Chapter 3 #2
I’d barely made it through high school, but I knew all about supply and demand.
I knew all about hypocrisy too, thanks to people like my father and Cassidy’s parents.
This being a mutually assured destruction scenario was stupid as hell, but that didn’t mean it also couldn’t be true. Lots of stupid things were true.
“And this is a horse,” Gracie said, pointing to a brown blob with about six legs.
“It’s amazing,” I told her. Was she turning into one of those horse girls? Had Steve known something I didn’t when he’d brought up the pony? If a horse obsession was about to happen, I needed to redirect it. “What’s he called?”
She gave me a look. “It’s called Horse.”
Danny snorted.
“Very imaginative,” I said. “Shall we stick this on the refrigerator?”
Gracie beamed at me like I’d offered to hang her picture in the Louvre, and we went and stuck it on the refrigerator door with a handful of magnets that advertised Uncle Steve’s roofing company.
I was tempted to grab a beer, but I knew if I did that, I’d end up glued to the couch and nothing would get done.
And there was so much I had to do
I’d thought I was prepared for parenting.
But nobody had told me about the unending grind of making healthy meals and laundry and endless snacks and more laundry—unlike me, apparently kids couldn’t wear the same T-shirt three times and call it good—and story time and bath time and bedtime routines, and stuff like checking Gracie’s backpack for leftovers so her lunchbox didn’t get nasty, and making sure she had matching socks, and keeping track of all her hair clips and scrunchies, and all the other shit that it was exhausting to even think about.
Turned out I hadn’t been prepared at all, even with the guys pitching in to help and watching Gracie when I had to work nights. I wouldn’t change it and I didn’t regret it, don’t get me wrong. I loved having Gracie live with me.
But I was just so fucking tired all the time.
And I was scared too. What if I was fucking this whole thing up on a fundamental level and I didn’t even know?
It was all too easy to imagine a day in the distant future when Gracie would end up on whatever the fuck their version of Dr. Phil was, telling the world what a colossal fuckup her father had been.
And Cassidy’s parents would be right there sitting in the front row, nodding their heads in agreement when Dr. Future-Phil proclaimed it would have been better for everyone if Gracie had stayed living with her grandparents.
Except on a gut-deep level, I knew that wasn’t true.
Cassidy had come to me and asked if I’d be prepared to care for Gracie precisely because she didn’t want her daughter having the same sort of upbringing she and I had both had, one where all that mattered was fitting into the mold your parents had prepared for you.
One where if you dared to not slot into place, they did their best to slice off the bits of your personality that didn’t fit until they could shove you into that box.
Fuck that.
So yeah, I was broke all the time and I worked two jobs and my house was messy and so was my life, but despite all that, I knew Gracie belonged with me.
“Daddy?”
“What is it, princess?” I swung Gracie up in my arms and sat her on the countertop, ignoring the twinge in my back.
She giggled. “I’m not a princess!”
“Yeah, you are,” I said, smiling softly. “You’re my princess.”
She grinned at me. “Do princesses get ice cream?”
“They get ice cream after they eat their dinner,” I said.
Shit, did we even have ice cream? I’d have to check and do a store run if we didn’t. I’d already learned that promising a five-year-old ice cream and not delivering could result in a meltdown of epic proportions, and I wasn’t in the mood to deal with that.
“Daddy, I’m thirsty.”
I lifted Gracie off the counter and gave her a juice box, and she skipped off happily.
While I was there I checked the freezer, letting out a sigh of relief when I saw the box of ice cream bars I’d bought were still there.
I wasn’t religious nowadays, but it was nothing short of a miracle that the twins hadn’t inhaled them as soon as my back was turned.
Then again, they’d witnessed the ice cream tantrum last time, so obviously they were fast learners.
My phone buzzed and a glance at the screen told me it was Lauren, who was in charge of my bookings in return for a ten percent cut. It was a small price to pay—I wasn’t organized enough to deal with a second phone number.
Can you work tonight?
My back said abso-fucking-lutely not.
But my wallet said let’s not make any rash decisions.
I could at least find out what the gig was before I made up my mind.
What do you need?
The dots danced across the screen, then:
Fiftieth. One number and a lap dance for the birthday girl. They want the cop.
That didn’t sound too bad. An hour, tops. And the grocery money jar was pretty empty right now. Before I said yes, though, I went and stuck my head in the door of the living room. “Hey.”
Danny looked up from where he was chasing the last few chip crumbs around the bottom of the bowl. “What’s up?”
“Can you watch Gracie tonight? I got a callout.”
He snorted. “Like you’re a surgeon or something.”
“Shut up. Can you do it?”
He waved a hand. “Yeah, you go do your thing, Doctor Sexy.”
“Thanks,” I said and texted Lauren back.
The booking wasn’t until nine, so Gracie was tucked up in bed and fast asleep by the time I left and drove over to Lawrenceville.
The gig was exactly what I’d expected—a dozen cocktail-tipsy women in their fifties who greeted me with squeals and laughter when I rang the doorbell, whipped out my handcuffs, and said I’d had reports that one Louise Carter had been a bad, bad girl.
One of the ladies dragged a chair to the middle of the room and two other ladies dragged a red-faced, giggling woman over and sat her there. Then they all sat down and looked at me expectantly.
I set up my Bluetooth and started the music playing.
I gave Louise a slow, easy smile, and she blushed harder while her friends all whooped and cheered, even though I hadn’t done anything yet.
It was honestly kind of a rush, having everyone watching me.
When I was stripping, I wasn’t the pastor’s kid who’d fucked up, or the single dad who was always late for drop-off, or the guy who slept through his alarm.
I was the hot guy, and everybody wanted me.
I started rolling my hips in time with the music, getting into the groove and popping the snap fasteners on my fake uniform, peeling my shirt off and helicoptering it over my head.
Then I sauntered over to the birthday girl and dropped into her lap.
The shrieks were more deafening than that time Gracie spotted a bug in her wading pool.
I swiveled and thrust and ground against Louise, who was gasping and fanning herself, and when the chorus swelled, I stood and ripped my pants off, leaving me wearing nothing but my thong.
I spun around and straddled Louise and dropped the handcuffs into the plunging neckline of her dress, flashing her my best sexy smile.
She gasped and grabbed the nearest cocktail, draining the glass while I danced and teased and flirted and made her feel like a goddamn queen.
When I shimmied off Louise’s lap and did a circuit of the room, more than one set of hands slid over my ass, which could have been creepy except it was followed by the snap of elastic as dollar bills were tucked into my waistband.
And hey, who could blame Louise and her friends for getting a little handsy? I had a fantastic ass.
I worked the room and I worked those ladies until they were all out of dollar bills, and when the song came to an end and I picked up my shirt, they let out a collective “Aww” of disappointment.
“Sorry, ladies,” I said, “time’s up.”
A short, perky blonde who was obviously several cocktails deep grabbed her purse, pulled out a fifty-dollar bill, and held it out. “Are you sure you can’t stay for one more song?”
I hesitated. Money was money, but I was so fucking tired.
The next thing I knew, they were all scrambling for their purses and holding out tens and twenties. “Pretty please, Officer?” the blonde said, a gleam in her eye.
And hey. I might not have gone to college, but I wasn’t stupid.
“I guess I can stay a little longer,” I said and lined up the next track.
Twenty minutes and two hundred dollars later I made it out of there.
As I drove home, my back twinged again. Maybe picking Louise up in a bridal carry and swinging her round hadn’t been the best idea, but she’d been so damn happy about it.
Honestly, middle-aged ladies were my favorite kind of job.
They didn’t cross the line from handsy into scary, they always had a good time, and they tipped real well.
By the time I drove home and slipped inside the front door, it was past eleven and I was struggling to keep my eyes open.
I needed to shower, but someone—Danny, probably—had already converted the couch into a bed, and it looked so damn tempting that I ended up collapsing across it, groaning in relief as I sank into the mattress.
I’d just lie here for a minute before I showered and checked on Gracie.
That was what I told myself anyway, but it turned out to be a lie.
As soon as my head hit the pillow, it was lights out.
I woke up to the sound of cartoons and blinked my eyes open to find Gracie perched on the end of the bed, a plate of apple slices on her lap and her gaze fixed avidly on the TV. She was dressed and already eating her midmorning snack.
I didn’t know if I was grateful that one of the guys had stepped up so I could catch up on my sleep or ashamed that they’d had to.
Both, probably.
And I was still tired as all hell.
But once I got the hang of this parenting thing, it had to get better, right?