There was a guy on the stage. He was shirtless and wearing just a pair of dangerously low-slung sweatpants. At that moment, he was down on his knees, rolling his hips into the air.
Seeing that, I was torn between hiding behind my hands or breaking into nervous laughter.
Maybe both.
My confidence that I knew what I was getting into tonight took a severe hit.
Things had started off well.
It had been arranged that all of us girls would be driven to the club as well as have rides home. This was, according to Avery, so we could all feel free to drink, and because it helped avoid setting of the “over-protective asshole tendencies” their men apparently had.
Daz, Avery, and I picked up Ash, a pretty blonde with curly hair whose blousy top and well-fitting jeans made me feel a little better about how I’d dressed, and Ember, who looked right out of a pin-up photo in a skin-tight, off-the-shoulder top, a high-waist swing skirt, and heels of the Avery, how-do-they-even-walk-in-those variety. Her hair was even done up with big curls and a black bandana tied like a headband.
As soon as she got in the car, leaving a rather scary-looking guy in the door watching her leave, Avery asked, “How the hell do you look like that two months after having a baby?”
Wait, this woman just had a baby? It wasn’t possible.
“This skirt does wonders for covering the baby pooch,” Ember explained.
“Or the fact that she’s a kickboxing instructor and worked out nearly right up to the birth,” Ash whispered conspiratorially to me.
After that, the conversation in the car seemed to all focus on me. Where I was from, asking about my nursing program, my plans now that I was finished, and how I met Stone. It didn’t feel like an interrogation, and no one pressed when my answers about Stone were not overly forthcoming, so I was relaxed by the time we got to the club.
Once we were inside, that was a different story.
We’d met the rest of our group inside. Cami, Deni, Quinn, and Max rounded out a bevy of women that it was no wonder they caught the eye of a bunch of men like Stone. They were all gorgeous, and, like Ember and Avery at least, seemed to have a lot of attitude. Only Quinn and Ash seemed to be more on the quiet side like me.
Not even a minute after we were seated in a little area marked VIP, Max—who I could tell right off from her exuberant greeting was loud by nature—demanded Quinn’s phone to call her man, Ham. If Stone hadn’t given me Biker 101 lessons when I’d asked about his name, I’d have been most confused about Ham’s name of the guys I’d met. Since I knew road names could come from anywhere, I just went with it.
In trying to avoid watching the half-naked man and his thrusting, my eyes moved over the crowd of women raising drinks in the air and crying out jovially. It was why I noticed him first. Although, first only referred to the group I was with. Plenty of women around the room were noticing as he moved through it.
Though, it was a wonder if you could not notice him. He was huge. Standing at least a foot taller than me—but probably more—and built like some kind of mythical folk hero, he was garnering a whole lot of appreciation from the crowd.
It took a minute for me to realize he was striding right for our table with laser focus. Only once I caught on to that did I notice his cut.
So this was Ham.
Wow.
He honed right in on Max, seeming to stomp right up to her. Unless that was just the way he walked. I was inclined to believe it was stomping by the hard lines of his face.
“Hi, babe,” Max chirped up at him, not even a hint of caution at his expression.
“You fuckin’ owe me for this,” he growled.
“What?” she asked, and even though we’d just met, I couldn’t miss that the innocent tone she used was anything but.
“I gotta walk my ass in here with some dude up there putting on a show with his cock for a bunch of horny women that were ready to maul me just for walkin’ by, you gotta pay up later.”
“I need my phone,” she argued.
“Yeah, and you’ll be payin’ extra for leaving it behind on purpose to make me do this shit just because it fuckin’ amuses you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I was starting to think Max was a little bit crazy until Ham gave her a wolf’s grin before leaning in to say something in her ear. Seeing that, I understood. This was a game, and they were both playing it.
Ham took his time at her ear, then moved down to her neck. That was my cue to look away. Desperate for something to watch that wasn’t the show on the stage or the one being put on a few seats away from me, I grabbed a drink menu off the table. None of the words filtered through, but I kept my eyes on it until I heard Ham speaking full volume again.
“All right, I’m getting the fuck out of here. Gonna go the back way and avoid the cock-thirty cougar party.”
Avery chimed in there with, “If you’re trying to avoid the show, I might not recommend the back way. The guys aren’t great about staying confined in the dressing room.”
Ham glanced between the curtain beside the stage and the way he came before he said, “Surprised I made it through that mess with all my clothes in one piece. Not anxious to see any dicks, but it ain’t nothing I don’t have. I’ll take my chances. Besides, your man’s back there in the office?” Avery nodded. “Might pop in and try to knock some goddamn sense into him again. Fuckin’ male strippers.”
That earned him some laughs, but I was too caught up in the whole scenario to join in. As if he could sense I hadn’t had the proper reaction, Ham’s attention honed in on me.
“You’re Evie?”
I nodded, and he grinned.
Wow.
Max was a lucky girl.
Ham looked to her and said, “He’s so fucked.”
What?
He focused back on me, saying, “You look like a good girl. Be careful with this one.” His head jerked Max’s way.
My eyes darted to her, then back. “She seems nice,” I blurted.
He chuckled and muttered, “Totally fucked” as he did.
Weird.
Ham turned, leaned over Max, and said—still loud enough for us all to hear—“Give me a kiss so I can get the fuck out of here, toots.”
She obliged.
When they disconnected, he took off toward that curtained doorway. I saw Max watching as he went, her expression wistful. She loved him, and I was struck by how beautiful that was…
“Damn, he has a great ass,” she announced.
Okay, so they had what seemed like a strange relationship to me, but what did I know?
Even with all the barbs they traded, I was certain I wasn’t imagining the real emotion between them. And maybe the way they squared off was exactly the reason they fit. It was strange, but that made it even more beautiful.
Once he was gone, she turned her attention back to us to announce, “We should get some shots!"
I was sipping on my fourth drink—doing this so I wouldn’t be yelled at by Max again for not drinking, but knowing I really needed to slow down—when a body plopped down on the couch next to me. My attention swung that way to see the sweatpants guy from the stage sitting next to me.
My mouth was hanging open, but he showed no reaction to that as he grinned and said, “Hi.”
I didn’t even have it in me to stumble out my umms. He was sitting there in a white t-shirt and jeans, his legs already up and resting on the low table in front of us. I wondered if any of the other women in the club noticed him there, but I was too afraid to look away for fear this was part of the show and he was going to get up at any second and start stripping right there.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’ll keep my clothes on. Unless you don’t want me to,” the very attractive male stripper offered.
“Leave her alone, JJ,” Avery called to him.
JJ, as he was apparently called, stuck out his lip in an exaggerated pout. Even making that face, he still looked like he could be in a movie playing the really gorgeous boy next door.
Well, if the boy next door took his clothes off in front of a room of cheering women, anyway.
“First you turn me down all the time, then you up and fucking leave, and now you’re cockblocking me? What gives, Cherry Pie?” he complained.
“She’s off limits,” Avery shot back, unfazed.
JJ’s eyes came to me, and even in the dark club, I could tell they must be a brilliant blue. “You belong to a Disciple?” he asked with more than a hint of surprise.
“Um…no?”
“You don’t sound too sure about that.”
“I don’t, but…” I managed to shut my big mouth before I blurted out the rest.
“But you want to,” JJ supplied anyway.
Yes.
I didn’t say it, but I could tell he read it in my face anyway.
He looked around the L-shaped couches we occupied. “Any of you not spoken for?”
A couple of the girls shook their heads at the same time Max announced, “I’m not.”
Quinn rolled her eyes. “Yes, you are.”
Cami laughed as she informed him, “She’s Ham’s so I would not go there.”
JJ eyed Max. “You’re gorgeous, babe, but I’ve seen that fucker. I like my face the way it is. Pays the bills, you know?”
“Fine,” Max muttered, downing more of her drink. I was pretty sure it was her sixth, or maybe she was on seven now. At the very least, she’d been overruled on the shots idea. I’d never done a shot—not that I was going to say that with her around—but I was pretty sure it wouldn’t end well. Then, she dropped her disgruntled attitude and perked back up to ask, “Do you sleep with women that come in here a lot?”
“Max!” Quinn reprimanded. It seemed like she did that or the eye rolling a lot when it came to Max. I’d learned that Max had been Quinn’s best friend for years. When Quinn moved here to be with Ace, her husband, Max decided to come, too, and that was how she ended up with Ham.
“What? It’s a valid question,” Max argued.
Deni leaned toward me to share, “I’d settle in, she’s just getting started.”
So, I did. While Max asked JJ how much body oil he used, how he decided his costumes, if he could do the “Dirty Dancing” lift with her, as I sipped my drink. Without thinking it through, I drank the one the waitress replaced it with, too, until after the inquisition ended.
A while later when the waitress returned with a tray of shots to groans and Max’s delighted laugh and order to “Drink up, bitches,” I didn’t protest.
I also learned that shots burned.
Still, I was having the most fun night I had ever had, so I enjoyed that burn as it settled into a heat in my chest. Girls’ night was the best.
“Okay, one more,” Max piped up after the empty shot glasses were taken away. “Do you accidentally hit yourself in the balls a lot?”