Everything I Left Unsaid(52)

“Who’s your friend, Joan?” one of the guys asked. His calculating eyes followed us and his joking had a heavy dose of mean to it. “You gonna give her a lap dance?”

“Fuck off, Steve,” she said.

“Can we watch?”

She ignored him, still pulling me into the shadows past the chairs around the stage.

Once we were in a corner dark and quiet enough, Joan stopped and turned on me, her hands on her hips. Behind her there was a girl on a man’s lap. His hands grabbing her ass, grinding her into him.

My entire body went hot and then cold. Between my legs, I got so wet. I swallowed a groan, watching that man’s fingers bite into her ass, the skin turning white and pink beneath his touch.

What does that feel like? I wondered, breathless and riveted.

The stripper had her hand up, braced against the wall behind the man’s head, her dark hair thrown back. The guy reached up and grabbed a handful of it and pulled.

I could hear the woman groan from five feet away.

And here’s the thing—I’d been on the bad end of all of that. I’d been hurt—but I could see the difference here. I could feel it in my body. In the air that we were all breathing in and out.

“Hey!” Joan snapped in front of my face, tearing my attention away from the couple in the corner. “Why are you here?”

“I…I’m…” playing this weird game with a man I’ve never met, and he told me if I want to have phone sex with him again, I have to go to a strip club.

No way could I say that.

“Is this some kind of weird stalker thing?” she asked. “Because the last thing I need right now is to have a weird stalker living beside me and following me to work!”

“What? No!” I cried. “No. I’m not…I’m not stalking you.”

“Are you gay? Because I’ve seen the way you look at me.”

I shook my head, so embarrassed I was pretty sure my cheeks were glowing. That day at the swimming hole. She’d noticed. Of course she’d noticed; I was about as subtle as a sledgehammer. “No. I’m not gay—”

“Bi?”

“Bi-what?”

“Sexual, you idiot! Do you like men and women?”

“I don’t…” I hadn’t really processed that. This weird attraction I had to Joan’s body. It was beautiful as a thing. Sexy as a concept. But I didn’t want to touch her.

I wanted to touch Dylan.

I wanted Dylan to touch me.

It was strange that I’d never really thought that before. Or looked past the parameters of this thing we were doing. Yes, the phone sex was…amazing and exciting, and his voice alone was enough to make me crazy. But what I really wanted was to be the couple in the corner.

I wanted him to grab me like that, to pull me and push me. I wanted him to make me groan.

I didn’t have the slightest clue what Dylan really looked like. He could be fat and hairy and all kinds of ugly—but it didn’t matter.

Because that was who I wanted. That man on the phone who’d never been a normal sixteen-year-old. Who called me back because he was worried that I was scared. Who texted me pictures of himself in a tux, like he knew he looked good.

“No,” I said. “I’m not bisexual or gay or stalking you. I’ve got this thing with a guy…”

“Same guy who gave you the bruises?”

“No.” Oh, God no. “Different guy. We do this thing on the phone—”

“Say no more,” Joan said, lifting up her hand, her face changing from confused and angry to begrudgingly respectful. “I don’t need details. And I have to say, I wouldn’t have pegged you for the type.”

“Here you are!” The waitress who took my order came up the small steps with a big, fancy glass with fruit sticking out of it on her tray. “I couldn’t find you.”

“Thank you,” I said, digging into my pocket for one of the twenties Dylan gave me.

“I got it,” Joan said. “Thanks, Denise.”

“No problem,” Denise said and she walked away.

“So?” Joan asked. “What are you going to do here?”

“Watch women dance, I guess.”

She gave me a long look. “How daring do you want to be?”

“It was pretty damn daring just walking in the door, trust me.”

“Yeah, but you’re here now. What are you going to do?”

“I’m supposed to call him…” I trailed off and glanced over her shoulder, back at that dark corner. The girl was now facing me, still on the guy’s lap, plastered really all along his chest and legs, like she’d been poured on him. Her eyes were closed and her face…well, if she was acting, if she was pretending to be turned on—she was totally convincing.

As I watched, the man’s hand slipped down across her tummy to cover her entire *, which was bare except for a small heart-shaped patch of hair. She twitched against him, her hand covering his, and as I watched, I wondered if she was going to lift that hand away. If that was against the rules or something.

But instead she held it there, grinding it against her, while she was grinding against him.

This. This moment. This was the hottest thing I’d ever seen.

“That’s Destiny,” Joan said. “Her real name is Renee, and when the song switches over she’s going to stand up, take that guy by the hand, and lead him over there.” She pointed to a dark alcove covered in one of those cheesy beaded curtains. “There’s a door there that leads back to the VIP room.”