when the authorities tried to raid her house, they couldn’t find any evidence.

 Regardless of Mads’ past, she was still a good friend to Janelle. She decided to call her and ask for some advice about Vance.

 “Hello?” Mads answered on the first ring.

 “Hey,” Janelle said warmly. “How’s it going?”

 “It’s alright, I’m in the middle of filing some bills away. What about you? Aren’t you supposed to be at work right now?”

 “Yeah, that’s sort of what I was calling to talk to you about. I’ve been having some…interesting issues going on at work.”

 Janelle went on to explain that she was flirting with Vance on and off since getting hired for the job. She admitted to Mads that she had strong feelings for Vance, but she also had strong feelings for Curtis. Janelle would at least be able to deal with most of this if it weren’t for the fact that Vance’s ex-girlfriend Monique had shown up on the set.

 “Girl I feel like you live in a world of chaos,” Mads said after Janelle was finished talking. “But you’re lucky. Both Vince and Curtis seem to really care about you. Have they met before?”

 “I don’t think so. They’ve run in the same circles because of their jobs but I don’t think they’ve ever met face to face.”

 “Maybe you should try going on a double date with both of them?” Mads offered.

 “Yeah that would be a good idea,” Janelle joked, rolling her eyes. “They’d probably tear each other apart or get into a fist fight.”

 “I don’t know about that. I’m sure they would get along just fine. You haven’t tried yet, so how would you know? Things might work out perfectly and then you’ll get to date two men at the same time.”

 “That sounds like a world of trouble,” Janelle said. She looked up from her cup of coffee and noticed Vance walking towards the cafe from the street. He looked stressed out, like he hadn’t slept in days. Across the street she saw Monique climbing into a taxi. Janelle had no idea if that was a good sign or not so she tried to ignore it.

 She heard the bell chime as Vance walked into the coffee shop. “I have to call you back Mads, I think Vance is here.”

 “Good luck,” Mads said before hanging up. Janelle turned around and smiled at Vance.

 “Hey,” he said, taking the seat across from her. “Janelle, I feel so bad about what happened. Monique didn’t mean any harm. She’s got a lot going on right now.”

 “What does that even mean? Did she even explain why she’s back?”

 “She’s got some money troubles going on right now. It’s a long story and I’m not going to get into it with you, as I know you’ll probably be bored. Hell, I was even bored listening her talk to me about it.”

 “Huh,” Janelle said. “Well she seems pretty self-reliant, I’m sure she’ll figure something out.”

 “I hope so. I mean I don’t wish her ill, you know? As I’m sure you don’t wish any of your exes ill will.”

 “Of course not. But usually when I tell them it’s over, I mean it’s over and they don’t come back to haunt me years later. Are you sure nothing’s happening? Because I really don’t want to be dealing with someone who has relationship issues.”

 “I understand,” Vance said.

 He understood why Janelle was guarded, but he wanted desperately to let her know that he was trustworthy. He would never do something to hurt her, like lie to her about an ex-lover. Hell, Monique had done that plenty of times. Though they’d broken up a long time ago, they’d still seen each other a few times before reportedly cutting ties forever.

 Vance had seen Monique outside a restaurant on the arm of a man he recognized. He was one of the local pimps in town, named Lamer. He was a bossy kind of man with a chewing tobacco problem and a smoking addiction. When Vance walked over to them to say hi, he felt strange all over. He didn’t know why he cared, as he and Monique were over and done with. He shouldn’t have minded that she was with another man, let alone someone like Lamer. But he did care, which is exactly why he didn’t reject Monique outright when she came by the studio. He understood the pain of seeing someone you cared about on the arm of someone new, and he also understood what it meant to make a commitment to someone new.

 Vance reached across the table and took Janelle’s hand in hers.

 “Go on a second date with me later,” he said. “I promise it will just be the two of us.”

 Janelle eyed him cautiously. “Well alright,” she said. “But I was already supposed to go on a date with my friend Curtis. Do you want to all hang out together?”

 “Sure,” Vance said, though he instantly regretted it. “We can go to Garden City and grab a bite to eat.”

 “Awesome,” Janelle smiled. “Do you want to meet there around eight?”

 “Eight sounds perfect.”

*****

 Vance had no idea it mattered but he felt self-conscious about his date with both Janelle and Curtis. He was nervous that some people from the company would find out about Curtis and then they would lose respect for him. It wasn’t necessarily frowned upon to be in such an open relationship, but he didn’t want to seem like a weak man for not being Janelle’s main guy.

 In fact, if he were honest with himself, this reminded him a lot of what happened with Monique. His friends had bullied him for a while because he was still into her even though they’d broken up and she had a new boyfriend.