“Fine.” I say, dramatically hanging my head in defeat. “Fine, fine, fine.”
I hear them cheer. Not my intended reaction.
I snap my head up, “ONE. DRINK.” I accentuate the statement by holding a single finger up. “One. Okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. One drink. No more.” Mysti says, sounding wholly unconvincing.
“I’m serious.”
“We know!” Percy says.
I push my chair back and stand.
Not a moment later, Becky’s tiny hand clasps around mine. I barely have time to grab my purse, before I’m being dragged toward the exit.
“Aw, cheer up,” she says. “Everything’s perfect. It’s gonna be great.”
I mumble under my breath. Something vague about terrible friends.
“What?” she asks.
“I said, one—”
“One drink! WE KNOW!”
She drags me out into the humid air, my heels clacking against the sidewalk.
I remember thinking, once again, that this is a bad idea.
It’s just one drink, though. One fucking drink—for real this time.
I mean, how bad can one drink be?
Sammi
10:37 AM SATURDAY
One drink, I said. No big deal, I said.
What a lie that turned out to be.
The way my head is pounding makes me feel like I drank all of the tequila in Thailand. And I’m pretty sure the aftertaste of it all will linger for a damn month before I can taste anything else besides tequila.
Let me tell you: as much as I love tequila, I might have to switch to something much less dangerous in the future. Like cocaine or meth. At least then, I’ll remember everything.
Things could be worse, though. It’s not like we haven’t been here before.
But if this is anything like what happened in Vegas, I need to buckle the fuck in.
In the bathroom, Percy seems to be entering the acceptance stage of grief regarding her pink hair and pubes.
My phone won’t stop ringing, and I’m seriously considering just throwing it into the pool. Silence that shit for good.
And I still have no fucking clue where my award is.
Nor do I have any clue where the hell the pile of ping pong balls in the corner came from. But they look…sticky. And they smell like…
Let’s just say I’m not eager to investigate those anytime soon, either.
That’s one mystery that can remain unsolved. Let the conspiracy theorists have fun with it. I’m washing my hands of it.
Which, speaking of, I really should wash my hands.
“Fucking pink,” Percy swears, rubbing her uncuffed wrists and staring at herself in the bathroom mirror. “Fucking typical. How bad does it look?”
“You’re owning it,” I deadpan. She actually is, though.
I can tell she’s about to challenge me on it when we hear another shout echo through the suite: “Get this bloody thing off me!”
Liam’s voice.
Percy and I share a quick look, and I free her from the radiator.
We rush into Becky and Liam’s room to see Liam spinning around in a panic with the monkey clinging to his head for dear life—and humping away at his ear.
“It just means that he likes you, baby.” Becky’s trying to calm him, but it would work a lot better if she could stop fucking giggling.
“I don’t want him to like me. I want him off my bloody head!”
“Establish dominance!” Percy chimes in.
“And how the fuck am I supposed do that?”
Becky and I look to Percy, and our former blonde just shrugs.
“I dunno. I just heard it in a movie once.”
I’m pretty sure that Liam is about to choke Percy to death. Becky just giggles.
“Maybe just let him finish, babe? I mean, it would be mean to stop him. Don’t want him to have blue balls, do you?”
I step in before Liam goes on a murderous rampage and pull the monkey from his head—narrowly saving Liam’s ear from ending up just as sticky as those ping pong balls.
“You should go shower,” I suggest, covering my mouth so he doesn’t see me laughing at him.
“Or call an exterminator,” Liam glowers.
I watch him give the monkey a two-fingered salute. The monkey reciprocates by flipping him off.
Liam storms off to a bathroom. Still giggling, Becky trots after him. She gives me a saucy wink as she passes.
“Babe…I hope you’re not thinking about getting all hot and steamy without me!”
As for the monkey…I set the little fucker on the ground.
The little guy looks so pleased and satisfied with himself that I’m half expecting him to pull out a cigarette from his tiny vest and light it up.
“Ugh. Y’all, I need food. I’ve got an appetite the size of—”
“Texas,” Percy and I groan simultaneously.
Hearing Mysti mention food as she stumbles into the room with ladyboy Celine Dion makes my own stomach growl. A new wave of tequila aftertaste comes up from my stomach and I internally curse at the man who invented the stuff.
But Mysti has a point. Food is good. And it would give us a chance to also piece together everything from last night.
I grab a quick shower to wash away the stench of last night from my body, using up far more soap than required. I’m still not sure it’s enough.
I use about half a tube of toothpaste to brush that lingering tequila taste from my mouth. Still feels like that wasn’t enough either.
We gather up: me, pink-haired Percy, Mysti May, Ladyboy Celine Dion, Becky, and Liam. The monkey, we leave to his own devices. He seems to have taken a liking to Liam’s pillow—probably thinks it smells like him.
Outside the hotel, we find a street cart selling pad Thai and load the fuck up.
For what feels like the hundredth time since leaving the hotel suite, Percy’s phone starts ringing again.
“Silver Fox?” I ask.
She rolls her eyes. “He’s a lot cuter when he’s quiet.”
“If you answer it and talk to him, he’ll stop calling.”
“Men! So fucking clingy. I just want food and for this headache to go away.”
She sounds annoyed, and I don’t blame her. Eggs has called me a couple more times himself, and I’ve ignored each one.
Until we’re able to piece together some idea of what the hell happened last night, I’m way too ashamed to speak to him—or admit to him that I might have fucked Lachlan Williams.
…or hear him call me Sammi-poo again.
Fuck, I hate that nickname.
Percy is hitting ignore on her phone again as we sit down to eat. Which, actually, gives me an idea.
Phone. Yes.
I pull out my phone and go straight to the picture gallery.
“Guys. Phones out. See if there are any pictures in there from last night.”
It’s a good plan. It worked last time, right?
I’ve got nearly a hundred pictures on my phone from last night. Almost all of them have a thumb over the camera lens.
And apparently, it’s the same for everyone else.
“Oh, look. It’s Liam and the monkey.” Percy holds up her phone for everyone to see.
All of us but Liam try not to laugh at the sight of the monkey humping his leg.
“A true love story for the ages,” Percy guffaws, unable to keep it in anymore.
“Cheeky bastard,” Liam grumbles and stuffs his face with some noodles. “Though I can’t argue with his taste in men.”
“Me neither, babe,” Becky says, snuggling up to her husband and snagging the lime slice from his pad thai.
I sift through some more pictures. Thumbs, thumbs, Percy flashing a tuk tuk driver…but nothing useful.
Until finally I come across one that does catch my attention. It doesn’t reveal much—it’s mostly still just a giant, blurry thumb. But in the background of that picture I see a locale that looks all too f
amiliar—even though I don’t fucking remember it.
The sign in the background reads in bright pink neon: Ladyboy Cabaret.
“Anyone remember this place?”
I hold up my phone and get a bunch of head shakes in response.
Until, that is, I turn the phone screen to the direction of Ladyboy Celine Dion.
“Uh-huh. Hell no. Not going back there,” Mysti’s new friend pipes up.
“Wait, why?”
Finally, some answers.
“Nope!” the ladyboy says, crossing her arms over her ample chest.
…okay. Or not.
“Trust me. Whole place, no good.”
“Aw, come on. It’s a caberet. How bad can it be?” Percy says, turning the phone her way again. “Hey, is that my thumb?”
I swat her hand away from the phone screen. This isn’t the time for jokes—or for Ladyboy Celine Dion to be holding out on the deets. I want answers. I need answers.
“Nothing but trouble is why,” Ladyboy Celine Dion professes. “They won’t happy to see you back there again, that’s for sure…”
Mysti tries to pry some information with some whispers of sweet nothings and neck kisses, but even that doesn’t work. In fact, it just makes Ladyboy Celine Dion slap Mysti May across the face and storm away.
With our new companion being a dead end, that leaves us—or me—with only one real choice. I need to go there and see if anyone knows anything.
We look through more pictures in the hopes that we can piece together more from the night before. All we really get a look at is how awesome we’ve been at photographing our own thumbs.
At least the pad Thai is good. Or so I think. It’s hard to tell with that lingering tequila aftertaste.
Liam and I hail a couple tuk tuks for us. There is no fucking way that we’re all going to fit into just one.
Our group arrives in one piece, and Liam forks over the money to cover the rides. God knows he has more than enough to cover it. As if he’s not a billionaire already—with all that mysterious money he gained last night, he’s swimming in cash right now.
I step through the threshold of the cabaret, and I think that I will finally have some answers.
As if I’m that fucking lucky.
No, instead we get chanced out by some tiny Thai Tina Turner impersonator swinging a broom at us. She’s yelling in this high0pitched shrill voice that could shatter glass.
It’s enough that the stray dogs in the area are howling along with her.
And I’m pretty sure my head wants to explode like Mt. Saint Helens.
“No! You’re not welcome here! Ever!” She bops Liam in the chest as she yells. “You stole my best Celine Dion!”
And suddenly, I can imagine exactly where Myst picked up her special friend last night.
“Look, we’re all terribly sorry, okay?” I offer a genuine apology.
It isn’t enough, and she aims her broom at me next.
“Don’t care. You leave now. Never come back.”
As much as I want to piece everything together, I don’t want to get smacked in the tits by some angry Tina Turner singer in front of some foreign cabaret.
“Okay. Okay.”
We take our leave before she starts to beat on us.
I’m making my way back outside when I hear this scratchy voice from inside start singing. I’m straining my ears to make heads or tails of it, but I’m pretty sure it’s that song from Titanic.
You know the one I’m talking about. Don’t pretend you don’t.
Anyway, I hear that fucking song, and there’s, like, a light bulb that goes on in the back of my brain.
Holy shit.
“Guys, I think I remember being here last night.”
I remember feeling a tongue on my lips—and I don’t mean the ones on my face—and I remember how good it felt. I remember the Tina Turner impersonator on stage singing What’s Love Got To Do With It.
Oh, god. I was here.
And I remember who with, too.
The light bulb in the back of mind explodes, and I’m hit with more details of the night before. It hits like a tidal wave that threatens to drown me.
But now I remember.
All of it.
…oh no.
Sammi
7:54 PM FRIDAY
Fuck, I love tequila. This is quite possibly the greatest tequila on the face of the Earth.
It’s certainly the most fucking exotic. Where else are you going to get tequila, or any liquor for that matter, with a fucking snake in it?
Bangkok, Thailand. I love this fucking city.
The tequila burns all the way down, which is exactly what I want it to do. It makes me feel better, and it makes it easier to forget shit. It’s even making the current company appealing.
And I didn’t think it was possible for any amount of alcohol in the world to do that.
I look Lock over and don’t even realize that I’m biting my lower lip.
That sandy blond hair looks as smooth as silk. His ocean blue eyes make me want to dive in head-first. Then there’s the way that the scruff on his face only makes his smile look that much sexier.
“You know I can see you staring at me, right?” Lock asks, eyebrow raised.
I blink a couple of times then have the good sense to blush and then turn my eyes away from his awful, scruffy fucking Chris Hemsworth face.
My focus shifts from him to Mysti and her Celine Dion-esque companion. Mysti is fawning over the impersonator and—for the time being—looks happy and content.
Ladyboy Celine Dion wouldn’t be my first pick for Mysti May’s next paramour, but I’m happy for her. Her love life is a colossal shit show of unspeakable proportions—so if she wants a fling with a Thai ladyboy who can perfectly lip sync to “My Heart Will Go On”, who am I to stop her?
Speaking of shit show…
Becky and Liam are up on the stage, putting on a show that nobody is going to forget for a very long time. We should have known that this would happen when the performers pulled them up on stage a couple of minutes ago—this is Vegas all over again.
Liam has his tongue down Becky’s throat, and Becky is grinding on Ladyboy Janet Jackson while giving a Liam a hand job through his pants. And I’m fairly certain some of the onlookers are playing with themselves as they watch.
As if the city wasn’t hot enough, those two had to go dial it up to eleven.
I look down at the bottle of cobra tequila in my hand.
Thanks for giving me an awkward lady boner.
Percy is somewhere out back with the performers—I think—with her new pet monkey. I don’t remember when she bought it.
Hell, she might have just found it and claimed it as her own. It’s hard to tell at this point. But for now, she seems to be the one who’s on their best behavior.
Relatively speaking.
“You having fun yet?”
I turn back to the hunky Aussie.
He looks at me from over the bottle of his Singha.
Our eyes meet, and I really hate myself for wanting to fuck him right here and now.
I hate his smug fucking grin. I hate the way he looks like he lost his razor two weeks ago, and his face is thanking him for it. And the way he looks at me with those eyes—I hate that most of all.
Especially considering the way it’s making my pussy ache.
I shouldn’t want him. I don’t want him. After the shit that fucking Eggs put me through earlier, I don’t want to fuck anyone right now.
Especially not Lachlan fucking Williams.
Except I do. I so fucking do.
And even though I know it’s bad…but between the show on stage and the tequila in my system, I find myself not really caring.
Stop thinking about it, then. Drink. Drink and forget, bitch.
“Could be better.” I take another sip of my tequila. My eyes never leave his while I lick my lips. “Could be worse.”
“There’s no pleasing you, is there?”
“Is that so?” His interest is obviously piqued. “Enlighten me then, Sammi. How’s a man like me gonna please a woman like you?”
“If you have to ask, then there’s too much for me to teach you in one night.”
“Funnily enough…” Lock leans in, licking his own lips. “I’m a fast learner. Try me.”
I’m staring him down like I’m a Great White shark hunting a seal. My focus is purely on him. Him and his lips and that scruffy fucking chin of his.
Try him? Oh, I’ll try him alright. I’m just about to tell him so when Becky and Liam sit back down at the table.
“Oh, my god,” Becky giggles. “That was fucking fun.”
Liam tugs his shirt back on and looks down at his crotch. “Fun enough that I’m going to need a fresh pair of trousers, love.”
Becky squeals and hops on his lap. Round two begins with them promptly—and Lock and I turn our attentions back to each other once again.
“So, you’re saying that you’re easy to please.” He picks up where we left off.
“I’m easy, at least,” I say with a smile.
We take a drink at the same time, eyes locked on each other. My greens on his blues.
He finishes his beer first and slams the bottle on the table.
I barely swallow my tequila in time to feel his cold, wet hands cradling my face. His lips crash into mine like it’s a head-on collision on the freeway.
It’s intense, raw, and passionate. It’s everything you could possibly want in a kiss. It’s everything that a kiss should be.
It leaves chills running up and down my spine. My arms are covered in goosebumps. The hair on the back of my neck stands up.
It’s unlike any kiss I can ever remember.
‘Remember’ being the key word here.
His lips pull away from mine, and I whimper.
Can you fucking believe that? I fucking whimper it was so good.
When he pulls away, I’m licking my lips just to savor his taste.
I open my eyes, expecting to see him looking at me with that smug fucking grin on his face, but all I see is Mysti and Ladyboy Celine Dion making out at the table across from us and an empty seat where Lock should be.
The King's Virgin Bride: A Royal Wedding Novella (Royal Weddings Book 1) Page 20