The Game Changer by Marie Landry Read Free Book Online Page A

Street. She suddenly felt like a little girl playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes and makeup, although her mother would never own a dress like the one Melody was wearing, and she probably would have had a heart attack if she could have seen her daughter right then.
    Melody kept telling herself that this was what normal, single, twenty-eight-year-old women did. They had social lives, they went out with friends, they danced and drank and flirted with guys. Still, part of her wished they had started with one of the local bars where she could have worn jeans and flat shoes.
    She looked down the street to one such bar, Sweet Home Alabama, and could see crowds of people milling around outside. They were dressed casually, drinking beer from the bottle, and laughing so loudly their voices carried all the way to where Melody and Olivia stood.
    “No,” Olivia said firmly, following Melody’s gaze. “We’ll go there someday if you really want to line dance or something. Or we’ll go to TJ’s over on Bell, they have better music. The whole point of Atlantis is that we get to dress up, be with a more sophisticated crowd, and sip drinks from glasses, not bottles.” She squeezed Melody’s hand before tugging her toward the door. “You’ll have fun tonight, I promise.”
    As they approached the enormous arched doors flanked by Grecian columns, Melody could hear the low thump of bass from inside. The bouncer at the door had the broadest chest and largest biceps Melody had ever seen; she expected him to burst Hulk-like from the shirt at any moment as he checked their ID and opened the door for them. He flashed Melody a smile as she passed, giving her a little wink as he said, “You ladies have a good time tonight. Any problems in there, you come find me.”
    “Ooh,” Olivia said as she took Melody’s hand once more and led her toward the window to pay for their cover. “If you don’t find any hot guys in here tonight, you could always go back and get his number.”
    Melody laughed and shook her head. “Sure, why not?” She stood to the side as Olivia paid for them to get in. At the end of the corridor, she could see flashing blue and purple lights from inside the club itself, and she could feel the floor vibrating slightly beneath her feet from the music.
    “All right, let’s go!” Olivia flashed Melody an excited grin. “I can’t wait to see the inside of this place.”
    As Olivia tugged her down the hall, the music got louder with each step. Melody was surprised at Olivia’s eagerness to get inside; sure, she loved to party, but she had been to all the hottest nightclubs in Toronto. Melody thought this would be just another club for her, especially since it was in Bellevue, which wasn’t exactly known for its stellar nightlife.
    Melody didn’t have long to wonder, because the minute they stepped through the main doorway, her senses were assaulted with an onslaught of sights and sounds. The music, which had seemed loud even from outside, throbbed and pulsed from the soles of her feet up through her body. People were clustered together in groups, standing around, sitting at the tall round tables with high stools that were scattered throughout the place, or lounging on the curved couches near the walls.
    Melody felt like a kid at an amusement park, all wide-eyed and wonderstruck. Atlantis was like nothing she had ever seen before. There were two identical bars on either side of the room that looked as if they were made of crystallized ice, and were lit from within by an indigo light that seemed to pulse in time with the music.
    Holding tightly to Olivia’s hand, Melody allowed herself to be guided through the throng of bodies toward the closest bar. She couldn’t hear what Olivia called to the bartender, nor did she really care in that moment, because she had finally noticed the dance floor. She’d seen the long counter-like square in the middle of the room, and now finally saw the two large gaps that led down