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[takecourage]

It's a slow night at the club and Alex is bored to tears. Sitting in her office with her booted feet kicked up on the desk, she scrolls through her phone and pulls up her message thread with Lee.

Are you free? Work's fucking boring.

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[takecourage]

"Oh, definitely," she says, "And they're Darlington's old clothes, not mine. Well, the sweats are. I only have my t-shirts, but, don't worry -- they don't have like, rhinestones or glitter or shit." She grabs her underwear, not nearly as glamourous as the sets she wears out on the floor and steps into it, pulls on a black t-shirt without a bra underneath it. She brings Lee a pair of sweats and a t-shirt and looks down, eyebrow raised. "Want me to do something about that?"

She doesn't look like she'd be adverse to the idea.

[atehimrightup]

“Any guy worried he’s gonna look like less of a man because there are rhinestones on his clothes wasn’t much of a man to begin with,” Lee replies as he tugs his boots off. A part of him wants to protest when she says the clothes are Darlington’s, not wanting her to have to part with them, but she’s the one who offered so he doesn’t. He just makes a mental note to make sure that he returns them.

He looks up to see Alex standing in front of him in plain panties and a cotton tee, and somehow that’s sexier than all the stripper gear. The question makes him laugh and he looks down at his persistent erection thoughtfully.

“You don’t have to. If you wanna be done, we’re done,” Lee tells her, wanting to make sure that’s clear. There’s no quid pro quo here, and Lee definitely isn’t keeping score. And then he smiles. “That said, if I ever say no to that question I need you to take me out back and put me down, ‘cause something ain’t right.”

[takecourage]

She's got a closet full of Darlington's stuff out at Black Elm, tucked away in one of the bedrooms she never has reason to go into. There's some stuff that's made it into her rotation -- sweaters and t-shirts, mostly, but a few pairs of sweats that she sleeps in. She's got one of his beanies for when the weather turns; it clashes violently with the scarf he bought her for their first Christmas together, but she doesn't give a shit.

Anyway. Whatever. She doesn't want to think about him.

"I could keep going," she says. "If you've got a request."

[atehimrightup]

Alex’s face does something weird, expression going oddly blank, and Lee feels a little off kilter for the first time all night. He cares about Alex, is the thing.

Not romantically, not even a little. Every single one of those feelings is currently all tied up in another funny, gorgeous slut who wants to fuck him for some reason. Lee doesn’t know how these people keep falling into his lap. Sometimes literally.

But she’s his friend, one of his best, and he doesn’t ever want to take advantage of her, not in the slightest. Not even if she doesn’t even realize that’s what’s happening.

“I’m sure you could,” he says after a moment, keeping his shirt on as he reaches for the sweats. It’s damp in places, but he’s just going home. And he likes the smell, if he’s honest. He’ll keep his shirt as it is. “But do you want to? I’m not gonna be offended if you don’t.”

Alex wouldn’t offer if she wasn’t willing; Lee knows that much. He also knows, now more than ever, that there’s a difference between being willing and being eager, and he only wants it if it’s the latter.

[takecourage]

"Honestly?" she says, pushing her hair back from her face and grabbing her jeans, shimmying into them. "I could go for like...a beer and a bag of chips and then I will absolutely be ready to go again. Raring to go." She shoots him a sly look as she bends to pull her boots on, leaving them loose laced. "You want anything, Daddy?"

[atehimrightup]

“I want honesty,” Les says simply, which might be a little ironic given how many big secrets he keeps, but he’s honest when it comes to sex and he wants her to be, too. That way she says it paired with the way she pulls on her pants makes Lee think they’re done, which is okay.

He starts to pull on the sweats and pauses to look up at her with vague surprise, chuckling and shaking his head a little.

“And here I was thinking you meant a quick blowjob,” he says with a smirk, though he blushes faintly at the name as he finishes pulling on his sweats.

“Beer and some chips sounds good,” he assures her, reaching out to grab her towel and wipe his hands. “I need to get home at home point. George had a gig tonight.”

Lee thinks he was a little nervous about it. Not that George said that, or was obvious about it, but Lee knows him.

It’s only after he says it that he realizes that every time he’s referenced home tonight, he’s meant George’s place.

[takecourage]

She remembers how sensitive Lee used to be at the suggestion that George might be his boyfriend. Feels like a lot has changed quickly there.

"Why don't we grab beer and chips and then you can give me a ride home and I'll blow you in your truck?" She says, grinning. "That sounds like a plan to me."

[atehimrightup]

Alex gives him a look but thankfully doesn’t say anything and Lee is grateful for that, even though talking about it with her before had helped clear the mess in his head a little. He still hates the word boyfriend, though. It feels juvenile and inadequate, but he doesn’t know a better alternative.

Other than George kind of being his everything, all at once.

Alex’s suggestion snaps him out of his thoughts and he lets out a surprised laugh, grinning and tucking his erection into the sweats. It’s just starting to flag, but only a little. He’s still drenched in her come, after all. The smell makes him kind of dizzy. And hungry.

“You’ve got yourself a deal, sweetheart,” Lee says with a grin, pulling his boots back on before standing up and scooping up his wet jeans, twisting to look back at the couch. “Good thing leather wipes down so easily. You were a good girl all over this damn thing.”

[takecourage]

Alex shoots the couch a dubious look as she unlocks her office door, shoving her keys into her pocket.

"Honestly? The manager before me was a complete asshole, so I'd be super surprised if I'm the first dancer to get my cunt all over that thing." She rolls her eyes. "It's probably a health hazard."

She steps out of the office info the club proper, blatantly ignoring the look that one of the security guards shoots her. It's still quiet. Alex ducks behind the bar, grabbing chips and two beers from the fridge.

"I'm heading out,".she says to the guy on duty closest to the doors. He nods to her without cracking a smile.

"Yes, boss."

[atehimrightup]

Lee has slept in enough shitty places that the information doesn’t really faze him. He only shrugs and ties his boots before standing up. The sweats fit and his shirt is dark, so the drying mess all over it isn’t even really noticeable in the low light.

He looks around, wincing slightly as he leans over to pick up the tied off condom he’d disposed of earlier by mindlessly tossing it aside and put it in the trash. After rolling up his jeans and tucking them under one arm, he follows Alex back out into the club. A few people look in his direction and Lee just drags his hand through his sex hair and smiles serenely, giving them all a lazy salute as he follows out into the balmy night air.

“So do I get half of what you earned tonight?” He jokes as he digs his keys out of his rolled up jeans, winking as he passes by Alex to unlock the passenger side door and open it for her. “Seems only fair.”

[takecourage]

"Didn't see you doing any dancing," she says, but she does take the notes he tucked into her G-string earlier out of her jeans pocket and offer them to him between two fingers.

"Was on the house, though."

[atehimrightup]

Lee looks down at cash and snorts softly in amusement, shaking his head and gesturing for her to get onto the truck.

“Nah, you earned that. It was a hell of a lap dance, Stern.” He swats playfully at her ass as she climbs into the cab, then shuts her door and whistles jovially to himself as he twirls his keys around his finger. Once he climbs onto the bench seat next to her, he starts up the old engine and looks over at her as if warms up a little.

“They make this cream with aloe and stuff in it,” Lee says in a more serious tone, vaguely concerned as he thinks about the red marks on her ass in a less erotic context. He’s about to offer to get her some, then snorts and rolls his eyes at himself as he buckles his seat belt. “Sorry, forgot who I was talkin’ to for a sec. You have a sex dungeon and we met at a sex club. Of course you know about the lotion.”

[takecourage]

"Don't call me that," she says, and her tone is mostly flat but there's a soft, plaintive note in it. She copes pretty well, most of the time, but it still hurts to hear her surname used as a term of endearment.

She tucks the notes back into her pocket, not about to argue about it. What he says next makes her laugh. "Yes," she says. "I know about the lotion."

[atehimrightup]

Lee couldn’t have known it was a trigger, but he still feels bad about accidentally poking at a wound. But she doesn’t make a big deal of it, so he doesn’t either.

“It won’t happen again,” Lee assures her, filing it away in his mind with the other things she doesn’t like. This one kind of shoots up to the top of the list, though.

He’s relieved when she laughs, even if it’s at his expense, and shakes his head with a chuckle as he reverses out of his spot and leaves the parking lot.

“Well, it works,” he admits with slightly pink cheeks. “So make sure you use some.”

[takecourage]

It's incredibly endearing and Alex smiles, softer than she sometimes is, her hair dark wings around her face. "I promise," she says. "I will absolutely rub lotion into my ass before I go to bed."

[atehimrightup]

“Good,” Lee says with a huff. He’d offer to do it himself, but that feels almost too intimate, like it’d be crossing a line that he’s not too comfortable with. Which is kind of ridiculous, given all that they’d just done.

“Do you want tacos?” He asks after few minutes of companionable silence. “There’s a good place with a drive-thru coming up and I’m starving. I’ll buy you some or I can hit it after I drop you off if you just wanna get home.”

[takecourage]

"Tacos sound really good," says Alex, settled comfortably in the passenger seat, her head turned to one side so that she can watch the lights spilling by. Edie's sitter is paid really well to stay until Alex gets home, so she's got otime. "You know, the only thing I really miss about California is the drive thrus."

[atehimrightup]

“Mm, I never made it as far west as California,” Lee muses, checking his mirrors before navigating into a turn lane. “Always meant to.”

He chuckles and turns into the parking lot, stomach growling at the smell of grilling meat and spices. “There was no good Mexican food in Kentucky. I’ll tell you that much.”

[takecourage]

"I'd never really left the valley before I went to Yale," she says. "The only times I left LA was when Mira tried to ship me off to bootcamp in the desert. And juvie."

There's nobody left in Darrow who knows that much about Alex's youth. Danny had known, obviously. She'd told Kavinsky some of it. Otherwise, she guarded those painful, shitty memories like a wild thing would guard a wound.

[atehimrightup]

“Ah, juvie. They tried to stick me there a time or two,” Lee says with a low, rueful chuckle as he navigates into the drive-thru line. There are two cars ahead of them, and Lee slumps back into his seat with his foot on the break. “They never could hold me.”

Alex knows a thing or two about having a rough upbringing. Lee is curious but he knows voicing that curiosity isn’t wise, because he might invite that same curiosity back on himself. Still, he can’t help but wonder.

“How do you go from juvie to Yale?” He asks, figuring that’s safer.

[takecourage]

"I was in and out of juvie and psych wards when I was younger," says Alex. "Mira tried to send me to one of those fucking...scared straight in the desert bootcamps, but I'd already figured out how to get out of a zip tie by then." She glances across at him, her face unreadable for a moment.

"I was...scouted," she says. "By a secret organisation." She makes a face. "It's exactly as bullshit as it sounds. Yale has all of these secret socities, but everyone kind of knows about most of them. Then there's the one that most people don't know about. Lethe."

[atehimrightup]

It’s a lot of information to learn about someone when you’re idling in the drive-thru of a Mexican restaurant. The neon yellow menu blinds him from a few yards away, and Lee blinks as he takes it all in. Before Darrow, he would have called bullshit.

But now he’s got a boyfriend, apparently. And it’s the fucking Earl of Buckingham. It’s easier to roll with the punches now.

“Well, damn,” he finally says, huffing out a laugh and grinning over at her. It doesn’t seem to be the easiest thing for her to talk about so while he’s curious, he doesn’t press for more. Not right now, anyway.

“Okay, miss secret society,” he says warmly. “What kind of tacos do you want?”

[takecourage]

She's weirdly grateful when he doesn't immediately ask for more details.

"Carne asada," she says, without hesitation. "Please. And a Coke."

[atehimrightup]

Lee orders a whole mess of tacos, a few drinks, and some taquitos to eat on the ride home, and hopefully George will be there. He did it again, he realizes. Home is George's place. Home is wherever George is. Christ, he's so fucked.

"I've got a bunch of shit, too," Lee offers as they inch forward and he leans over to pull his wallet out of his back pocket. "I'm not gonna get into it all right now, but just-- you're not gonna rattle me. If you ever wanna talk."

[takecourage]

"Thanks," she says, because she really is grateful. She leans her head against the window, looking out into the darkness as they ease forward in the line. "I...Had a pretty shitty life before I got here. Being here...being with Danny...have Edie. It was the first chance I ever really had to be happy and, even then, I tried really hard to fuck it up at first."