Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 129460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Kyla hands me a business card for a nightclub a few spots up from my apartment building. “I can’t afford to book out the place like Heidi, but the owner promised the basement is ours for as long as we want it.” I finally click on to what she’s asking when she leans in close and whispers, “Although I’d rather your performance be directed at me instead of Jess. I get she’s single, but isn’t a bachelorette party meant to be the bride’s last hurrah?”
“You’re getting married?” I mutter, finally clueing on.
When Kyla nods, I add, “And you want me to dance at your bachelorette party?”
Jess shoots daggers across the room when Kyla drags her teeth over her lower lip before faintly nodding again. “Or strip. You know… whatever you call it.”
My breathy chuckle adds to the heat on her cheeks. “Ah… thanks for the offer, but I’m not a stripper.”
I hand her back her card and attempt to sidestep her. I say attempt as I don’t get half a stride away before she fans her hands across my chest, stopping both my feet and my heart in their tracks. “We can negotiate. What about five hundred?”
“I’m not interested.” I remove her hand from my chest perhaps a little too abruptly when my movements see Jess drifting closer to our exchange. “But I am sure if you ask Jess where she hired her last adult performer, she’ll point you in the right direction.”
“I don’t want another entertainer.” Kyla stumbles over the word like Jess does her feet when she touches me again. “I want you.”
“Okay, Kyla. I think it’s time for you to find Gerard. Your fiancé.” Jess yanks her hand down from my chest so fast, the whoosh is audible in the noisy space. “I bet he’s wondering where you wandered off to.”
As she leads Kyla toward a group of drunken men in the corner of the room, Jess turns her remorseful eyes to me. She’s apologetic about my uncomfortableness but not enough to apologize on behalf of her friend.
I don’t mind. It isn’t up to her to apologize for his fuck-ups.
Needing air before my past rears its ugly head, I tell Susan I’m taking my docked ten-minute break before making a beeline for the alleyway I spotted during my clean-up of dinner.
I’ve only just pulled out the cigarette packet I hide from Octavia in my dirty sock drawer from my pocket when a soft voice at my side chides, “Smoking is a filthy habit. You really should give it up.” After stepping out of the shadows, Heidi nudges her head to the packet. “Can you spare one?”
I jerk up my chin, pull a cigarette out of the packet that’s mostly full even with it being opened a month ago, then offer to light it for her. I only smoke when I’m stressed. This seems like an ideal time.
The blissful expression Heidi has been wearing all day can’t be hidden when I light her cigarette with the lighter I borrowed from Octavia’s dad years before his death.
“Family heirloom?” she asks between puffs of smoke.
“Something like that.” I take a long draw of my cigarette before clouding the dark night with plumes of gray smoke. “Husband doesn’t know you smoke?” I ask when she glances back at the wedding party before taking a second puff.
While exhaling the smoke littering her lungs, she shakes her head. “He also isn’t aware I can’t cook, I snore like a truck driver, and this is a sham.” She waves her hand down the front of her lacy white dress during her last statement. “He’s either in for a rude awakening or an annulment.”
Through a croaky laugh, I say, “I doubt it. I saw the way he looks at you. He’s smitten.”
Relief crosses her face before she mutters, “I’d give your statement more credit if it were given by anyone but you.”
I fan my hand across my chest as if wounded by the callousness of her words. “Whatever do you mean? I’m a relationship expert.” I knew long before Octavia’s parents’ divorce that they were heading down that route.
I choke on the smoke that’s meant to be in my lungs when Heidi says, “I saw the way you looked at Jess last week. That wasn’t the watch of a man wanting a night off from husband duties.”
A long chain of smoke leaves my mouth when I advise, “I’m not married.”
“I know.” She nudges her head to Jess, who’s once again being pestered by her fiancé, Warren. What kind of name is Warren anyway? Sounds as jerkoffish as you can get. “And so does she, but you scare her so much, she’d rather pretend you are married than acknowledge the fact you left her high and dry last week.”
I left her high and dry? My balls have been aching for a week.