Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 82250 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82250 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
We stand there, gazing into each other’s eyes. But I don’t want to stop.
He breaks the silence with, “So I don’t want to spoil your night, but Peter and Evan just got here.” He points them out.
The rectangular bar takes up most of the room—obviously designed so that no matter where you are in the space, you can order a drink. We’re in one corner beside the restrooms, while Peter and Evan sit on stools in the opposite corner, in front of the platforms we’ve set up to create a stage. The area’s typically where everyone dances as soon as they’ve had enough drinks to forget that life is sad and hard.
Seeing Peter with his man, at an event where I’m about to totally expose myself to everyone in town, makes the blood in my face drain.
I snatch Derek’s shot off the bar and down it.
“Hey!” Derek exclaims. I turn to see his arm stretched out like he was reaching for it.
“Peter and Evan are here,” Hayden explains to him.
I finish the shot and set it back down.
“Can we not broadcast it to everyone?” I ask.
He wasn’t loud enough for anyone to hear. I’m just on edge about it.
Hayden orders another shot.
“Don’t I have enough on my mind as it is?” I add.
“You okay?” Travis asks, his expression filled with concern. He reaches out and rubs his hand up and down my back.
“Yeah. Just freaking out a bit.”
“Don’t look at them. Don’t even think about them. They’re nobodies, okay?”
But Peter’s not a nobody. He was the first guy I let in. The first guy I opened my heart up to. The first guy who ripped it out of my chest and shattered it to pieces.
“This’ll take your mind off them,” Travis says, handing me my badge. I check and see that it says #1.
“What the fuck?”
“It was the last one I had.”
I glare at him before snatching his badge from him.
“Okay. Deal,” he says.
I check it. “Number two? You were planning this all along!”
He arches his brows and smiles. “Not gonna let you chicken out of this.”
The bartender sets down Derek’s shot. I steal it, throw my head back, and pour it down the hatch. I swallow quickly, cringing as I pray to God some of this alcohol will kick in soon.
“Seriously?” Derek asks.
“Get another, Number Nine,” I say.
Travis chuckles. I should punch that cocky grin off his face.
“It’s Raining Men” starts playing, and as Miss Laurie Firebomb takes the stage, I know it’s too fucking late for me to back out now.
Travis grins. “Guess I got a show to put on.”
He grabs my waist and pulls me to him, kissing me hard. That same energy I always experience with him is even more powerful in this moment, possibly because it’s mixed with my uneasiness about what we’re going to do.
Standing beneath our official Boxers and Briefs Strip-Off banner and flanked by helium balloons tied to either side of the stage, Miss Laurie Firebomb delivers her spiel about the fundraiser and the cause before setting a bucket for tips on a chair in front of the stage and saying, “The boy who collects the most tips for Seconds Chances is declared the winner of the Boxers and Briefs Strip-Off and receives a thousand dollar bar tab from our sponsor tonight, Flirt!”
The packed bar cheers and applauds. Even Hayden and Derek are clamoring with excitement. My legs are tense, as though they’re saying, You can try to get to the stage all you want, but we won’t be helping you.
I’m totally getting fewer tips than Travis. I fucking know it. And it’s going to be embarrassing when I get up there and totally wig out.
I want to back out, especially now that I know Peter and Evan will be watching me front and center.
“Please welcome our first boy to the stage,” Miss Laurie Firebomb says.
The music changes abruptly to Britney’s “Toxic.”
Everyone goes crazy as Travis steps onto the stage, totally owning his strut. The guys in the bar gawk at him. They must know by how his polo fits that whatever he’s about to show them is gonna look good.
Travis moves to the beat like he’s a fucking stripper. And an incredible one at that.
He grabs the hem of his shirt and pulls it off over his head, displaying the physique I’ve gotten to enjoy again and again these past few weeks. He whirls the shirt around his head before tossing it into the audience. A hand reaches up and snatches it. He’s never seeing that polo again.
He undoes his belt and zipper and turns around, lowering his jeans enough to reveal a neon pink jockstrap beneath them.
“Holy shit,” Derek says.
Clever bastard.
He didn’t warn me about that.
A crowd of guys rush to the edge of the stage, pulling out dollar bills and holding them out eagerly for Travis, who pulls down his pants slowly as he kicks off his shoes and then tosses the jeans to the guys before him.