by E. M. Abel
“Some girl named Stacy has been calling for you,” my dad told me before taking a sip from his beer.
My eyebrows shot up, and my eyes widened. “What?”
“Some girl named Stacy. She said she met you at Marcus’s shop. She called a few times. I wrote her number down. It’s in the kitchen.”
I shot up out of my chair and ran to the kitchen. When I found the scrap of paper with her number, I quickly pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed.
“Hello?”
“Hi. Is this Stacy?”
“Yes, it is. Who is this?”
“Hi, Stacy. It’s Asia Fuller. I’m so—”
“Asia! Oh my god, I’ve been calling you for weeks!”
“I’m sorry. I was out of the country. I just got back today.”
“I saw your portfolio,” she said.
My breath caught. What? “What? How?”
“Marcus brought it by a few weeks ago. Your work is amazing, Asia. I want to give you an exhibit in my gallery. I already have a few buyers in mind.”
I was still in shock. My brain couldn’t keep up. “What?” I asked again.
“You think you could make a trip out to L.A., in the next couple months? I’ll pay for your ticket and to have your work shipped out here.”
I couldn’t believe what she was telling me. My mind was spinning. I felt butterflies fluttering in my stomach as a smile curled onto my lips. “Yeah.”
“Good. Is this your cell number?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, I’ll be in touch.”
“Okay.”
When I hung up the phone, I stared at my dad’s refrigerator with my eyes wide and my mouth hanging open. Holy shit! I turned around and ran back out onto the deck.
“Oh my god! Stacy wants to show my work in her gallery! She thinks it’ll sell! She thinks people would pay money for my paintings! Oh my god!”
Dad and Shaun both smiled at me as I started jumping up and down, clapping my hands in front of me.
“That’s amazing, baby girl. I’m so proud of you.”
“That’s awesome, Ais.”
I stopped jumping and rested my hands on the sides of my face. “I can’t believe this. Oh my god. I can’t believe this.”
“Believe it, baby. You’re a talented artist, and it’s about time the world got to see it,” my dad reassured me.
I dropped my hands and smiled at him. “Thanks, Dad.”
Later that night, I tried calling Marcus to thank him, but his phone was disconnected. He must have changed his number. I thought about asking Shaun if he knew how I could reach him, but I didn’t.
It was Friday night, and I was in my old room in my dad’s house, packing for my trip to Richmond. We would be driving out there first thing in the morning, so I could spend some time with Rob and Alexis before the bachelorette party. I was listening to music on my old stereo and folding my clothes when my phone rang. I walked over to my nightstand and picked it up. It was Jay. I bit the inside of my cheek and stared at the screen as my phone rang.
On the forth ring, I answered, “Hello?”
“Hey, beautiful,” Jay’s voice greeted me.
“Hey, Jay. How are you?”
“I’m good. How are you?”
I sat down on my bed and looked over at my suitcase. “I’m better.”
“I’m happy to hear that.”
“I’m sorry I never called to thank you for the roses. I meant to. I just—”
“It’s alright, Asia. I’m just glad you’re okay.”
“I am. Thank you.”
“So, what have you been up to? I haven’t seen you around.”
“Actually, I just got back from Japan. I went there for a month and stayed with my mom’s cousin.”
“Wow. How was that?”
“It was great. I love it there.”
We were silent for a while before Jay spoke again.
“How are things with Marcus?”
I bit my bottom lip and closed my eyes as I tried to think of what to say. “We aren’t together anymore.” My chest tightened when I heard my words, and I took a deep breath.
“I’m sorry, Asia,” Jay said, sounding sincere.
“Me, too,” I murmured as I looked down at the carpet. “You know, I thought about you a lot while I was gone. About what happened between us. It was wrong of me to let you take all the blame. Honestly, I never let you in enough to give you a chance. I convinced myself that you would only like me if I dressed or acted a certain way, and it wasn’t fair to you at all. I was too insecure to believe that you might like me for who I was, flaws and all. I hope you can forgive me.”
Jay was quiet for so long that I was about to ask if he was still on the line.
“Of course, Asia. I guess we both had some things we needed to work out on our own. And, just so you know, I think it was your flaws I would’ve liked the most. I was just too stupid to see what a mess I was making of everything.”
“We both were,” I told him as I played with a loose string on my comforter.
Jay cleared his throat. “Are you going to John’s wedding?”
“Yeah. I’m Hailey’s maid of honor, so I’m actually going to be in it.”
“Well then, maybe I’ll see you there.”
“Okay.”
“Bye, Asia.”
“Bye, Jay.”
I hung up the phone, fell back onto the bed, and sighed. As I stared up at the ceiling, Adele’s version of The Cure’s “Lovesong” began playing on my stereo. As I heard the acoustic guitar and then Adele’s voice come through my speakers, I closed my eyes. Tears rolled down the sides of my face and into my hair as I felt the hole in my heart that Marcus had once filled.
A group of us walked into the dark club as an Usher song was blasting on the speakers. There was a black stage with three wooden chairs sitting in the middle and a black curtain for the backdrop. We had already been drinking for a few hours, so we had a good buzz going.
“Oh my god, you guys! We’re at a strip club!” Hailey squealed as she jumped up and down in her heels. She was covered in glitter, and she was wearing a black boa around her neck with a pink tiara on her head.
“Where are the strippers?” Nick yelled over the music as he looked around the club.
We had the VIP section. It was a large black corner booth on the left of the stage and right up front. Oh yeah, this is going to be fun. Almost two months without sex was about to make me crazy. I had waited seven years, but for some reason, things were a lot harder this time. Who am I kidding? Marcus was the reason it was so much harder. His body and his eyes and his…oh god, Asia. You need to stop.
The alcohol was definitely taking its toll on my hormones. I started squirming in my seat when a waiter wearing nothing but a black G-string walked up to our booth. He had a nice body, really nice, but he wasn’t my type. That was okay though. It didn’t hurt to look.
“What can I get you, ladies?” he asked as he bent over the table and winked at me.
I suddenly giggled at the thought of the view he was giving all the people behind him. Yeah, I’m drunk.
“We want some tequila shots!” Nick yelled from his seat.
The waiter looked over at Nick and gave him an awkward grin. He stood up and walked away, giving all of us a perfect view of his bare ass.
Monica nudged me with her elbow, and I turned to see her eyes glued to the stripper’s ass. I had a feeling she was looking forward to this night more than Hailey.
She pulled out a stack of ones with a mischievous grin on her face. “Whatever happens tonight, ladies, stays between us!”
Nick and I looked at each other and laughed as the other girls started breaking out their stacks of ones, too. I’d only brought forty dollars, but I was more focused on getting Hailey a lap dance than anything else.
“I’ll be right back,” I whispered in Nick’s ear before I made my way to the bar on the other side of the stage.
As I walked through the cr
owded tables and chairs, I looked up toward the bar and stopped. My chest tightened when I saw a guy sitting on a bar stool with his shirt off. He had messy brown hair, just like Marcus. It took me a second to realize that he didn’t have any tattoos, and I finally blew out a deep breath. God. You’re losing it.
Collecting myself before getting to the bar, I stood next to the half-naked man I thought was Marcus. I waved toward the bartender and waited for him to reach me,
“What can I get for ya?” He winked at me.
It must have been part of their training.
“I’m with the bachelorette party over there, and I need to make sure my friend in the pink tiara gets the best lap dance of her life!”
The bartender laughed and looked at the guy next to me. “I’m sure we can make that happen.”
I finally looked over my shoulder, and I could feel my eyes widen. That guy is fucking gorgeous! He was like movie star, heartthrob gorgeous, but my body didn’t react like it normally would.
I turned to look back at the bartender. “Cool. Thanks! So, when does the show start anyway?”
As soon as I asked, all the lights turned off and a spotlight appeared on the stage. Never mind.
An hour or so later, Monica, Margo, and Hailey had already been humped into submission by strippers, and I was laughing so hard at their expressions that I could hardly breathe. It felt like it had been forever since I laughed that hard.
Thankfully, Jamie had said she couldn’t make the trip with us to Richmond, so we didn’t have to put up with her prudish attitude the entire night. We were all having a blast, even Sharon was giggling next to me at our table.
During a short intermission, Nick broke out one of the bachelorette games we’d found at Spencer’s.
“Okay, ladies! Here are the rules! I will read a task that Hailey has to do, but if she chooses to pass it on to one of you…you have to do it! She is the bride after all.”
Hailey smiled big as she rubbed her palms together. I had a feeling she would be passing on a lot of these to us.
“Okay, here’s the first one! You ready?”
All the girls nodded as we stared at Nick.
“The bride-to-be must find the hottest guy in the room and kiss him!”
Everyone’s jaws dropped, and some girls giggled as we watched Hailey.
“Oh no! I can’t do that! I’m gonna have to pass!”
Damn it. I quickly looked down at my purse, pretending to look for something, as I prayed she wouldn’t pass it on to me.
“Asia!” Hailey yelled, looking over at me with a wicked grin.
My eyes shot up. “Oh noo. No. No. No. Make Nick do it!”
Hailey crossed her arms, and Nick shook his head.
“I’m not a bridesmaid, bitch. Besides, I don’t think any of the guys here could handle me,” he said, giving me a wink.
“Come on, Asia. You have to,” Hailey whined, using her lost puppy dog look.
I sighed and rolled my eyes as all the girls started clapping and egging me on.
I was pretty drunk, but I still felt nervous and even a little guilty. Although Marcus and I weren’t together anymore, deep down, I was still holding on to the hope that we would be one day.
“It’s the perfect way to help you move on,” Hailey whispered as I started to stand up.
“Oh! Oh! That one! Right there!” Nick pointed out into the crowd.
I looked up to see the same guy I’d noticed at the bar. He just finished giving a lap dance, and he was collecting his tips from a blonde.
All the girls started waving their hands as they called for him.
“Hello!”
“Hey, you! Over here!”
I could feel my cheeks getting hotter by the second.
He looked over at our booth and smiled as he made his way toward us. When he noticed I was the only one standing, he came to me and stopped. He was a little sweaty, or maybe it was baby oil. His body was amazing, almost as nice as Marcus’s, and there was that face again. He was flawless, but I still didn’t have an urge to jump his bones. What the hell is wrong with me?
“This beautiful woman right here would like you to kiss her,” Nick said as he ogled the stripper’s body.
The hot stripper was standing there in a blue G-string stuffed with bills. He looked at me and smiled. “She would?”
I couldn’t help but blush. People who looked like him weren’t meant for the normal population. He should be in a museum somewhere.
I was just about to explain the game to him when he reached over. Grabbing the back of my head, he flung me back until I was parallel to the floor. He looked at me for a second and then dived right in. He pressed his lips against mine and then slowly slipped his tongue into my mouth. He tasted good, and he definitely knew what he was doing…but still, nothing. I kissed him back, not wanting to offend him, and all the girls started squealing and laughing. Then, he gently brought me back onto my feet.
Hailey held out a twenty. “That was perfect! Thanks!”
He winked at Hailey as he took his money and then turned to smile at me before walking away.
Everyone stared at his tight ass as he left.
“Damn, girl! Did that feel as good as it looked? ‘Cause it looked fuckin’ hot!” Monica exclaimed.
I shrugged as I took a sip of my fruity mixed drink. It was then that I realized that no other man affected me the way Marcus had, and I wasn’t sure if they ever would.
The next morning, I woke up in a hotel room with Nick snoring in bed next to me. I winced as I opened my eyes and felt the throbbing behind them. I was covered in glitter, and my left hand was sticky. My hair was a mess, and my mouth tasted like tequila. As I sat up on the bed, a pizza box fell to the floor, and I found a piece of crust beside me in the sheets.
I remembered getting a lap dance at the strip club and laughing so hard that I cried. I also vaguely remembered getting in a cab and going to another club to dance where we had taken more tequila shots and danced until we were all drenched in sweat. Everything after that was a little burry. I remembered Hailey falling on her way to the elevator in the hotel. Nick and Monica had kissed, and she’d claimed that since he was gay, it didn’t count as cheating on her husband. I remembered Hailey flashing her boobs out of the hotel window. After that, everything was lost.
The next afternoon, Hailey, all of her bridesmaids, and I were in the bridal shop, getting our final fittings for our dresses. The girls had decided on a strapless cocktail-length dress with a draped detail on the bodice and down the skirt. Hailey’s colors were paradise and jubilee. I liked to call them purple and light gray, but I always got a look from Hailey when I did. The girls decided to go with purple…I meant, paradise, but since I was the maid of honor, my dress was mostly paradise but the draping in the front was light gray…I meant, jubilee. It was definitely not something I would ever wear again, but I had to admit that they were prettier than I’d expected.
Hailey and I were the first to get measured. As we sat on the fluffy white couch, waiting for the other girls, she decided it was time to discuss Marcus.
“So, have you heard from Marcus?” she asked as she turned toward me and studied my face with her eyes. She wasn’t going to miss anything.
I looked down at my hands that were resting in my lap. “No.”
“Have you called him?”
“He changed his number,” I muttered.
I saw her back straighten beside me. She wasn’t expecting that.
“Are you sure?”
I nodded. “I’m sure. I tried calling him last week, and his phone was disconnected.”
“Well, maybe it was a mistake. Maybe he didn’t pay his bill or something.”
I looked up at Hailey and raised my eyebrows. “He’s got millions of dollars, Hailey. I’m sure he paid his phone bill.”
“Well, you don’t know. Maybe he forgot or something.”
I sat there, looking at Hailey like she was crazy, and she just stared right back.
“Whatever,” I said as I lost the staring contest.
Hailey turned to her giant bag of wedding crap and pulled out a copy of Skateboarder Magazine. My eyebrows drew together as she placed it in her lap and started flipping through the pages.
“I saw something yesterday that I think you should see.”
I felt my palms start to sweat as I watched her fingers flipping through the glossy pages. When she stopped, she examined the picture on the page in front of her, and then her eyes lifted to mine before a smug grin curled on her lips. I snatched the magazine from her hands and looked down.
It was an ad for Marcus Avery Skate and Surf Co. My logo was on the top, and underneath, there was a black-and-white picture of Marcus. He was wearing a pair of black cargo shorts, black Nike’s, and he was shirtless. He was skating. Actually, he was more like jumping over a set of stairs with his skateboard flipping under his feet. It was an awesome picture. The photographer had caught the board just as the bottom was facing the lens, and there was my logo again. The thing that caught my eye though, the thing that must have gotten Hailey excited was Marcus’s new tattoo. He had my tiger—my tiger—tattooed on his ribs, opposite the dragon. I must have studied the picture for five minutes before Hailey spoke.
“He hasn’t forgotten about you, Asia.”
I snapped out of the daze I was in and looked up at her. “It’s his logo, Hailey. It doesn’t mean—”
“Don’t be stupid, Asia,” she said, cutting me off. “That’s your tiger. That’s not his logo. That’s you.”
I shook my head, refusing to believe what she was telling me. I couldn’t let myself believe it. I had made it this far without getting my hopes up. I didn’t need to get them up now. Besides, all of his actions said the exact opposite. I hadn’t heard from him. He knew I was back from Japan, and he hadn’t tried to reach me. He’d even changed his phone number. He was moving on, and I had to do the same.
The week flew by, and before I knew it, I was at Hailey and John’s wedding. The ceremony was beautiful, and Hailey looked absolutely breathtaking. My dad and Shaun were there, dressed in their best suits, and so was Jay. Nick looked incredibly handsome, as usual. The entire thing went off without a hitch. The day before, Hailey and I had run all over town, making sure everything would be ready for the big day, so today, I was exhausted, but it was all worth it when I saw how happy she was.
