chapter TWENTY-ONE
“I’m getting marrriieeedddd!”
Leah squeals from her place on a white bed in the middle of a Manhattan male strip club that caters to celebrations just like this. Instead of tables, there are several white beds big enough for ten girls to sit in and enjoy the show on display.
After the last few weeks—hell, the last few months—I’ve been having, Leah’s bachelorette party is a welcome reprieve.
“Your sister is crazy!” Crystal screams in my ear over the loud music.
A man wearing a piece of dental floss and what can only be described as a banana hammock has Leah’s friend Suzanne in the air, wrapped around his waist as he simulates thrusting into her.
Leah is throwing money at the stripper to give all her friends a lap dance.
It’s all in good fun. Leah is fully clothed in jeans and a silky halter-top. She has on her favorite black Stetson with a veil we taped to the inside. She wanted a Magic Mike–themed bachelorette party so Crystal and Lisa helped me orchestrate tonight’s event.
And from the looks of it, Leah approves.
Despite her outward persona, Leah likes to look but she’d never touch. She says Adam is enough for her. Instead, she’ll spend a week’s salary making sure each of her friends—Jessica, Suzanne and Kimberly—who traveled with her from Cedar Ridge has the time of her life.
“She’s a class act, that one,” I say to Crystal, then back up when I see the naked man is heading my way.
I place my hands up in the air and push the man away from me. “Oh no. No way, no way, no way!” My efforts are in vain as Leah and her friends Suzanne, Kimberly, and Jessica push the stripper toward me.
“Oh, come on, do it for your sister!” Crystal places her hand on my back and pushes me forward into the arms of a very oily, very sweaty man.
He is attractive—dark hair and dark eyes.
He looks like Eric Bana. Earlier he was dressed in a doctor’s costume and did a performance on stage where he cured one of the bachelorettes by stripping and then dry humping her up and down the stage.
I look over to Lisa for help but she just shakes her head from the corner.
The doctor-slash-stripper has his hands around my waist. I squeal when he slides them around to grab my ass lifting me up so my legs dangle as he whirls me around and slams me onto the bed Leah and her friends are sitting on.
“I’m going to kill you!” I say, with a laugh, when I catch Leah’s eye.
She howls and waves her hands in the air. “Enjoy it Emma!”
I start to smile and laugh at her happiness when the stripper, who was standing on the ground in front of me, leaps from the floor, up in the air and lands on the bed with his knees on each side of my waist and he is straddling me.
Oh, dear God. I hope he doesn’t . . .
Yeah, he is.
The stripper dances and moves up my body, gyrating his pelvis. I raise my hands to cover my face, blocking out the sight of what he’s doing and the awful smell of stale oil and stinky boy that he is dripping all over me.
The girls love every minute of it. Lisa is the only one who looks slightly uncomfortable for my sake. I’m starting to question my judgment of asking my work friends to come out.
I turn my head to the side to avoid the banana hammock from coming anywhere near my face. The stripper sits straight up, and I am instantly relieved, thinking the show is over, when he does a mock push-up over my body and then pretends he is penetrating me.
“Okay, that’s enough!”
I push my hand out and shove him away. Rising from the bed, I push past him, ignoring his fake hurt look—puppy-dog eyes, a stuck-out lower lip, and hands over his heart. When Leah pushes a twenty into his G-string, all is forgotten, and he moves on to his next victim.
“You’re a good sport.” Lisa pats me on the back and hands me a drink. It’s pink, girly and just what I need.
“Yeah, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Crystal asks, helping me readjust my halter-top. “Aren’t you glad I told you to wear pants!”
I take a sip of my Cosmo and release the straw. “Thank God. I would have died if he did that while I was wearing a skirt!”
“Now that you got that over with, let’s dance!” Crystal beams and the three of us dance to the Calvin Harris song playing. It’s nice having Crystal and Lisa here. Turns out they were in need of a girl’s night.
Looks like I was too.
My life was always about music and perfecting my craft.
I did go to a few keggers and house parties in high school.
But not all the time. More often than not, I had a competition or recital to go to.
Then in college I met Parker, who shared my passion.
Instead of getting rip-roaring drunk, we went to dinner, art galleries, and the theater.
My time in Pittsburgh was about culture. It was what Parker and I wanted to do.
I can’t say I never had fun. When I was back home, I was at the bar with Leah. Before she opened McConaughey’s, she worked there as a bartender when it went by another name. Amstel Light was my drink of choice, and I sang along to the silly karaoke tunes.
My Pittsburgh life and my Cedar Ridge life were complete opposites.
When I was home I could let go. Leah and Luke were always getting me to do crazy stuff with them.
But when I went back to Pittsburgh, I morphed back into the polished violist. It seems the longer I stayed in Pittsburgh, the more I lost the fun me.
My arms rise above my head as I dance, getting a little closer to Crystal and moving to the rhythm of the music.
The beat is traveling from my fingertips down through my hips and into my toes.
When you dance, you not only hear the music but you feel it.
Maybe it’s the pink elixir working through me but I am feeling it—and it feels great.
The other girls, including Leah, join Crystal, Lisa, and me on the dance floor and the seven of us dance, forming a circle.
We dance for a few more songs, twirling each other, some girls rubbing up against another in an attempt to be sexy and others just dance and enjoy the company.
Exhausted, we all take a spot on the bed.
“This is the best night, ever!” Leah says, swaying slightly with her words. She has easily drunk double the amount I have. She turns to Crystal, and her finger loses traction in the air. “You are awesome! I’m so glad Emma found you!”
Crystal puts her arm around me. “I love Emma. She’s amazing!”
“That,” Leah says with a hiccup, “is very true. My sister is amazing!” Her words rise in a high pitch at the word amazing.
Lisa and I exchange a look at my sister’s obvious intoxication. She’s not in the danger zone, just yet. I’ll make sure she doesn’t get too smashed. Right now, she’s giddy drunk.
“What is it like living in Manhattan? Is it like Sex and the City?” Jessica asks.
“Yeah, do you, like, hook up with guys all the time?” Kimberly directs her question to Crystal and me. She learned earlier that Lisa is married.
Crystal and I both scrunch our noses at her question. “No.”
“Emma does not do one-night stands. She’s a good girl,” Leah says, leaning to the side before catching her weight and righting herself.
I take a big sip of my drink, trying not to think about the last time I was with a man.
“Except for the asshole,” Leah adds and I nearly spit my drink out.
“Leah.” My tone is reprimanding. When I told her Crystal and Lisa were coming tonight I asked her not to mention Asher.
No one at the school has any idea what happened this summer.
Perhaps Leah is tipsier than I thought. I’m giving her a serious scowl, telepathically reminding her of our conversation.
“What asshole?” Lisa’s interest is piqued.
Shit.
“No one.” I shoot the Ohio girls a similar look to the one I am giving Leah, but no one seems to be getting the hint.
Suzanne leans forward, not noticing that her necklace I dangling into her drink. “The one who spent their entire trip pretending to be a ship captain and bedded her in every port along the Amalfi coast.”
Huh?
“That’s not exactly what happened—”
“Oh, are you talking about the guy from Italy?” Kimberly joins in as I offer Leah a death stare. “Emma, you are so lucky he didn’t turn out to be some crazy person and dump you in the ocean.”
“Could you please not—”
“Or given you a disease,” Suzanne adds. “You know how those sailors are.”
I throw my head into my palm at the realization my blabbermouth sister told all of Cedar Ridge about my Italian rendezvous. At least they don’t have their facts straight.
“Are you kidding me? I saw his photo. I would have fucked him up and down the coast and then some. Use me, please, Mr. Asher!” No sooner are the words out of Jessica’s mouth than my head pops up, my eyes dart out of my head, and my stomach drops so low I may never be able to retrieve it.
“Asher?” Crystal asks and Lisa immediately follows with a similar look of confusion.
My head slowly rotates toward the girls, and I’m met with looks of exasperation. “They don’t know what they’re talking about.”
Leah raises her hand. At first, I think she’s about to vomit and I’m quickly realizing she is .
. . with words. “I should have known better when I saw him going at it. It was so damn hot. I was like, damn, there’s a man who knows how to work a woman.
That’s what my sister needs!” Leah says, pointing her finger out into the open air like she’s making a monumental statement.
I have no idea what she’s talking about. But Leah continues her tirade. “He had a body like Abercrombie but, like, way nicer. He was Kama Sutra all over that boat.”
Her words are sloppy but I’ve heard her say them before. She told me this about someone once. My body goes rigid as I think about what Leah is saying.
Or is it what she’s not saying that has me worried?