by Robin Leaf
“Here. This is the hospital where I work. If you come in to the ER tomorrow morning, I’ll ask one of the attendings to check you out.”
He takes the card like it’s covered in toxic waste and blinks at me. “I don’t have insurance.”
“This place doesn’t offer y’all insurance? Well that’s just –”
He shakes his head. “Yeah, they do, but I didn’t enroll in it because I was covered by my dad’s policy. I didn’t see the need to have them deduct something from my check that I get for free from Dad. However, he just changed jobs, and we’re not covered at his new job yet.”
Aww. He’s young enough to still be covered by his parents’ insurance. I just want to pinch his little newbie cheeks.
“I’ll see what we can do. We usually aren’t busy on a Saturday morning, but I will warn you. It’s a teaching hospital, so you might have to endure all the students watching and examining you.”
He lets out a relieved sigh. “No, that’s cool. Thank you, Ms.…” he looks down at the card, “… Sparks. Do you think it’d be better to go right after my shift tonight?”
It doesn’t go unnoticed that he’s calling me by my former last name and not my first, which means even he recognizes that I’m too old for him. Cute. I can’t roll my eyes; I must plaster on the nurse niceness reserved for the scared little tykes who visit the ER.
“No, sweetie,” I smile, patting his arm. “It’s probably just a harmless cyst. You’ll be fine for the next twelve hours. Just… when you come in, ask for me by my first name and tell everyone you’re my neighbor so you qualify for the friends and family treatment.”
Plus, I don’t want all my coworkers knowing I met him in a strip club.
“Cool,” he says, tucking my card into the waistband of his jeans. He grabs my hand and shakes it. “Thank you again. I’ll see you tomorrow,” he rushes out before quickly walking away.
Aww. He’s a cute kid, and it’s probably best that I didn’t pat him on the head before he left.
Rounding the corner to the restroom, I see a line, and the body language of these women standing in the hallway reeks of impatience and torturous discomfort. Now why would a place that caters to women have one women’s restroom containing only two stalls? It just doesn’t seem very prudent. All I need is a few seconds to myself, but I don’t want to wait with these women who look like they could get punchy real easily.
Luckily, to the left is an emergency exit without an alarm on it. I opt to try door number two. It takes a hefty shove, but I break through it.
“Thank God. Don’t let it –”
Stumbling over the metal thingy in the threshold, it’s obvious I’m going down. I let go of the door so I don’t break my arm and end up on my ass just as the door slams.
“—shut.”
Shit. I have an audience. I hope that fall was a little more elegant than it felt. I look up to see what I think might be one of the dancers towering over me, but I can’t see his face due to the blinding light behind him. He reaches out a hand, which I wave off. I’ll just lie here and let the humiliation really fester rather than accept his help.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I nod and take in his thick, muscular thighs, his tattooed arms, his bumpy chest and broad shoulders. I don’t make it all the way to his face before he lifts me under my arms like I weigh nothing and sets me on my feet. Wow, would you look at that? I only come up to his armpit, which I might add, I find pleasing, too. Who thinks an armpit is sexy? Could just be the whole package.
This man’s body screams bad boy, and although I feel a clench in my nether regions, my brain immediately rejects the idea of throwing the man on the ground and riding him like a cowgirl.
Bad boys are so not my type.
Once I feel that my flush can be blamed on the heat of the evening, I crane my neck up to see his face. I detect a bit of amusement, probably since it took me so long to travel up his body to get to the final destination. I hoped it would be really ugly, but no, I’m not that lucky. Slightly scruffy strong jaw, bitable lips faintly curled upward, and crystal clear greenish-blue eyes, ones that almost rival the aforementioned Mr. Hollywood, stare back at me, crinkling in the corners.
There has to be a reasonable explanation why my panties are suddenly damp. It’s one of two reasons: either my vagina is tearful because my brain rejected its very simple request, or I peed a little in the fall. At this point, I’m not sure which one I wish was true.
“Is it still there?” he asks.
His question makes me consciously aware that my hands are full of my ass, evaluating the damage, instinctively checking to see if there’s any possible contusions, or more importantly, checking for rips in my jeans. It actually feels okay, so why am I still clutching it? I take a minute to throw a silent shout out to the Big Guy that I didn’t fall on my front. I fear I’d be doing the same squeezy thing to my boobs, which could possibly be construed as flirting, or, you know, misdemeanor indecency. Small favors.
I start dusting my butt to play it off. “I was assessing my injuries.”
“Injuries?” He grabs my elbows and pulls me to the short wall behind us where he sits down. “Are you hurt?”
Turning me around, he takes his own visual assessment of my ass. I tamp down my vagina’s suggestion to bend over seductively, maybe give my ass a little smack then hope he takes the hint to massage the sting away. In fact, my vag is positively insisting that this idea really is a good one.
Don’t listen, brain.
“No,” I snap, turning around quickly and subtly backing away. I clear my throat. “No. Nothing but my pride. I usually try to be more graceful in my hasty exits from embarrassing and uncomfortable girl bonding,” I say flatly, ripping the still-there sash off, “but obviously I needed to make it mortifying.” I wave the sash in the air with fake enthusiasm. “Yay. Mission accomplished.”
I look around for a way out, but there is none. We’re in what appears to be a fenced-in, neglected courtyard. Some emergency exit. God forbid there’s a fire. Well, there’s at least one semi-naked firefighter on duty, although it’s highly probable that’s not his real day job; in that case, we’re screwed.
He smirks. “Yeah, we’re stuck out here. I found that out the hard way because I, too, know a thing or two about escaping embarrassing and uncomfortable girl bonding.”
“Oh, I’m sure you do, because clearly,” I wave my hand at his torso, “the estrogen flows freely within all those Hulk-sized muscles.”
His chuckle is cute. “So, since we’re now both locked out here, you can tell me what was so embarrassing that it had you needing to make a hasty exit?”
I clasp my hands behind my back and rock on my heels. “My friends brought me here to throw me a divorce party and got me a lap dance. I scared off the barely-out-of-diapers dancer by making him think he might have a tumor.”
His eyes widen and he sits back. “Yeah, that’s…”
Throwing my hands out to the sides, I give him a shallow curtsy. “That’s me.” I wink and throw him some finger guns. “The life of the party.”
He smiles. “I bet I can top it.”
I roll my eyes and move to sit near him on the wall. “Dazzle me.”
“On behalf of my best friend, I’m here chaperoning his wife and her bestie, who just had a baby.”
“Oh,” I say, raising my eyebrow, “so you’re not a dancer here?” I snap my fingers in an “aw shucks” motion. “I really thought I was right about that.”
“No, but thank you for thinking I was.”
He bumps my shoulder with his, and I have to stop myself from leaning my head on him and nuzzling.
“Anyway, they asked me to bring them here for the new mom’s first post-partum night out, and she proceeded to get drunk off a virgin piña colada and accused me of being in love with my life-long best friend, told me I had a dad bod, and said I have an inferiority complex.”
“What’s a little psychoanalysis among friends?” Lower
ing my voice, I ask, “Wait, is she wrong?”
His eyes meet mine. “Maybe about a couple of things.”
“Oh.” Now I know my vagina is about to weep. “So does your best friend know you’re in love with him?”
Please say no.
He spits through his lips, letting out a single laugh that causes that familiar clench yet again. Damn, one of his tattoos should be a warning label: May Cause Spontaneous Vaginal Seizures.
“No, no, not about that part, darlin’.”
I feel the vagina thing again, and my cheeks get hot. I mean handsome guys with eyes like Hollywood and bodies like Momoa frequently call me “darlin’,” but they’re usually riding a unicorn and taking me to Narnia.
“Well, I can assure you all the dads I know certainly don’t have a body that looks near as good as yours,” I blurt, reddening my cheeks a bit more.
“Thanks,” he smiles shyly. “So tell me why your friends would bring you to a place you obviously didn’t want to be to celebrate?” He lowers his head, still looking me in the eyes. “Or is this something you didn’t necessarily want to celebrate?”
I lift the wadded sash. “Oh yeah, pointing my failure out to everyone is definitely a reason to celebrate.”
He nudges my shoulder again. “You know, there’re two people in a marriage. You don’t own this divorce alone.”
“Yes, yes, there are two people. But apparently, he felt my effort to support the healthy lifestyle change to a vegan diet was… insincere.”
“Was it?”
“You bet your sweet ass it was. I give up tacos for no man.” I shrug. “But I did support his decision, finding recipes we both enjoyed and cheering him on. Hell, I even started exercising with him, until he started all the extreme outdoorsy shit. I let him tackle that all on his own.”
He nods. “I’ve read that it’s healthy for people to have their own hobbies within a marriage.”
“Sure it is. It’s why I supported him. Hell, I even went to an expert and bought him his own gear so he wouldn’t have to borrow his buddies’ stuff. The extreme outdoor hobbies, however, lead to indoor activities with a couple of his rock-climbing buddies.” I look away, admitting to him what I haven’t admitted to anyone, well, except Kelly. “The boys decided climbing each other was more fun than the rock walls.”
“Hang on, hold the phone. If he cheated, how is that your failure?”
I raise my hand. “Hi. I’m from a long line of married-for-lifers, so I’m the first freak in my family to break our perfect streak.”
“Really? In a country that has a fifty-percent divorce rate? Because it sounds like your family are statistically the freaks in this case.”
“Actually, the divorce rate is dropping. It’s down to thirty-nine percent for first marriages in the U.S. But if I get married a second time, my chances of divorce increase exponentially.”
“It’s probably dropping because fewer millennials are choosing to get married young, if even at all.”
“Yeah, I didn’t get that memo. I chose him too young, deciding I would prove everyone who said he wasn’t the right man for me, that we’d never work, wrong.” Shrugging, I admit, “Maybe they were on to something.” I absently lay my hand on his knee. “But hey, let’s stop talking about my failed marriage and discuss your issue.”
He furrows his brow in confusion, and it’s so friggin adorable, I really want to throw my arms around him. And my leg over him. Sit in his lap maybe.
Down, girl.
“You admitted that your friend might be right about your inferiority complex. Let me just say that if you’re feeling low about your looks, don’t. If so, it’s like a Twilight Zone episode that was on Nick at Nite when I was a teenager where this really smokin’ hot guy woke up in some Bizarro freak world, and they called him ugly. You are not in the Bizarro world, dude. You’re still a beautiful man, but I find when I’m feeling down on myself, I ask, ‘What one little change can I make to make me feel pretty again?’”
He lets out a laugh. “It’s not my looks.”
“Okay, but maybe a change is still all you need.” I shrug. “Figure out what you can change, focus on that, and kick it in the ass.”
Both of his eyebrows raise and he leans back to get a better look at me. “You know, that advice actually doesn’t suck.”
“Wow. My title just happens to be not-sucky advice giver, so you lucked out meeting me.”
“You’re pretty smart, Fun Size.”
I bark out a laugh. I get picked on for my shortness all the time, but from him, I’ll allow it.
“Thanks,” I offer. “Maybe instead, you should call me by my –”
The door bursts open, interrupting our introduction, and a cute woman stands there, amazingly not on her ass from the tricky door. Hmm. Must be nice.
“Sorry,” she announces, seemingly annoyed, to my new friend, waving her hand at him to hurry. “I just got your text when I was about to text you that they are pulling Vanessa on stage.”
My friend stands and pulls me up by the elbow through the door.
“She was just supposed to get a lap dance. Won’t she think this is better?”
“She does.” The woman makes a grunting noise and leans into him, lowering her voice. “But dude,” she leans in and whispers something in his ear I can’t make out.
My friend mutters a shushed, “Oh, shit,” and pushes past both of us.
I stand there, watching both retreat. “It was nice to be trapped with you,” I yell, probably swallowed by the feminine screams as “Pony” by Ginuwine, insert eye roll here, blares through the club.
Four
Dugger
“She was just supposed to get a lap dance. Won’t she think this is better?”
“She does.” Emily grunts, but she leans in to me and whispers, “But dude, not for Riley Tate’s wife, who some people might recognize, and a viral video of her on stage could be really bad.”
“Oh, shit,” I say, pushing past her and my cute new friend.
I think the cute girl says something to me. I was just about to ask for her name and work up to asking her out for coffee or something, but now, I’m singularly focused on saving not-drunk Vanessa from herself.
“Which way did he take her?” I ask Emily over my shoulder, making my way through the women who seem a lot more frenzied than they were before I left. That nineties stripper song, which is overused since that dumb movie came out, is coming to an end, so we need to hurry if we want to catch her.
“Toward the… uh oh. Dugger, look,” she says, pointing to the stage.
Shit.
I stop short, watching the scene unfold. Vanessa is led to a chair, and the guy, who I assume is Beck, moves in front of her. Luckily, the lights are blue and only showing their outlines, not shining in their faces. Framing Hanley’s version of “Lollipop” begins to blare, and the chicks in here go effin’ crazy. He bends over to talk in her ear, to which she responds with an enthusiastic head nod. Moving to straddle her knees, he places his hands on her shoulders.
“Ah, Jesus, man, real men don’t twerk,” I groan.
“Is there any way to stop this without making a scene?” Emily asks, seemingly worried.
I just stand there, motionless, unsure what to do. Mostly, Beck just moves around Vanessa, sliding across the floor on occasion, and yeah, humping the stage. The look of absolute joy on her face as she bounces with the beat of the song almost makes me feel guilty for needing to find a way to shut this shit down.
Would it really hurt to let her have this moment?
“Emily,” a man calls in an accent I can’t quite make out because of all this noise.
She walks over to the man, who seems vaguely familiar. Another man I don’t recognize is with him. As my eyes return to the stage, I move closer to Emily to hear what’s happening.
“— because it’s not like she’s in any danger, Fionn,” Emily defends, “so I don’t understand why the friggin’ cavalry arrived.”
&n
bsp; “When I took Darby to see Riley’s kids, he was worried about his wife, so Darby suggested I come to make sure she was alright. Noah was there visiting Cristiana’s parents, so of course, he insisted on coming.”
Fionn, if I remember right, is Riley’s bodyguard and was on duty in the shadows of Emily’s wedding, which explains why he looks familiar.
Vanessa’s hands are on Beck’s chest, getting guided around, which seems to be the go-to move of all the dancers. I’ve kept my eyes on Vanessa the whole time, noticing her demeanor slowly changing while she sits on stage. Whatever it is, Beck is in “the show must go on” mode, because he doesn’t seem to notice the difference in her, still dancing close and seductively. He performs this handstand thing on the chair, and it probably would impress me if she wasn’t looking like she’s about to pass out. She looks… uncomfortable, reluctant. My feet move me closer to the stage. If that ass hat is doing anything to make her feel uneasy, I will kick some ass and not bother taking names.
Beck steps over her legs like he’s mounting a Harley and grabs the back of her chair. The panicked look in her eyes tells me it’s time to rescue the damsel.
Before I can make it to the stage, Beck turns her chair around, holds out a hand to help her stand, keeping her turned away from the audience. I can’t see her face anymore, and that doesn’t sit well. She seems to protest a bit as he lifts her, wraps her legs around his waist, and twirls her a couple of times before he carries her off stage.
The fucker is gonna bleed.
I’m almost at the door to the side of the stage before I can really understand how I got there, and a big, barrel-chested, cyborg-looking bald guy moves in front of me, blocking my way with his hands raised. He should probably intimidate me, but the big ones are generally slow. I like my chances.
“Move.” I growl, not slowing down. I’ll knock his ass out if he doesn’t listen.