CALLUM
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Back in the windy city, life had returned to some semblance of normal and I found myself at the Vault with a few of my closest friends. This seemed to be a favorite pastime of ours. A group of us Titans would gather, drink, and drop a few bills into the g-string of a club dancer. Or at least, we all used to.
I glanced over at Gabriel who for the most part, tried to keep up with the conversation, but he was multi-tasking and I could tell by his smirk that it wasn’t business related. His attention was focused on the text messages he was exchanging with Harper Grimes. The two had evidently been a thing almost all of their lives until fate stepped in and ripped them apart. He’d told us bits and pieces of the story, but they were back together now, and I knew this relationship would be permanent.
I hadn’t gone to school with the couple, mainly because they were a few years younger than me, but I’d gotten close to Gabe over the years due to our titles and statuses in the community. I also got to know the other men seated at the table, and they’d all become very good friends. There was Daxon Faulkner, a local psychiatrist, and two professional football stars Romeo Guerra and Noah Capshaw. These four men had become my support system, and as I stared across the table at them, I was truly thankful for that.
“Harper got you by the balls,” Romeo asked Gabriel, and the rest of us chuckled as he looked up and flipped off the all-pro running back.
“You guys are too hard on him. I’m just glad there’s one less bastard scowling all the damn time when we’re supposed to be having fun,” Daxon remarked, and when all, including Gabriel, turned to look at me, I arched a brow.
“What?” Granted tonight, I was more than pre-occupied, but that wasn’t the norm and they all knew it. “I have a lot going on,” I added, and none of them seemed to be buying it.
Between the long vacation and eventual ayahuasca ceremony, I had a lot to deal with. During my moment of enlightenment, I’d come to realize I was scared of commitment. I had casual, and random hookups because there was no baggage that came with them. I was closed off emotionally, and that realization was nothing I didn’t already subconsciously know anyway.
I suppose it was what made the night with Nicole so typical. She was the perfect distraction for me as I neared the end of my vacation because I’d never see her again. The two of us had spent the entire night together. I‘d planned to find out a little more about her the next morning, but when I awoke, she was gone. It was almost as if she’d disappeared into thin air. If it hadn’t been for the scent of her shampoo on the pillow, and the bikini top she left behind, I might’ve actually thought I had conjured her up.
“Did you not enjoy Costa Rica?” Romeo asked as he slid the bottle of tequila over to me .
It was definitely something I needed right now. I removed the cap and poured some into my glass. Before I could respond for myself, Daxon beat me to the punch. “A little too much. In fact, he—”
I growled and cut him off. “You talk too damn much, Dax.” I then turned to Romeo, Noah, and now Gabriel who were looking over at me. “During ayahuasca, I met someone and later on, we had some fun. That’s all.”
When they started to pepper me with questions about the girl they thought was responsible for my melancholy mood, I mentioned the two different women I had met during my first week in Marbella, but of course they only wanted to focus on Nicole.
“Who was she?”
I looked at Noah. “She’s a college student in California.”
“So, the two of you did the horizontal mambo as teacher and student?”
I flipped off Gabriel. “She didn’t know I was a professor. All I told her was that I attended college here. I know you think I’m a dinosaur, but I’m only three years older than most of you.”
Nicole had no idea I was a teacher of any kind, and it didn’t matter. I wasn’t ashamed of it. In fact, I was actually proud of myself because I was making history at the university. Still, the comments from my friends hit a nerve and I grabbed my shot and slammed it back.
I almost wished I was back in Marbella because then I wouldn’t have to worry about this new semester. I’d taken a few weeks to decompress, and now it was hard trying to get back into the swing of things. This was my second year as a professor there, but the first time I was responsible for starting from scratch. Last year, I’d joined the faculty after classes started, and for the first few months, I’d been working off of another professor’s curriculum. This year, I was tasked with coming up with my own, so I had to admit to being slightly nervous about it all.
“What was she like?” Romeo asked, and before I could answer him, the crowd in the club got louder.
The Vault was one of the most happening clubs in all of the city, and it catered to high-profile clientele. The talent employed was second to none and I knew the cause of the commotion. Turning to the stage, I watched three strippers come out to perform, and since our VIP table was front and center, we always had a great view of the dancers. The ones tonight were gorgeous. There were two blondes and a redhead, and as the song started to play, all questions were forgotten as everyone turned their attention to them.
It wasn’t unheard of for any of us to take one home, or rather to a nearby hotel, but tonight, I just wasn’t interested. Maybe if one of them would’ve been tall with long, dark hair and legs that went on for a mile. I shook my head. It wouldn’t have mattered if Nicole was up there on stage herself. Not even she could help me rid myself of these nerves afflicting me.
“The curvy blonde is from New York City,” Noah said, and I looked up at her.
I stared for a few long seconds until recognition dawned on me, too. I was honestly surprised Noah had remembered her so easily. We’d seen her about a year or two back when on a recent trip to Manhattan. We’d gone to the Vault located in midtown. My cousin, Mason Steele, owned a string of nightclubs including that one, so we got the VIP seating there as well. The girl had gone by Sugar, and she tasted as sweet as it, too. Having shared women before, it was nothing for the two of us to take her to the Seaside Hotel after her shift, then take turns fucking her.
When the blonde turned and looked directly over at our table, she also realized who we were. Something flashed in her blue eyes, and a hint of a smile tipped her lips. I glanced over at Noah, and I saw him shift in his seat, likely hard as he watched her spin around the pole. Hell, if I hadn’t been worried about everything I still needed to do to prepare myself for this upcoming semester, I might’ve suggested we hook back up with the dancer after her shift was done here tonight.
“Damn, I remember tapping that ass,” Noah told the others, and I smirked.
“She did have great pole skills,” I added, vividly remembering her mouth on my cock as she took Noah inside of her, then afterward, twerking against mine as I took her from behind. Fuck, I was now hard, but I had no time to act on those primal urges.
“You thinking what I am?” Noah asked me.
I shook my head. “Unfortunately not. I need to get home and get ready for classes tomorrow. I haven’t even finalized any lesson plans. I have so much to do.”
“I’m game,” Romeo told Noah, and I turned away from them as they talked about what they planned to do with the blonde. She was a sure thing, not that it mattered. Not many women could resist a Titan, and in Chicago, everyone knew who we were. It hadn’t been the case in Costa Rica, but Nicole had wanted me from the moment she sat down beside me in that small room, and the feeling had been mutual.
I threw some bills down on the table and grabbed my things. “I need to go. Let’s hook back up next week before the season starts.”
Noah and Romeo were professional football players on the same team. Gabriel had kept the dynamic duo together during free agency last year, and Daxon often just watched us and shook his head. As a psychiatrist, he was used to observing others. All of us, him included, were fucked up in some way, but our titles masked a lot of it .
“Good luck at school,” Gabe and Daxon said almost simultaneously. Noah and Romeo were too busy talking about Sugar and one of her friends, and this time, I was the one to shake my head.
“Thanks, guys.” I got up and headed out of the strip club.
It had been cloudy when I first arrived, but as soon as I stepped out of the Vault, it was pouring down rain. I didn’t have an umbrella, and my car was down the block in one of the parking garages. I cursed under my breath, then secured my cell phone somewhere dry before taking off on foot. My long strides ate up the concrete underfoot, and it wasn’t long until I reached my Porsche.
About twenty minutes later, I made it back home. I was still wet, so I decided to shower. When I had procrastinated for as long as I could, I finally sat down behind my desk. I had been working on these plans for the most part, but I wasn’t sure about a few syllabi.
After staring at the screen for the next hour, I made the decision to just worry about this week. Friday or Saturday, I would block some time away to finalize the rest. I stood up and stretched, even yawning in the process. I turned everything off, then headed to my room.
“Leave it to me to be fucking nervous about school,” I muttered aloud. I thought I had outgrown those concerns when I was ten. Evidently, two decades later, and I still couldn’t kick them. I got settled into bed, and when I closed my eyes, I forced myself to forget about school, and fell asleep dreaming about the most beautiful distraction.