Long Shot (2 page)

Not like I have many luxuries in general, but I would
like
to. I have always felt I would take to a luxe lifestyle like a fish to water. I mean, I already drink, why not drink
expensive
booze. I once dated a guy with a Jet Ski, so I could definitely get used to dating a guy with a yacht. Or better yet, buying my own.

I glance down at my phone again, suddenly concerned it’s turned off somehow. Nope. Still on, just not being used by any potential employers. Or rich men.

I decide to spend my nacho change on a lottery ticket, just in case, then turn up Skinny Lister loud enough to drown out my thoughts.

The strip club is blessedly, or cursedly, close by, so I don’t have too much time to work myself up over it. Of course, I pull up in time for the car to cool down. This is just my life now. I sit for a moment listening to the engine tick as it cools (is it supposed to do that?) but it’s time to bite the bullet. I swear to god if my purse isn’t here, I will burn this club to the ground.

Actually, maybe I should anyways, just to get rid of the evidence.

Nah, it’s too hot for firestarting.

There’s already a smattering of cars in the lot, old broken down things. I’m repulsed and fascinated at once. Why would anyone come to a strip club in the middle of the day? I wonder if they have a free buffet? Validate parking? Do the televisions inside show
Ellen
or daytime soaps while some dude gyrates on stage?

I guess I’ll soon find out, and that’s nauseating to think about.

My text tone goes off, and it’s my bank reminding me my funds are low. When you’re too broke to buy lottery tickets, that’s a sad state of affairs.

You can pry my hangover Bell out of my cold dead hands, though.

There’s no use in delaying this any longer, so I grab my keys and tiptoe through the parking lot, taking note of all the condom wrappers, liquor bottles and flyers littering the steaming-hot asphalt. This place? Epitome of class. Even the name, The Meow Club, is classy. Jane sure knows how to pick ‘em.

Next time, we’re just hitting the Riot Room for some old fashioned drinks and a punk band. And no strippers.

Terrible eighties techno is pumping through the speakers, and some Joe Manganiello wannabe is dancing at a table full of women in scrubs. A working lunch here? Ye gods. It does explain how my nurse sister Jane knew about this place. Does Bobby know about her extracurriculars? Oh, wait—wait, yes. He’s the one who gave us the stack of twenties, one of which I apparently wrote my number on. Dang it, Bobby.

And then something snaps in my brain—getting a lap dance on stage, gazing into Rob’s beautiful, beautiful turquoise eyes and asking him about his life goals, not remembering what those life goals were because I was so distracted by the lap dance.

Rob certainly knew how to work his hips. It evidently made me lose track of my own life goals in my haste to hurl myself at a boy-stripper. Which is way grosser than a chick-stripper. Not that I make a habit of hurling myself at either kind.

Normally, anyways.

Okay, worse things could have happened. I peek around the club, hoping to see a friendly, ideally female, server I can quietly stop and ask about my purse. In a darkened corner. Although most of the room is dark, since this building doesn’t have windows. Which is probably a blessing, no one wants to see the interior of this joint in the daylight any more than they want to see the strippers there.

“Hey!” a warm voice calls out over the music. Despite my gut screaming not to, I turn my head in the direction of the voice.

Of course the voice is attached to said beautiful, beautiful eyes. Eyes like sea glass. Eyes that keep drifting through my thoughts all morning. Eyes I got unapologetically lost in after too many shots of Fireball because I was too drunk to be cool.

Which I am not being now either as I gaze into them again.

“Here for your purse?” He cracks a smile, which is also beautiful. I scowl back at him and nod. “I tried to call you this morning to let you know I had it, but there was screaming and then the line went dead. I would have called the cops, had I known where you lived.”

Note to self: DO NOT GIVE HIM MY ADDRESS. DO. NOT. It’s a real danger, because he is even freaking hotter in person, all chiseled lines and Roman nose and full lips and did I mention those eyes?

“Sorry, kind of a crazy morning.” I pick my way around the slightly sticky floor and refuse to look at him. He pulls my purse out from under the bar and presents it. “Thanks.”

“Nothing’s been taken, promise. I noticed it just after you left, and we kept it locked up in the office.”

I frown at him. “But you have it right now.”

“I was hoping you would come back in.” He flashes another smile, and I’m pretty sure I need to stop making eye contact. Like looking at the sun, I will only hurt myself with too much exposure. “And I wanted to make sure you didn’t sneak past me if you did.”

I reach out my hand for it, awkward about how I was totally planning to sneak past him. “Well, thanks.”

“Not so fast.” He slips it back under the bar. Um, what? “You get it back once you make good on your promise.”

“What promise?”

His stupid sparkly eyes sparkle even more. “Did you forget already? I didn’t think you were that drunk.”

“Welp, I was.” My chest starts thumping in fear. Dear god, what did I agree to? A spinning list of a million terrible things pours through my head. Promises to a stripper are never a good thing. “Um, look, I don’t want to be an asshole, but my head is killing me and I really just want to go home and nap, so if you could hand over my purse…”

Rob leans across the bar, studies me for a moment, which I absolutely hate, and then starts spinning bottles. He produces a Bloody Mary in about ten seconds and slides it my way. My plans to quit drinking immediately fly out the window. Or would if there was one to fly out of. “On the house. You need it.”

“I don’t usually make a habit of accepting free drinks from strange men.”

“Funny, you made a habit of it last night.” Drats. Did he buy me—yes. Yes, he paid for my shots after I won the contest. I may owe him a significant amount of money. Is that the promise I made him? To pay him back? I can’t do that. I wonder if he’ll call the bouncer out to break my legs, Vegas bookie style.

“Let’s cut to the chase, Rob the Stripper. What promise did I drunkenly make last night? You should know drunk promises are no good.” Really, really not good.

“You pinkie swore.” His entire face is grinning back at me. It’s so ridiculously handsome, which makes me hate him even more. “Can’t break a pinkie swear.”

Blast! He’s right. That’s a loophole to the drunk promise code. I scowl over my straw and drain my Bloody Mary. It’s delicious, and I’m starting to feel like myself again. There are a lot of vitamins in tomato juice. I should drink these every morning. I bet they would change my day. Something occurs to me.

“Wait, I thought you were a stripper. What are you doing behind the bar?”

“I am a man of many talents, and I wear many hats.”

“You’re not wearing a hat.” Although I vaguely remember him in a fedora last night. Hot damn, no wonder I gave him my number. Drunk Meredith doesn’t factor Yuck-Factor into sex appeal.

“Oh, but I am.” He winks. “It’s just invisible.”

“Is there something wrong with your eye? You appear to be twitching.”

He laughs out loud. “I like you. Feisty. You don’t remember agreeing to photograph my roommate?”

Oooohhhh. Okay. That’s okay. Thank God, this is a pinkie swear that’s so doable. I mean, this is my career. “Oh. Um, no, I guess I forgot. Okay, we can schedule something. Now give me my purse.”

The glee spreads across his face as he dangles my purse over the bar, just out of reach. “He’ll be so excited. He’s got auditions for a new porn coming up.”

I would do a spit-take if I had any remaining Bloody in my mouth. “Um, this shoot…”

“I’ve never met a penis photographer before. This is most exciting.”

I literally fall out of my chair and onto the floor.

A penis photographer? Filthy floor be damned, I lie back and put my hands over my eyes.

What has my life become?

I
peer down at Meredith
. Her gorgeous face looks horrified. She should be horrified, that floor is nasty as hell. I suppose I should have known she wouldn’t remember the specifics of how it all went down. I pass her down another Bloody Mary. Poor girl will need fortification.

“Maybe you can rehash that conversation for me,” she finally says, still glaring at me from those intensely brown eyes. Now that she’s sober, it’s way weirder to gaze into them than it was last night. I can practically feel the disgust radiating off of her, which I admit is a first under these conditions. Girls are usually throwing their panties at me in here, not wishing I was dead.

In a weird way, I kinda like it. This week has been generally awesome. I made a ton in tips and walked off with this hot and interesting girl’s phone number. It’s not uncommon to receive a phone number from one of the patrons here at the Meow, but it’s extremely rare that I keep them. Hot and interesting, it turns out, don’t go hand in hand all that often.

Particularly amongst the clientele here.

“Okay. But I’m going to have to insist on a bit more of your company. I’m not a love ‘em and leave ‘em type of guy.” I’m not making an innuendo. I really am not that kind of guy. And as she scrambles up from the dingy concrete floor, I can picture her leaving before I have a chance to get to the lovin’ part.

“You’re good,” she says and takes another long swallow. “I don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to like me now, babe. I’ll put in work to win you over. And I make the best Bloodys in KC. Not bragging, the
Pitch Weekly
actually voted for that.”

Not bragging my perfectly toned ass. I’m hella bragging. Do you have any idea how stiff (hah!) the Bloody Mary competition is among the brunch crowd? It was a coup that I won, and I believe the aforementioned ass had something to do with it.

That and a splash of pickle juice. It spruces up the flavor.

“Yeah, yeah. I need to know what I said. Just hurry it up, and leave out anything sexual I said to you. This place is making me feel gross. The floor just negated my shower.”

This gets a genuine laugh out of me. “Try working here. But it didn’t seem to bother you last night.”

She narrows her big brown eyes at me and takes another sip, full of disdain. “The point, please.”

“Okay, okay. My roommate, Peter, is one of the strippers here. He overheard you going on a tirade about how it wasn’t bad enough girls get dick pics from every guy who crosses their path and/or Facebook page. On top of that, apparently the pics suffer in quality. It was somewhere between explaining lighting and explaining angles that you offered to do a series of penis shots for his portfolio for one of his upcoming auditions. Something about demonstrating to the world.”

“Sweet God. That does—well, that does sound like a rant I would go on. But to offer to demonstrate? How many shots, precisely, would you say I had?”

“More than it was probably legal to serve you,” I admit as I wipe down the already clean bar, sneaking glances at her nervously heaving bosom. “Very charitable of you to make the offer, though.”

“Goddammit.” She buries her head in her hands, and for a fleeting moment, I feel bad for her. “I can’t believe I offered to take professional dick pics. What is my life?”

“Look, if it is really going to distress you, you obviously don’t have to do it. No one is holding a gun to your head. But you mentioned you really needed the work, and he offered you some crazy amount of money that made you spaz in the middle of the club.”

She perks up but attempts to disguise it. Adorable! “How much?”

I shrug and reach over to slide her purse across the bar. “He wrote it on a napkin. Maybe it’s in there?”

She grabs it and frantically searches around. After a minute, she finds a crumpled up Meow cocktail napkin and reads it. And then her jaw drops.

“I guess I’m taking photos of your friend’s dick.”

I throw her a wide grin. “Atta girl.”

She buries her head in her purse and lets out a string of muffled mutters that I can’t understand. Her hair is wet and a mess, her tits look amazing in this light, and I’m fairly certain she’s not wearing a bra. This is my absolute favorite look on a woman. I can’t deny that I’m insanely attracted to her, even if she is glaring at me every three seconds.

I like a good challenge.

“Listen, you look like you’ve had a terrible morning.” I glance at the clock. It’s almost time to get out of here for the day. Opening after a closing shift is generally only employed in emergencies and is usually a blessedly short shift, which helps compensate a little.

“Let me buy you a cup of coffee and a ham and cheese croissant from my favorite place down the street. There is literally not a single hangover one of those bad boys can’t cure.” And working at a club? I would know.

She wrinkles her nose again and it’s really cute. “Not how I handle my hangovers. I prefer greasy Mexican.”

“Aw, come on. You’re already turning over new leaves today. Besides,” I toss my apron on the shelf and flash a smile. “You owe me for the Bloody Marys.”

“Blarg.” She sighs and glares, but she gathers her things and nods. “Fine. But only if you buy.”

“I thought you owed me?”

“That was before I agreed to do the third thing I didn’t want to do today. Fourth, if you include leaving bed.” She slides off the chair and walks towards the door, as I wonder what the other thing was. Me? Was it me?

I run to the office behind the bar to grab my things and clock out, and hurry to open the door for her. She breezes right past me without so much as a
thank you
. Oh, she has left me an opening. If she wasn’t at least marginally interested, she wouldn’t have agreed to come at all. I think. I hope.

“Let me drive you.” I can be a gentleman, even if I do have a g-string on under my uniform. Hey, you never know when a regular will request one of my signature nineties hip-hop dances.

“Absolutely not.” She stops by a red Corolla and shoves a large pair of sunglasses on her face. “I’ll follow you.”

“You better come. I have your number, so you can’t back out of this. Remember—pinkie swear.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She sighs. “Where are you parked?”

I point to a black Corolla not that far from her. “Twinsies.”

“Huh?”

“Our cars. I also drive a Corolla.” She stares at me like I’m stupid. Maybe twins aren’t hot. But then explain the Lannisters? “Never mind. Follow me.”

I jog over to my car, periodically glancing over my shoulder to make sure she doesn’t peel out of here. As much as I think she’s desperate for a booze-absorbing meal and some caffeine, I don’t trust she won’t go running the second my back is turned.

My car is achingly hot, having baked in the blazing summer sun, so I roll down all the windows and pop the sunroof. It’s unholy how hot it can get so early in the day.

I really ought to invest in a newer car, one with a working air conditioner, but there are far more important places for my money to go right now. The wait is worth a little sweat. Soon enough, I console myself. Soon enough this will all be in the rearview mirror of my Lexus. Or perhaps merely my newer model Corolla.

Meredith does actually follow me out of the lot, miracle of miracles. I sing along to the new Justin Timberlake song and pretend I’m singing to her, imagining what it would be like to be pressed against her in a dimly lit club, our bodies doing all the talking. I bet she loves JT.

Everyone does.

I could teach her how to do some of my signature dance moves, maybe while nude, maybe while cooking a little morning-after breakfast—wait. No. Nude and cooking may be dangerous. Maybe those will be separate endeavors.

Actually, I should do none of those things, because dating a girl from the club is a terrible idea. Chicks come to the club to get the fantasy, and the fantasy has nothing to do with my all-day study sessions, or Millionaire Slim’s lactose intolerance, or Diamond Joe’s general misogyny. You date them, they learn these real parts of you, they spread angry rumors about you on Facebook and Yelp. Not worth it.

Plus, fraternizing with guests is against the rules.

My car slides into a front row parking space in front of Genessee Royale’s cheerful red facade, and a matching red Corolla pulls in right next to me. I sit in my car for just a second too long. Does it really count as fraternization if we’re hammering out business details?

And will I ever think the word hammering without thinking about sex?

I make certain my pants aren’t too tight and hop out of my car.

“I’m glad you were able to follow me.” I wave with my keys and throw her a wink. “I was worried you’d get lost. Hangover goggles will do that.”

“There’s no such thing as hangover goggles.” I can feel the glare through her aviator sunglasses. “This better be the best dang croissant I’ve ever had in my life. I’m skipping Taco B—a nap for this.”

“You’ll never eat another croissant again.” I hold the door open for her and shamelessly check out her ass. It looks amazing in those jeans, and I have a flash of grinding against her the night before, letting my dick rub her sweet spot. She loved it. I had a hell of a time myself. In the bathroom on break. Picturing her sweet face and tight ass.

The restaurant smells like home and looks like it too. The scents of gravy, bacon, and coffee mingle with the sight of the wooden frames and doors on the orange walls to immediately put the sights and smells of the club out of my mind.

Yeah, I come here a lot. No, I never bring chicks. This is
my
place.

Meredith collapses in a chair near the door and immediately pulls out her phone, fingers flying. I see Rebecca starting to bring the coffeepot my way and then doing a double-take at seeing me with a girl. I’m going to tip her so huge for keeping her mouth shut.

“You must be really good at sex to get Rob to take you to breakfast,” she tells Meredith, and I try to will down the blush I can feel creeping up. Damn it, I haven’t blushed since third grade. Rebecca is getting the barest of a twenty percent tip today. The barest!

“I am,” Meredith says, without even glancing up from her phone. I’m fairly impressed, and clearly so is Rebecca, because she can’t wipe the grin off her face as she fills up our mugs with strong, fresh Roasterie morning blend.

“Two of the usual, please, and no more of the talky-talky,” I growl, and she all but skips off to the kitchen. Do I not intimidate anyone anymore? I guess if people see you in your pink heart-printed underwear a lot, they probably picture you like that all the time.

“So. Talk to me about your roommate,” Meredith says when I stop glowering at Rebecca’s curly-haired head. She sounds like she’s hurting a bit, even if she has had two Bloody Marys to smooth the rough edges. A chance to save the day! Again! I dig in my pocket and produce a small bottle of Advil to toss to her.

“You should take some of these, courtesy of the Meow. We like to take care of our ladies.” Signature wink. Ka-chow! She glares those intense brown irises, and I pretend I just had something in my eye. Do I not arouse anyone anymore?

Maybe it’s time to retire the pink heart-printed undies.

She chews on her lip, clearly mulling over the possibility I am feeding her poison or molly, and finally pops open the bottle and takes the pills sans water. Welp, I can’t exactly afford to hand free drugs out, and I’m not in the murder business, but I’m still impressed that when faced with those possibilities, she doesn’t even wash those puppies down.

I like a girl who lives dangerously, and she’s two for two.
Dun dun dunnnn
in my head. I’m in distinct danger myself, of falling for her.

“You’ll like Peter,” I address the original question about the penis she’ll be photographing. “He’s a good guy, very funny. He’s trying to break into porn because it pays better than stripping. And, apparently, he’s willing to pay a significant amount of money for good headshots. Wait. Get it? Head? Like—hea—”

“I get it, I get it!” She cuts me off, but she’s definitely smirking. Everyone likes a good dick joke. “So. I’m taking headshots for a future pornstar. Huh. I really never saw this coming. Wait. Get it? Cause I said—”

It’s my turn to cut her off, but I do it with a guffaw. Because everyone likes a good dick joke.

“So anyway.” Meredith looks marginally more serious. “You aren’t interested in porn?”

“Watching or filming?”

“Filming.” She cocks an eyebrow. “Every dude likes porn. And evidently they’re paying well.”

“You strike me as a girl who’d be into porn.” I can’t exactly tell what the right answer is here. Does she want to take my penis pictures? Or does she want reassurance that I’m actually not planning a career in the adult industry?

“Maybe,” she says, and I still have no idea.

Our food blessedly makes it to the table, so I am off the hook. For a second. Rebecca shoots me a little grin as she sets down our plates that says she’s going to grill
me
next.

“I take it you haven’t photographed penises before.” I gathered this scientifically, from the way she literally fell to the floor earlier. Rebecca makes as if to linger for the answer, but I wave her off. She pouts but goes.

“Nope.” She shudders just a bit. “No, my normal photography is a tad more… traditional.”

“What do you shoot?” I inhale the steam from my coffee and smile, happy to be here, happy to be in my favorite place with a girl I could easily see becoming my favorite, too. She’s so damn cute I can hardly even. “Since you’re a dick pic virgin.”

“Portraiture. Think Annie Leibovitz. Well. I aspire to her, anyways.”

“Wow.” I rack my brain to figure out who Annie Leibovitz is. Was she the one that did all the gay men? No, there
would
be penises involved then. Maybe she did fashion-y things. I fake it.

“Annie Leibovitz is some hardcore shit. Really inspiring, very cool. She defined a generation.”

“You have no idea who she is.” Apparently I don’t fake it very well.

“I have no idea who she is.” I smile, and she actually kind of smiles back. Her whole face lights up when she does, and I’m enchanted. “But she sounds legit.”