I'd been in my first strip club when I was fifteen. Dad and Uncle Patrick had taken me to a place in Chicago where twenty-dollar bills were shoved down the G-string of a woman, not one-dollar bills. The women there were finer than anything I'd seen in high school. At that point, I didn't realize how much a woman's body could be cosmetically enhanced—from breast implants to butt implants, those ladies were surgically sculpted “perfection.”
Dad told me he wanted me to learn to be a man, which included knowing how to please a woman in bed. If I could get a whore off, I could get anyone off. I loved my dad and missed him so much, it felt like I was missing a limb, but I would be the first to admit he was fucked up when it came to women.
Because I loved him but didn't want to be him, I'd avoided the family construction business when I got out of college, opting to flip houses instead. And I'd tried hard to treat every woman in my life with respect. But the one woman who mattered, I'd fucked up with. She hadn't taken my calls, answered my texts, or responded to my emails—the ones I’d sent after I realized I’d screwed up. I knew what she was thinking—that we’d made a mistake, and I had let her think that while I sorted out my own head.
The only real mistake was letting her run for so long.
A hard elbow in my side had me looking over sharply with a "fuck you" on the tip of my tongue, but it was just Adam. He gave me a slight nod of warning and a look that said "pay attention." He was right. I was winning the crew over even if Henry had reservations.
"You bored, son?" Henry mocked, but his tone was half-envious, as if he wondered how I was immune to all this jiggling flesh.
"Just making sure we don't die of thirst," I answered. "Why don't you pick out a place for us, and I'll get the drinks." The three other guys who worked under Henry nodded in enthusiasm, but Henry narrowed his eyes as if I had some trick up my sleeve.
I did, but it had nothing to do with Henry and our stupid little power plays. At the bar, most of the guys had their stools turned because even though the place was ringed with mirrors, they were here to see the live show. The bartender gave me a nod of acknowledgment and held up one finger. After a minute, he hustled down. Wiping the bar top with a rag too wet to absorb any liquid, he gestured for my order.
"Two pitchers."
"Eighteen dollars."
I laid a twenty on the bar top, but when the bartender tugged at the bill, I didn't let go. "Which section is Winter Donovan's?"
He squinted and then looked past me into the club. When he didn't spot her—because she wasn't on the floor—he shrugged. "Left side of the stage, near the front."
The front left side of the stage was nearly shrouded in darkness, but I saw a table big enough for six that would make Henry happy and would put me in prime viewing of all the other tables in Winter's section. "Thanks." I laid another five on the bar top and shoved the bills toward him.
Across the room, I managed to catch Adam's eye. We'd been friends since kindergarten, so it wasn't hard for Adam to read my intentions. He placed a hand on Henry's arm, stalling him while I went to claim the table—the one that was occupied.
No one from the table noticed me when I approached. They were too busy staring slack-jawed at the stage, where a pretty Asian girl worked the pole like gravity didn't exist. "A hundred bucks for your table." I slapped down the bill in the middle of them, and the five guys stared at it and then me for the three long seconds it took to make up their minds.
One meaty hand dove across the table and snatched it up. "All yours."
I dropped the pitchers, sat in my chair, and waited.
A tall, busty blonde in a sheer black baby doll nightie and shorts so tiny they might as well have been underwear showed up after Adam, Henry, and the others took their seats. She arranged glasses in front of us and poured the beer.
"Where's Winter?" I asked. I felt like a broken record.
The blonde gave me a long perusal, and I gave her my smile, the one my last girlfriend said made her panties wet and her heart beat faster. I didn't know if it had the same results on the waitress, but it worked enough to get her to soften her intense gaze. She tipped her head toward the other side of the room. Through the flashing lights and fog creeping over the stage, I saw the fall of Winter's black hair that fell like a silk curtain. It tumbled forward as she leaned over and passed drinks to tables.
"Thought this was her section."
She gave me a sympathetic shrug. "Things change. Sometimes we trade. I promise I can deliver a beer and a burger as well as Winter."
"I don't doubt that." Carrying on a conversation in the middle of any club was impossible, so I gave up. The blonde took our order and hustled off. I stared across the room, tracking Winter's every movement. The club was designed so every eye would be focused on the stage. All the lights were directed there, leaving the rest of the place shrouded in darkness. But I knew her, even in the dark, so it wasn't hard for me to make out her shape, to watch her move from table to table, to get turned on whenever she bent over.