Good Time(8)

There’s not even a casting couch.

We sit, Vince flicking his wrist to check the time on his watch and announcing that we have fifteen minutes.

I glance at Lydia, waiting for her to start but she looks like she wants to throw up. No worries, that’s why I’m here. I’ll distract Vince until Lydia pulls herself together. By distract I mean I’ll get to know him better.

“Do you have multiple girlfriends?” I ask.

“Excuse me?” Vince’s expression barely changes, like at all. He focuses on me, head tilted a fraction in my direction, but I know he heard me. It’s not even that weird of a question considering where we are.

“You know, like Hugh Hefner did?”

His eyes narrow now, just a bit, as he sizes me up. I try not to smile.

“I run a gentlemen’s club in Vegas, not a lifestyle magazine,” he replies after a moment, refuting my question without really answering it.

“Same thing.” I shrug and shake my head. The movement causes a lock of hair to tumble into my face so I twist my lips and blow it away with a huff as I bring the cup of iced coffee to my lips, pausing before I take a sip. “Anyway, do you?” I shake the cup to stir what’s left of my drink, an unnecessary habit causing the ice to rattle against the sides.

Vince’s gaze flicks from the cup to my lips as I take a sip. I suspect the ice-rattling will drive him nuts before we’ve reached our first anniversary.

I rest my forearm over the arm of the chair, the cup dangling from my fingertips as I settle back into the chair. It’s a very comfortable chair. I wonder if the girls sit here to negotiate raises. Then I wonder if strippers get raises. They should, but I’ll ask later because I don’t want him to think I’m going to tell him how to run his business on our first date. I probably will tell him how to run his business, but that’s besides the point.

Vince is silent and Lydia is still fidgeting in the chair beside mine so I fill the void by explaining why we’re here. I tell him that Lydia is in love with Rhys and that Rhys is going to fall in love with Lydia if he’s not already and then she’ll move in with him and I’ll have to get a new roommate.

I know the roommate concern is selfish but it is a worrisome thought. Living with Lydia is like having Mary Poppins for a roommate, she’s practically perfect in every way. I’ll never be able to find another roommate to fill her shoes, so to speak, so it’s going to suck when she moves out. And she will, I know she will. Rhys is going to fall for her and whisk her off and then I’ll be alone.

Unless I replace her with Vince.

I realize this is a leap, but fate is a capricious bitch and who am I to doubt her?

Plus I’d like to have sex with Vince so there’s that.

I can’t imagine he’d want to move into my apartment in Henderson, but that’s okay because I’m sure he has a nicer place than I do and sometimes you have to make compromises. People often use the word ‘compromise’ when they’re actually getting everything they want. Like me, right now.

“I could be your third girlfriend,” I offer. Hef had three girlfriends, maybe Vince has a mansion filled with girlfriends too? I might be okay with that. I mean, I can’t know for sure unless I try it, right? I’m a pretty independent woman so I think I could be cool with a timeshare boyfriend. If there were three of us I’d still get him two point three nights a week. I’d use the remaining nights to have dinners with my friends or wax my legs or catch up on episodes of Love Island.

Unless he has seven girlfriends. I need more than one night of attention per week.

“I’d be open to being girlfriend number three,” I clarify, just in case he’s got seven. “I don’t want to be girlfriend one or two, it sounds like too much responsibility, you know? Also I’d like my own room. Is that how you do it? Do the girlfriends all get their own rooms? That’s how Hef did it. Do you have a nice place? Because I’m not sharing you if you live in a shitty condo with coin-operated laundry.”

That’s the thing, isn’t it? Hugh Hefner without the mansion would have been weird. Exceptions were made for Hef because of the mansion and the parties and the room service. Can you imagine living in a house where you could call the kitchen and order food delivered to your room? I can. I can imagine it. Because I saw it on an episode of that show Hef did with his girlfriends.

Or what about that show where a bunch of women compete for the same guy at the same time? In what world does that happen? One guy dating twenty-eight women at the same time? While they all live in the same house? That shit would not fly on a college campus, I can assure you. Not even if each girl had her own room and the guy was the star of the football team. Nope. But stick everyone inside of a beachfront estate in Malibu and suddenly it’s normal.

I should probably watch less reality television.

“Are you serious?” Vince blinks twice and his expression isn’t exactly neutral anymore. I’m not sure what he’s feeling but it’s okay, because he’s definitely feeling something and that’s really all that matters. I’ve stirred feelings in him. It may be agitation versus arousal but it’s a start. Besides, I bet he’d be great at the hatefuck. God help me, why is he so attractive?

“Serious as a shark,” I tell him while I try to block out the image I’ve just created in my head of him tying my hands together with a tie and bending me over that desk.