“Crap,” Lucy muttered, “now I understand why he looked at me like a lunatic when I saw what was in the bag and started cussing at him.” She laughed again and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “I’m never yelling at him ever, ever again.”
“Riiiight,” Jayne said as she reached for the bottle of tequila and Grace held it out of her reach. “I’m gonna remind you of that the next time he pisses you off.”
They all laughed and Lucy said, “Who am I kidding? I love both of those men so much.”
“It’s probably a good thing y’all got that worked out before he and Patrick had a chance to get nose deep in nekkid titties this evening,” Charity said with a snicker.
Camilla giggled and said, “Don’t worry about that, Lucy. I’ve still got friends at the Dollhouse. Rachel and I have already seen to his and Patrick’s entertainment.”
Rachel nodded confidently. “Damn straight. They’re getting the ‘Cami and Charlotta Special.’” She leaned forward and high-fived with Charity.
“What’s that?” Maizy asked as she passed the tequila bottle without pouring another shot.
Charity provided the answer. “Y’all may not know this but our Rachel here is a bit on the possessive side. She wanted Eli to have fun at his bachelor party but didn’t want anyone touching him. Well,” she said with a shrug. “You can imagine how hard that was going to be when he was surrounded by strippers. I went with the guys to the Dollhouse, and I could see that Eli wasn’t really getting into the whole stripper thing, even though they tried. Rachel and I got on the phone and I acted on his behalf and hired Camilla, known then by her stage name, Cami, and her best friend, Charlotta, to entertain Eli for the evening.”
Several of the girls got quiet when Charity said that and she was quick to continue. “I filled Camilla and Charlotta in on the problem and asked them to make sure he had a good time but gave them boundaries they couldn’t cross. They took good care of him. Over at Rachel’s party, Adam did the same for her. As a matter of fact, Camilla’s boyfriend at the time, Brandon, and one of his friends, Jacob, were the ones who entertained her. Everyone had a good time.”
Emily Anne leaned forward with wide eyes and looked from Rachel to Camilla and then back at Rachel. “And you two are friends? You didn’t want to hate her for stripping for your man?”
Rachel giggled. “No, she and Charlotta abided by the boundaries Charity set that night to not touch his hair or his groin. I contacted her afterward for pole dancing lessons and Grace and I talked her into giving striptease lessons. Lemme tell you, those paid off. I trusted Eli completely, and I trusted Charity to handle it for me.”
Camilla shrugged and said, “It wasn’t just Eli I was stripping for, girls. A bunch of the guys saw me that night. They were all perfect gentlemen and have been ever since.”
Dr. Emma Rivers raised her shot glass and said, “Camilla even gave me poise lessons so I could walk in high heels without busting my ass.”
Juliana Peterson chuckled and leaned over to take the tequila away from Emma and said, “I love the striptease lessons. Firmed up my ass a little and Ash is really diggin’ the striptease.”
Maizy still had all sorts of conflicting thoughts about Camilla, even though she knew that she was happily married to two great men and had two precious sons at home. Cody, Heath, and Spencer had worked with her, had seen her strip nightly, and had been in love with her.
She supposed it didn’t really matter how she felt, since her relationship with the bears was a thing of the past. She’d refused to get her hopes up the day before, when she’d run into Heath outside Lucy’s place of business. She hadn’t heard from them that night. The emptiness in her heart had been painful and she’d been unable to sleep.
Several of the girls shifted seats in the back of the limo and Camilla settled next to Maizy and leaned close.
“How are you doing, Maizy?”
All the girls had found out about the breakup in the last few weeks and they’d been casting her sympathetic glances all evening. She felt like the lone wallflower in the group. Every other woman there was married or involved in a couple or a ménage, even Chloe and Emily Anne. She’d struggled to not feel sorry for herself, surrounded by so many happy women. Even Lucy, with her comic woes with Beck, was obviously happy with him and Patrick. She wouldn’t wish her any less, she just wished that it’d had been possible for her to find happiness with her bears, too.
“Hon?” Camilla murmured, patting her arm.