“Uh-oh,” I said, knowing Nat, it would probably be somewhere extreme. I could deal with that. I wasn’t about to piss Avery off two nights before our goddamn wedding. “Alright then, guess I’m in.” Fighting with Nat here would do me no good. I’d have to do it night of.
“Are you serious?” Avery turned to me, perturbed.
“Aww sweetie, this is normal, right?” I asked. I was halfway joking. I wasn’t going to do anything. She had to know that. “We don’t have to do anything. They just want to take us out.”
“Why a strip club though? I’m not even allowed to go in legally.”
“You have a fake I.D.” Skylar reminded.
“Are you like… Scared of naked girls or something?” Natalie teased.
“Hey!” I said, warning her. “She’s obviously not,” I confirmed, throwing the sugar packet back and hitting her hard on her cleavage. It bounced off and I bust up laughing.
“I am…” Avery said. “Super terrified. The scariest part is how they’re not Olivia.”
“You don’t have to touch anyone. No one has to touch you. Just go for Skylar,” Nat said, annoyed. “She’s gonna feel guilty after if you don’t let her do this. Holland isn’t here so she can’t take over. You can just go and drink and talk while girls do sexy crap all around you. You can ignore them and then go home. The end. It’ll never happen again.”
“Or we could all go together,” I suggested.
“No. Nope. Uh-uh. You’re coming with me,” Nat said. She could tell I was trying to dodge her. Nat was good with ideas. She wouldn’t have had to think on this at all most likely. “You’ve already done strip clubs. There’d be nothing memorable about that. You’re doing something different.”
“Hmpf. Memorable,” I mumbled, looking over at her and wondering what sick weird thing she had planned. “I’ll not be jumping from any planes,” I said.
“Nope. No planes,” Nat promised.
“You’ve done strip clubs?” Avery asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Okay, how the hell are you two even getting married?! This girl knows absolutely nothing about, Livia!” Natalie whined.
I forgot how sexy she was. Her whining gave me a tickle in my throat. I somehow lived to get a rise out of her at times.
“It’s better she knows nothing,” I poked, all defiant.
“And yes,” I said, turning to Avery and nodding. “Yes. Of course. I’ve done strip clubs. Whatever that means.” I’d even done strip clubs on accident. Though I had gone on purpose before. I was a curious person. It was normal.
If I had a dime for every awkward party I’d been at that ended up having either a public lap-dance or a public stripper I’d have a lot of ugly dimes.
“You’re telling me these stories when we get home,” Avery said.
“You won’t have enough time.” Natalie was certainly baiting Avery.
“Will you please stop?!” I said, getting a little serious with her. She was making Avery insecure. That wasn’t cool.
“And as for you,” Avery said, pointing at Nat. “We know what we need to know about each other. It’s not like I told her all my fucked up rave stories. I don’t care who she’s seen, or sees naked, as long as I’m the one she gets naked with.”
“Avery!” I gasped. Rave stories?!
Avery’s sass was at a high level after those provocations.
“Maybe we should’ve done this separately,” Skylar said, looking back over at Nat. It was obvious that Sky probably suggested that to Nat before now.
“Hmm, let me guess, you weren’t exactly one hundred percent on board with this were you?” Avery asked, pointing to Sky.
“Nat had a point and Holland said we should do it too.. The whole… Bridesmaid- Bachelorette thing, it is tradition.”
“Babe, don’t make her feel bad,” I said, trying to take the heat off of Sky.
“I don’t need you defending me,” Skylar bit, looking up at me like she already knew she fucked up.
“Shit, fine.” I hated when she got like that. None of this was a big deal. So uncalled for. She was acting like all of this was my fault. I didn’t even want a wedding. All of this was Avery whether she’d like to believe it or not.
I wanted to get married in a forest in secret with no one around.
“So, Thursday night. Be ready,” Natalie said.
That was on Monday.
And now it was Thursday. No matter what, we were in for some sort of event or big fight.
“So… We're just… We’re just going to let this happen?” Avery’s words hit me as I was attempting to get ready for this whole stag mystery night.
“Babe, what do you mean?” I laughed. She was acting so stressed out. It didn’t really make much sense to me, her being all nervous. Strip clubs were usually super chill. A lot of times, a bowling alley or a bar could be worse than a strip club. She already knew she wouldn’t have to interact with anyone other than Sky and for that I was a little jealous. At least Avery knew what she was up for, I had no freakin’ clue.
“I just feel weird about this,” Avery said. “You don’t even know where Natalie is taking you and I’m going to some skeevy strip club… I just don’t like it.”
“Baby,” I walked over to her and tried not to take her intense seriousness as comedy. I held her by the shoulders and noticed how pretty she was. I loved her grumpy. She didn’t know but I absolutely adored her like this. “You do not have to go, really. It’s entirely up to you. And I know I can handle myself. You don’t have to worry about me. I trust Natalie. And you trust me, right? It’s just one night.” I’d promised myself to try and do the things I wanted to do. An odd, unpredictable night with Natalie actually did seem like fun. God knows Avery had been hanging out with Skylar non-stop without me. I didn’t have friends. Nat was the closest I’d come.
“Okay, fine.” Avery tossed up her hands. “Whatever makes them happy, I guess.”
“Baby…” I didn’t know something like this was going to upset her this much. “Okay… What’s going on? What is this? Haven’t we been through all this stuff already? What are you afraid of?”
“I’m not-” She shrugged it off and laughed. “Eh, I just don’t like strip clubs.”
“Then tell Skylar!” I said, all bossy. Why was that a hard thing to do?! I wasn’t going to be the person fucking up their friendship. I decided that a LONG time ago. And I wasn’t about to change my mind.
“Have you ever even been to a strip club?” I asked. “It’s like being in a bar except there’s better things to look at and no one’s going to try and punch you for doing that. That’s all. It’s very calm. It’s even better than a club,” I laughed. “In a club people are always trying to crawl up onto you. That doesn’t happen in strip clubs unless you want it to and you pay for it. And if Skylar tries to do that and you don’t want it, you can just tell her no.”
“It’s fine. I’ll go.”
“I’m- I’m really not saying you should go. Is that what you think I’m saying?”
“No, I think you’re just concerned about me because you love me and I’m being a big whiny bitch.”
“Avery, you’re really not,” I hated when she said stuff like that. “If just the idea makes you uncomfortable it makes sense to not go. Just tell Skylar when she gets here. You can do something else. Something you'd like.”
I felt my phone buzz in my small bag and then heard my ringtone go.
“Shit, that’s Nat,” I said, pulling the phone out and checking. “Baby… If you don’t want me to go, I won’t.” I wanted to go. That didn’t mean she had to want to go too.
“No, I’m going. They want to do this for us… Or to us… The least I can do is show up and try to act impressed when they start Jello wrestling.”
“Jello wrestling usually happens in bars,” I laughed. I tugged her into me by her clothes and kissed her. “If you’re uncomfortable baby, please say no.”
“I feel like I’m about to go get peer-pressured to do drugs at a
party,” she laughed.
“Then tell Skylar in the car that you changed your mind and you just want to go to Burger King and play in the ball pit. She loves you, it’ll work out.”
“No, I’ll go look at naked girls. It’s fine. I can’t disappoint. It’s not in my nature.”
When I kissed her again I had my phone in my hand and it buzzed against the side of Avery’s boob.
“Whoops,” I said, when she jumped. “I think Nat’s here.” I pushed her up against the wall and kissed her three times as hard as before. I kissed her until her breath was gone and her stress dissipated. When I pulled back I stared at her, feeling the delicious thought in my head of all the things I’d probably do to her later.
Her eyes took a long time to open and by the time they did I was definitely smiling at her with lust in my eyes. “Hey, it could be good. Maybe all those girls will turn you on and then you’ll come home to me and need to take it out on me.”
“Not unless you magically appear up on stage in a very skimpy costume. That would turn me on. Otherwise, I hope Skylar is ready to give me money for drinks.”
“It’ll work. Strip Clubs love money.” I took some loose cash out of my pocket and pulled her into me by the hem of her pants, tucking the bills inside, making sure to be extra physical.
“You could always just give me a lap-dance later, you know,” she searched my face, smiling
“I’ll do whatever the fuck you want me to do,” I reminded, getting real close and letting the F word take a sharp bite.
My phone kept ringing and buzzing. At this point it was definitely annoying me but I wanted to know that Avery would be okay. I couldn’t leave if I didn’t know that.
“Go, she’s gonna storm the castle if you don’t,” Avery told me.
“Fine,” I said, pushing off of her and walking back just a bit. “You sure?” I asked, my eyebrow raised as I made my way through the doorway.
“Yes, I’m sure. Now, go before I make you change your ringtone to something I don’t hate now.”
She followed me out and I slowed down when I hit the front door. I turned around and put my back to the door at the final second. “Don’t you wanna come say hi to Nat?” I asked, making it harder for her since it was fun to challenge Avery with unimportant superficial things like this.
If I knew Nat at all she was dressed up like sex. It wouldn’t matter what we were doing. Nat would be looking like a million dollars out there. If Avery saw at all she’d probably stop me. It was fun to think of that happening. I wouldn’t mind being grounded by my possessive lover.
“The less I see of Nat today, the better,” Avery said. I knew she was mad. I knew it.
Avery leaned in and kissed me. I made extra sure to grope her body beneath her clothes. When she pushed me into the door I felt how it would be so much better to just stay. I wasn’t about to piss Skylar off though, not again.
“Get outta here before I keep you,” Avery ordered.
“Fine,” I said, biting my lip. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
I opened the door and slipped myself out.
I wasn’t exactly sure what I was in for but I was sure it’d be amusing. After everything being needlessly full of stress for months I was sort of up for amusing right now.
Chapter 10
Avery
As soon as I got in the car with Skylar I knew I was going to have to loosen up, at least pretend that this wasn’t going to be weird.
“Hey,” I said, pulling the seatbelt over my body and clicking it in place.
“Hey, are you ready?” She was all pretty and done up but she looked scared.
I couldn’t be mad at her or think ill of her. They were doing this rite of passage thing with us and it was sweet in a way. It just sucked that I couldn’t be psyched about it.
“Yeah, let’s go see some boobs,” I deadpanned.
“Yeahhh,” she half-heartedly cheered. We were both so awkward sometimes. “You know, this doesn’t have to be a painful experience. We can just go, look around, see what we see and then leave if you want.”
“Okay, sounds fine.”
“I can’t believe Olivia just let you go,” Skylar laughed all skeptical.
“Why? She trusts me. If anything, I’m the one with the jealousy issue.”
“Ohhh, I wouldn’t trust you,” Skylar laughed again. Looking me over with her gaze. “And you’re hot when you’re jealous. I’m sure she’s excited about that.”
“Hey! I’m very trustworthy. I’ve never cheated or done anything remotely like it.” Seeing as Olivia was my first real relationship that wasn’t saying much. “I don’t know. I think I’m pretty idiotic when I get jealous. It’s not something I like about myself.”
“Uh-uh, no way, believe me. You are fucking HOT when you get jealous. And just between you and me, I don’t think Olivia expects you to be some freaking saint. She wants you to do things you like and have a good time. It’s annoying.”
“Thanks, I think.” I knew Sky was right but I still didn’t like it all that much. I didn’t care if she saw naked girls really. It was more about how I felt about myself. “And I know, another reason I love her.”
“God, cheer up, Avery. I get it! You’re devoted!” Skylar teased, kind of peeved. “We really don’t have to fucking do this if it’s going to bug you. I am all for seeing boobs. Natalie’s been fucking teasing me all week. Plus I’m losing you this week,” she muttered that last part under her breath. “I’m all frustrated. Can you at least pretend it isn’t a complete chore to hang out with me and do something new? Please?”
“Sky… that’s not why-” I huffed out a breath and straightened up in the seat. “Yes. Okay.” I nodded and decided that I really had to stop being an asshole.
“And can we go back to the part about Natalie? Tell me, I need details.”
“Olivia might get mad at me,” Sky mocked condescendingly. She wasn’t going to just start giving up information without a little push. Especially when she was already pissed off.
I reached over the console and felt for her pocket quick. It wasn’t hard. I stole her phone.
“DO NOT!” She warned she was angry with me. We were on the freeway and she couldn’t fight me.
I opened up her messages and clicked on the name I assumed was for Nat. There were a few names but the one at the top was: Olivia’s Ex.
That pretty much gave it away.
I scoffed as I clicked on it.
“AVERY!” Skylar whined. She tried to take the phone away with her one hand but I easily stopped her.
“Holy shit,” I muttered. Nat had sent some pretty graphic pics. All teasing. “Oh God. There’s a video,” I realized.
“DON’TTTTT!” Skylar whined. Her hands were glued to the wheel and she really couldn't pull off the road or look away from her lane since cars had flanked either side of her.
I pressed play and watched for a second before I realized what it was and instinctively stopped it. That video was definitely a video of Nat pleasuring herself with her hand beneath her very expensive looking underwear.
“You were not kidding. Girl is teasing the shit out of you. When are you gonna see her again?”
My eyes flared and I hurried to make the noises stop.
“I dunno?!” Skylar whined. “The wedding probably? You’re so fucking mean. Why the hell did you watch that?! What if that had been Olivia?! I would never do that to you.”
“Sorry. I just wanted to know what you were up against. I can’t exactly give you advice if I don’t know the situation.”
“Did I say I wanted fucking advice?!” Skylar’s voice went up in pitch at the end. “God, sorry,” she said, realizing she was being a bit of a mess. “This week kinda fucking sucks.”
“Calm down, Skylar. She’s really got you wound up tight, doesn’t she?”
“It’s not just her, babe,” she said truthfully.
My eyebrow rose. Babe? She’d never called me that before. No one had ever called me t
hat except for Olivia.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “You’re not losing me, Sky. If that’s what this is even about.”
“What?!” She said, 100% annoyed. “It’s nothing!” She lied. “You’re getting married! You’re getting married in two days. This is very real, Avery. If you actually think I want to celebrate this you’re a lot more selfish than I know. I wish Holland was here already to congratulate you and be happy and stuff. Hell, I even wish Nat was here because at least then I wouldn’t be just word vomiting my displeasure all over you. I’m just not too happy this week and I can’t be, okay? Like, I want you to be happy. I never lied about that. But this is hard and I know I’m not capable of being good at this part of our relationship right now. If this was happening in two years maybe I could stomach it but this is happening right now so can we please try to ignore it now that it’s out there, please?! Just please don’t pretend I can enjoy this anymore than you can, ‘cause that’s fucking bullshit, Avery.”
Paper Dolls Page 15
