Chapter 3
WILDER
Whenever anyone asked me how I got into stripping, I told them that I kind of fell into it. They usually laughed, but it was the truth.
On my twenty-first birthday, Danny had taken me out to a bar to celebrate being legally able to drink.
We had some money his grandma gave us, and we hit that shit hard.
Forget cheap beer, we were all about shots.
Anyhow, we got dancing with some girls we’d never met before, and things got kind of wild.
Danny tapped out, but I kept dancing with them, and there was some grinding and stuff going on with both of them, and maybe my shirt came off.
Then later one of the girls—Lauren—gave me her number, which I figured was how things would go.
Except she said, “Call me if you want some work, hot stuff.”
Couple days later I called her and learned that Lauren worked under the stripper name Candii and earned more on a good weekend than I did in a week roofing.
Turned out she was booking more gigs that had a mix of both guys and girls attending, and she figured having a guy to work with would keep everyone happy.
We still worked together sometimes, but it hadn’t taken me long to start booking solo stuff as well.
Bachelorette parties and birthdays mostly, and I sometimes worked the stage at Easy Rider when they needed someone.
It was a good way to earn some money for the times Uncle Steve didn’t have any work on since roofing could be hit or miss like that.
I’d never cared too much if anyone recognized me—everyone around Goose Run already thought I was a fuckup anyway, so what did it matter?
But Gracie’s teacher recognizing me? Gracie’s teacher recognizing me when I was grinding my bare ass an inch above his lap?
That made me feel sick.
I didn’t give a shit what anyone in town thought about me, but what if it started to impact Gracie?
She was at school now, and rumors spread like wildfire through schools, and kids could be assholes.
I didn’t want Gracie finding out about my side hustle.
I didn’t want her to have to be ashamed of me.
And to be clear, there was nothing wrong with stripping—but just try telling the rest of the town, you know?
And somehow, single dad stripper hit different than just stripper.
There was a whiff of desperation to it that I didn’t want anywhere near my kid.
Remember back to the first day of kindergarten when I’d thought the worst thing would be Mr. Smith hating me if I was late again?
The universe had really showed me how wrong I could be, right?
The second week of kindergarten drop-offs was much, much worse than the first one, and by Wednesday I was entertaining fantasies of homeschooling Gracie.
I mean, I knew I could never do it, but I would have loved to never have to take her to school again.
Mr. Smith was pretending like it had never happened, and I wished I could too, but the guy had shoved dollar bills in my G-string.
That wasn’t the sort of thing I could forget.
On Friday I shouldn’t have been late picking Gracie up since we finished early at a job over in Brodnax, but there was a crash on the highway coming back, and traffic was at a standstill until it cleared.
“Fuck sake,” I said, tapping my fingers on the steering wheel.
Uncle Steve, who was riding shotgun with me today, hummed and scrolled his phone. “There’s a guy over in Park View selling a pony.”
“The fuck do you want a pony for?” I asked, craning my head to see if that motherfucking tow truck was doing anything yet.
“Gracie’d love a pony.”
“I’m not getting her a pony,” I said. “That’s fu-flipping crazy. You can’t keep a pony in a backyard. Besides, what do they even eat?”
“Oats? Hay?” He shrugged and then stretched. “How’s she doing at school?”
I groaned. “She loves it. She’s smart as hell.
But now I’m gonna be late again, and that teacher of hers is going to be all up my ass about it.
Except politely. He’s all, ‘You might have to make alternate arrangements, Mr. Wilder.’ But I can tell what he really wants to say is ‘You’re an asshole and I hope you die in a ditch. ’”
Steve hummed again. “Pretty sure he doesn’t want you to die in a ditch just because you’ve been late once or twice.”
It had been more than once or twice, but I wasn’t telling Steve that. He was already cutting me so much slack right now, and I didn’t want him to think I didn’t appreciate it.
He spoke again. “Can you call the school, or get her grandparents to pick her up?”
I shuddered at the thought. “No way. They pick her up once and next thing you know it’ll be ‘if you’re not coping, maybe it’s best if she lives with us,’ and fuck that noise. I’ll see if Danny can go get her. I think he’s home.”
I fired off a quick text.
Hey can you collect Gracie for me?
It took a minute for his reply to come through, and I tapped my fingers impatiently against the steering wheel while I waited.
Sure thing. You okay?
Traffic accident on the highway. I owe you.
Then I texted again.
She’ll need a snack when she gets home.
I tossed my phone into the center console and Steve glanced over. “You good?”
“Yeah. Danny’s picking her up.”
The car in front of me crept forward six inches and for a second it looked like we were moving, but then we came to an abrupt halt, and it turned out it was just the driver being an impatient asshole.
Still, at least I didn’t have to worry about Gracie getting picked up.
Not unless Mr. Smith refused to hand her over or something.
Shit.
New fear unlocked.
I debated calling the school to confirm Danny was on their list, even though I knew he was, but before I got a chance, traffic started crawling along at a snail’s pace.
By the time we’d made it through the snarl of cars and tow trucks and I’d dropped Uncle Steve at his place, an hour had passed.
When I got home, Gracie was sitting on the couch with Danny, watching a movie.
There was a bowl of chips balanced between them.
“Hey, sweet pea.”
“Daddy!” Gracie bounced off the couch, sending the bowl flying, and I winced internally. I’d have to make sure to get all the crumbs out of the couch before I used it as a bed tonight. “I did coloring today!”
She darted off to her room, presumably to get her coloring to show me.
I sat on the couch beside Danny and grabbed a handful of chips. “It go okay picking her up?”
“Yeah, no problem,” Danny said, and then he grinned. “You never said her teacher was a hottie.”
My face must have given me away.
“What?” Danny asked. “You’re always saying guys are hot, even though you say you’re straight.” He got that wrinkle over his nose he always did when he was thinking too hard. “Which, okay, no, let’s leave that conversation for another day. He’s hot, is all, and I’m surprised you didn’t mention it.”
“I am straight,” I said, “but I have eyes. But it’s a pretty fu—flipping awkward thing to say about a guy you gave a lap dance to.”
Danny’s jaw dropped and his eyebrows tried to climb his forehead and escape into his hair. “You what now?”
“I’m not talking about it.” I jammed some chips in my mouth.
“Oh, you absolutely are talking about it!” Danny’s eyes were bright. “Like, I need all the details, immediately!”
“Nope,” I said and was saved by Gracie hurrying back with some pages of coloring for me to admire.
Danny gave me a crazy stare that silently screamed we weren’t done with this conversation, and I knew I’d cave and tell him everything later. Meanwhile, it was fun to make him squirm.
Also, for the record, I wasn’t gay. But Danny had been my best friend since high school, and what sort of asshole would I have been back then to make him listen to me going crazy about how hot Cassidy was if I couldn’t listen to him talking about the massive crush he had on the quarterback?
The quarterback had been an asshole, also for the record, and I might have slashed his tires when he called Danny a slur.
And back then, when I was the town golden boy, nobody had even suspected a thing.
The point was, I was secure enough in my sexuality that I didn’t get the heebie-jeebies over gay cooties or whatever the fuck that was all about.
Danny was gay, and Chase was gay, and Cash was…
well, who knew with Cash? And these guys were my brothers, end of story. Who cared who they wanted to date?
And yeah, sure. I sometimes looked at guys and found them attractive, but that was normal.
Like, I was pretty sure every guy had thought about trying stuff with another guy at least once—although from the way Danny looked at me sometimes when I said things like that, I was starting to suspect that maybe they didn’t.
I wondered if Mr. Smith was gay. He hadn’t exactly shied away from that lap dance the other night, had he?
He’d been kind of awkward over it, but lots of people reacted that way when they got dragged on stage, and he’d been pretty generous with those dollar bills right up until he saw my face.
And he did wear that rainbow thing around his neck—but then, that might have been because he was working with little kids.
There was no way to tell without asking.
Then I wondered why I even cared when my main concern was that he didn’t spread it all over town that I had a side gig involving a fireman’s helmet, body glitter, and a bright red thong.
But maybe this was one of those mutually assured destruction scenarios.
He wouldn’t tell people I was a stripper, and I wouldn’t tell people he was the kind of guy who bought lap dances from strippers.
Which was kind of dumb when I thought about it, because another word for the kind of people who bought lap dances from strippers was “paying customers.” And you couldn’t have one without the other.