“Oh, sweetie.” Gia knew exactly where Wendy’s irrational question had come from.
“You saw the way he rebuffed her at Elise’s rehearsal dinner,” Wendy said, reflexively still attempting to argue her case. “He broke her heart.”
“Right, but you weren’t there when we had the big confrontation with him later that night, when he showed his true colors.”
“So everyone keeps telling me. But I wasn’t there because I was busy trying to spackle Jane’s shattered heart back together enough that she could get through Elise’s wedding!”
She would never forget that night in the motel down the road from the wedding-site B&B where everyone else was staying, holding Jane while she cried because Cameron had publicly rejected her. Wendy’s heart had broken by proxy that night.
Wendy knew what it felt like to put on a party dress and stand alone under the lights while humiliation subsumed you.
“Well, trust me,” Gia said. “He rebuffed her because he thought he was saving her from him. Yes, it was shitty and idiotic, but he suffered as much as she did that night. Maybe more.”
“Are you forgetting that Jane started spending time with Cameron because he was such a menace that Elise assigned her to babysit him? I mean, we had meetings about what a menace he was.”
“Oh my God! Yes! I’d forgotten about that!” Gia laughed, clearly delighted by the memory. “That’s hilarious. That will make a good wedding toast.”
Jesus Christ. What was the matter with her? Embarrassment flooded Wendy. Shame, too. She ducked, praying the lights in the bar were dim enough that Gia couldn’t see her pink cheeks. Why couldn’t she get on board—really get on board—with this wedding?
“Hey.” Gia edged into her space but thankfully didn’t force her into eye contact. She merely placed a hand on Wendy’s arm. “Jane’s just getting married. She’s still gonna be your best friend.”
“I know,” Wendy said, too sharply.
“You guys.” Jane crashed into their space, and Wendy was seized with the momentary terror that she’d overheard them, but she clearly hadn’t, because she was holding Elise by the hand—Elise who was sobbing.
“Honey!” Gia held out her arms. “What’s wrong?”
Baby, Jane mouthed at them from behind Elise.
Oh boy. Wendy felt like a jerk, but she glanced at her watch. She didn’t want them to miss Gunnar. Elise sometimes had these…episodes, and they could last a long time. She was infertile, thanks to a pretty bad case of endometriosis, but she wanted a baby.
“Someone put ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ on,” Elise said through her tears.
Wendy and Jane exchanged a confused look. Guns N’ Roses had prompted a baby breakdown?
“She always thought it would make an excellent lullaby,” Gia explained. “It’s kind of a trigger.”
“Maybe you should give some more thought to adoption?” Wendy said gently. Elise had always dismissed the idea, but if the baby fever was so bad that 1980s hair metal songs were making her cry, she should reconsider.
“Or surrogacy.” Jane patted Elise’s stomach. “Grab an egg and do some laboratory magic. Any of us would carry it for you.”
Wendy met Gia’s eyes. She was pretty sure the look they exchanged meant they did not consider themselves part of “any of us” in this case.
“Aww, you guys.” Elise initiated a group hug, and when she pulled away, she wasn’t crying anymore. “I’m sorry. That song always does it to me, and the fact that I’m drunk doesn’t help. Anyway, no, no babies by any method. If it was up to me, I might consider it, but you know that’s Jay’s deal breaker.” It was true. Elise and Jay’s initial courtship had involved some drama in that Elise had assumed no one would ever want to marry her because of her inability to conceive. It had turned out to be a huge mark in her favor—Jay most decidedly did not want children.
“Honestly, a baby is probably the only thing that would ever cause us real problems,” Elise said. “The only thing that would ever come between us.” She laughed, but it wasn’t genuine. “So it’s for the best.”
“Still,” Wendy said. “I’m sorry.” Elise’s sadness was palpable, and it was hard to witness.
Elise shrugged. “What do they say? You can’t always get what you want.”
Wasn’t that the truth?
“Part of growing up is accepting that, I think,” Elise said.
Everyone kind of nodded in agreement, but a touch of awkwardness descended—until Gia clapped her hands together and said, “You know what this party needs?”
“What?” Jane asked.
“A stripper.” Gia winked at Wendy as the other two started shrieking.
* * *
Twenty-four hours ago, if Noah had been instructed to enumerate the lucky breaks he’d had in his life, it would have been a short though heartfelt list. The scholarship he’d gotten to NYU. His job, which allowed him to do important, fulfilling work even if maybe he did flirt with the workaholism that everyone was always accusing him of. Having Jane for a sister. Well, she’d be number one on the list.
And a more recent addition: how easy it had been to steal a key to Wendy and Jane’s room earlier, when they’d been having pre-dinner drinks. When he’d slipped back into the room after overhearing Wendy’s plotting, he’d just picked it up off the dresser.
One more thing that he was going to add to that list this evening?
The fact that Gunnar the Stripper Librarian showed up before the women did.
“Hey,” he said, pulling open the door to reveal a massive wall of man. There was no other way to describe the dude. Noah considered himself not bad in the body department, but this guy was a younger, less bald version of the Rock.
He was also wearing a skintight, short-sleeved white button-down shirt that strained over his enormous biceps, a red bow tie, and horn-rimmed glasses. In one hand he carried a duffel bag, in the other a stack of books tied together with a leather strap of the sort you saw in old-fashioned movies.
Gunnar looked down at his phone. “I’m sorry. I must have the wrong room.”
“Not at all.” Noah swung the door open. “The ladies will be here momentarily. Come right in. We’re all so looking forward to your…performance.” Which is all that’s happening tonight, buddy.
“Ah.” Gunnar flashed Noah a knowing smile and winked. “The more the merrier.”
Noah had to hand it to the guy. He was the consummate professional. If by “consummate professional” you meant “equal opportunity flirt.” Once he realized that Noah was staying, and jumped to the obvious conclusion, it was like he’d flipped a switch that turned on the full force of his charm.
For example, he brushed more closely against Noah than was necessary when passing through the door. Paused a little too long with a twinkle in his eye. Flicked Noah’s biceps, which, though not nearly as massive as Gunnar’s, were respectably defined, and murmured, “Nice.”
Damn, this guy was good.
“So, Gunnar,” he asked, as his guest started moving furniture around in the room’s sitting area. “Is this your full-time gig?”
“Kind of.” He pushed a side table against a wall and began adding chairs next to the sofa in order to create more seating. “I got into advocacy for sex workers a couple years ago and ended up writing a book on the topic. Now I’m in law school.”
“Really?”
The smooth façade dropped as Gunnar’s lip curled a little. “Really,” he said, with just a touch of defensiveness in his tone.
Aww, shit. “I didn’t mean to sound like a jerk. It’s just a coincidence—I’m a lawyer, too.”
That perked Gunnar up. “Cool! What kind of law?”
“Criminal prosecution. I’m a New York County ADA.”
“Now don’t get any Pretty Woman–type ideas here.” Gunnar started setting up some small speakers. “I’m not one of these hard-done-by people stripping and tricking to make my way through school. I’m always going to be a sex worker. I’m just doi
ng the law thing so I can be an advocate for the sex industry. Like, on the side.”
Noah chuckled. “You have to respect a man who knows what he wants.” It was true. “You probably make a lot more money than you would in most fields of law.”
It was Gunnar’s turn to chuckle. “You know it. ADA. You probably aren’t doing it for the money.”
“I’m in it for other reasons.”
“And those are?”
“I want to protect people.” He was surprised at how readily the answer came to his lips. He had never given much conscious thought to the motivations behind his career choices—that is, until he and Wendy had talked about it that night in New York when she had accused him of transferring his protective streak from his family to his job. But it was true—as usual, she’d seen him in a way no one else did.
“Why?” Gunnar asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You want to protect people. That’s noble. But why do you want to protect people?”
Well, shit. He didn’t have an answer for that. Other than “It’s what I do.” Anyway, what was this? Stripping with a side of psychoanalysis? “And why do you do it?” Noah asked by way of deflection. “Why are you into…stripping?”
“You can say it, you know.”
“Say what?”
“Prostitution. You guys ordered the deluxe package. No reason to be shy about it.”
“Well, I didn’t order it.”
Right. Gunnar looked down at his phone. “Wendy Liu did.” He grinned. “Never had a request quite like this one before.”
Oh, shit. He was going to throw up. He was actually going to be physically ill.
But fine. That’s why he was here. To cock-block Wendy. Again.
“Hey, you okay?” Noah felt himself being pushed into a chair. “Sit down. Take a breath.”
“What is this?” Noah asked. The chair he was sitting in had not come with the room. It was a sort of fancy folding chair.
“The lap dance chair. We need one without arms. Most of the hotels on the Strip have desk chairs with arms, so I come prepared.”
“You’re a regular Boy Scout.”
Gunnar waggled his eyebrows. “Wanna try it out?”
He resisted the urge to explain that it wasn’t like that—not that there was anything wrong with “that.” He was here purely for…other purposes. But he settled for “I’m pretty sure that’s not in the Boy Scout handbook.”
“Oh, come on.” Gunnar rotated his hips suggestively. “You’re forgetting about the lap dancing badge.”
* * *
“Where is the damn thing?” Wendy rifled through her purse as they all stood outside her room. “Jane, I can’t find my key.”
“Oh, I have mine!” Jane mimicked Wendy’s searching motion, digging around in her handbag. “I thought I did, anyway…Dang, it’s in the pocket of the jeans I was wearing earlier. Well, I’ll go down to the front desk and get a new one made.”
“No!” Everyone turned to look at Wendy. That had come out too vehemently. She was just oddly on edge for some reason. “You can’t miss the arrival of Gunnar!”
“The stripper is named Gunnar?” Elise asked, cracking up.
Gia produced a key and used it to open her own room. “That’s what adjoining doors are for, my friends. We left it open, I’m pretty sure.”
Right. Wendy tried to calm her nerves as she followed everyone in. She had an odd sense of foreboding, which was stupid. All that was going to happen was some innocent stripping followed by the “deluxe package” literary salon starring published authors Jane and Gunnar.
“I have to pee so bad!” Jane disappeared into the bathroom. “Don’t start without me!”
Wendy searched Gia’s face for any sign of the dread that was settling in her own gut. There was none—just a conspiratorial grin.
Gia moved toward the adjoining door. She had only just gotten her head through when she pulled it back abruptly and slammed the door.
“Noah is in there.”
“What?”
“And he is not alone.”
“Gunnar’s already there?” Elise asked.
Gia nodded. “And I’m pretty sure the two of them are talking about lap dances. Is that possible?”
What the fucking hell?
Goddamn him. So, clearly he had overheard her call in baggage claim this morning.
Wendy had been hoping the increasingly pervasive sense of sadness and foreboding overtaking her would disappear. Maybe she should have been more specific with that wish, though, because although the dread had disappeared, it had been replaced by rage.
White-hot, blind rage.
White-hot, blind, paralyzing rage.
“Did I hear you say my brother is over there?” Jane came out of the bathroom.
Gia nodded and looked like she was trying not to laugh.
“All right,” Jane said. “He has now officially gone too far on this whole party competition thing.” She pushed through the adjoining door, and Elise and Gia followed.
Wendy, though, was pinned to her spot. Unable to move. The paralyzing part of her rage was…paralyzing. Apparently her anger had done a number on her vocabulary, too.
Well, shit. The only way to play this was to own it. Clearly, Noah had heard her hire the stripper. He may or may not have assumed that the stripper was going to provide…additional services. But either way, it was none of his goddamn business. She took a deep breath and slipped through the door.
He was already looking at her.
And he wasn’t pleased with what he saw. His mouth pressed into a tight line, and a vein bulged on his temple.
“Noah!” Jane said after she was done shaking hands with the stripper—who knew strippers were so mannerly? “What are you doing here?”
He removed his gaze from Wendy and organized his features into a less menacing arrangement before turning to his sister. “I overheard some plotting”—his gaze flickered back to Wendy—“and I decided to crash the party.”
“Are you kidding me? I know you’re super invested in this whole older brother chaperone thing, but you can’t crash my bachelorette party!” Jane pointed at the door. “At least not this part of it,” she added in an urgent whisper.
He smirked. “I think I already have crashed your party.”
“Okay, okay.” Jane rolled her eyes. “Good job. A-plus. I didn’t realize this bet of yours”—she looked between Wendy and Noah—“involved sabotage, but with you two, I should have figured.”
Wendy was speechless. And that never happened. And Jane was right. This was some grade-A sabotage, even if it made her mad as hell. Not only was she going to have to award a point to Noah, she was going to have to award like a thousand of them.
Jane walked over to Noah and beckoned Wendy to join them. “I need a moment with the two of you.” Wendy tried to think of reasons she could credibly refuse to join her friend’s little confab but, coming up with nothing, walked to her doom while Elise, Gia, and Gunnar opened a bottle of wine on the other side of the room.
Jane motioned them even closer so they formed a little huddle. “Okay, first of all, Noah, you are leaving.” Before he could say anything, she added, “But before you do, let me ask you both something. Do you think this”—she hitched her head toward the party that was gearing up—“is okay?”
“Of course it’s okay,” Wendy snapped, belatedly realizing that her answer had come out way too brusquely. “You said Cameron could get a stripper.”
“I know, but I don’t think he’s going to.” Jane glanced at her brother with a questioning look.
“He’s not,” Noah confirmed. “He’s not going to care if you do, though,” he added, startling the hell out of Wendy. That was about the last thing she expected Mr. Morality Police to say. “It’s all harmless fun, isn’t it?” That last question came with a pointed look at Wendy.
“And it’s not like he owns you, Jane,” Wendy said, ignoring Noah’s scrutiny. “Sheesh.”
Jane shot Wendy a bewildered look. “I know that,” she said, her confusion starting to look a little like hurt, which made Wendy feel like a monster. “I just…God, I just love him so much. I would never want to do anything to hurt him.”
“Ah, Janie.” Noah mock punched his sister. “Two things. One: you know I don’t want to hear about that mushy stuff. But, two: I promise he’s not going to care, but if you want absolution in advance, why don’t you just ask him? Text him right now. I guarantee he’ll tell you to have a good time.”
Jane mock punched her brother back. “That is an excellent idea.” She pulled out her phone and started typing. A few seconds later, she grinned and turned pink.
“What did he say?” Wendy asked, half hoping Cameron would pull the plug on the whole thing. Because that strange, heavy sadness was still with her.
“He said…” She glanced at her brother and then made a show of turning the phone so he couldn’t see it but Wendy could.
Have fun. Then get your pretty ass in a cab and come over here. I’m about to kick Jay out of the room—he can bunk with Hector and Noah. Text me when you’re on the way, and I’ll meet you in the lobby.
Wendy’s throat started to ache. Before Jane lowered the phone, another text from her fiancé arrived.
In fact, no, I don’t want you alone in a cab so late. I’m coming to get you. I’ll wait in the lobby of your hotel. Take your time getting all wound up for me…and then we’ll go back to my room together.
It was followed by a string of eggplant and peach emojis and then a bunch of the nail polish ones, which was probably some lovers’ inside joke.
Wendy’s eyes started to water. It hurt to see such a display of…what? Chivalry leavened with the perfect amount of filth? God, the way he had exerted such a fierce possessiveness, yet left Jane free to do her own thing, to have her own fun. Well…it wasn’t what she had expected from Cameron.
And she was jealous.
Totally, utterly, mortifyingly jealous.
“Okay!” Jane did a little twirl and made her way over to Gunnar, who had already started his music. “Let’s get this party started.” She checked her watch. “Because I have twenty, thirty minutes tops.”
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