by Ash, Nikki
“How would you guys feel about watching Lexi tonight?” Mason asks.
“For what?” I question.
“We would love to!” my mom gushes.
“You, me, and the guys from the gym. We’re going out tonight. It’s been too long since you”—he looks at Lexi—“went fishing.”
Lexi looks up. “Eww! Daddy! Don’t go fishing!”
Kaden laughs and my mom shakes her head.
“We agreed no more fishing,” I remind Mason.
“I know, but I don’t have another way of saying what I need to say.” He shrugs.
Morgan looks up from her phone, finally catching on. “Oh my God! Mason, you are such a pig!”
Lexi laughs. “That’s what that woman called you this morning! I drew the best pig, Auntie Morgan! Want me to draw another one?”
We all laugh.
* * *
We get to the club and it’s one we’ve been to several times. Plush. Mason and several of our friends are members. I’m here as a guest, but because I’ve filled out the paperwork and had the background check done, I’m able to go anywhere in the club when I come with Mason. We walk in and on the first floor it looks like a typical dance club. The walls and floors are matted black. To the left is a wall-to-wall bar with mirror shelving along the back holding all the liquor bottles. A row of silver and black stools run along the bar while several tables surround the outside area of the room. In the four corners of the club, there are silver cages elevated in the air. Each of them containing a man and a woman dancing to the music—grinding against one another. The men are wearing silver briefs and the women are topless, only wearing silver cheeky shorts, which reveal more than they cover.
“Second floor,” Mason yells over the music as I follow him over to the grand staircase, which is being blocked by a black velvet rope and a bouncer. Mason hands the guy our cards to scan and he lets us through.
The second floor is VIP only. It’s all black and silver and pretty much identical to the first floor with only a couple of differences. First, it’s only one-fourth the size. The other difference is, along one of the walls where there are tables downstairs, there are doors.
We arrive to the third door and the bouncer scans our cards once again before letting us through. Already sitting inside the private room on the circular black and silver sofas are our friends: Brent, Troy, Jake, and Tommy. Brent and Troy stand to greet us before sitting back down. The flat screen television is on in the corner and turned to the Monday night football game. In the center of the room, there are a couple of topless women on the stage dancing together. There are two more women straddling Jake and Tommy. They’re dancing to the music—the one straddling Tommy is topless. His attention shifting back and forth between the woman and the game.
Mason and I have a seat, and a woman comes over to take our order. The first thing I notice about this woman is she’s wearing more clothing than the others. While her shorts are still tiny, they actually cover her entire ass. Her top is more of an actual top and less of a bra, and it’s not see-through like the other women’s clothes are. I can see the swell of her breasts but she still leaves plenty to the imagination.
Her name tag reads Charlie. “What can I get you, gentlemen?” Her voice is soft, almost shy, and when she looks down at us, her seafoam green eyes don’t make eye contact. They’re like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Bright green on the inside with a pinch of blue and brown swirled on the outside—they’re mesmerizing. Around the outside of her eyes is matching green makeup making them pop even more.
Mason pays her no mind, ordering a beer and watching the screen for an updated score on the game, but when she turns back to me, I forget what I’m supposed to be ordering. Her hair is up in a tight ponytail. It’s light brown with hints of red shining through from the spotlights. Her skin is naturally tanned, unlike the fake tan you usually see on women in LA.
“Tristan! Order your fucking drink!” Mason laughs.
“Sorry, I’ll have a Sam Adams Octoberfest, if you have it.” She nods and walks out of the room, the door closing behind her.
We spend the next few hours drinking, watching the game, and shooting the shit. Mason has one of the women give me a lap dance, but my eyes can’t seem to leave Charlie the entire time. There’s just something about her. She leaves the room and I make the decision to ask for her number the next time she comes back in, only she never does. We stay for another hour, but Charlie never returns. It’s probably for the best. Only I would fall for a damn stripper. First Bella, then Gina, now my eyes are on a damn stripper. And the winner of the worst judge of character goes to… me!
Okay, fine. Maybe that’s not fair to say since Bella is a great person, but fuck if I’m not a magnet for the wrong damn woman.
We leave close to three in the morning, and a few short hours later, my alarm is going off, letting me know I need to get my ass up to meet my parents, Morgan, and Lexi for breakfast before they leave back to Las Vegas. I hear Mason’s shower running and about twenty minutes later we’re on our way back to the hotel.
My dad sends me a text letting me know they’re at the restaurant so we go straight there. After ordering a cup of coffee and an omelet, I ask Lexi how her night was. She goes on and on about my parents taking her for dessert, buying her more art stuff, and about Morgan taking her night swimming.
“How was your night?” my mom asks.
“Fine,” I reply, not giving anything away.
“Fine? Your son spent the night drooling over one of the waitresses. Of course, he didn’t ask for her number. He’s a puss—” Mason cuts himself off, remembering Lexi’s here, but still punches me in the arm.
“Which is for the best,” I add. “The last thing I need is to bring a strip—” I cut myself off. “Dancer into my life.”
My dad spits out his drink and my mom glares at me.
“I want to dance!” Lexi announces.
“Morgan, can you take Lexi to go see the aquarium for a few minutes?” my mom suggests. “I need to speak to your brother.”
Morgan grabs Lexi’s hand and takes off toward the large indoor aquarium that’s filled with all types of different colored fish.
“What?” I ask, once Lexi is out of earshot. “I’m adult enough to recognize I suck at picking out women. The first woman I liked was in love with another man. The second woman was a drug addict who left her daughter. And after several one-night stands the last few years, it doesn’t surprise me the one woman who catches my attention… dances for a living.”
I notice my dad shaking his head, but I don’t catch on quick enough to stop what I’m saying.
“You’re old enough now that I’m going to tell you something,” my mom says, her voice shaky. “When you were little I got in over my head. The details aren’t important, but I owed some dangerous people a lot of money.” I look at my dad, and his arm comes around my mom’s shoulders in support. “At the time, I was a teacher, and for reasons that don’t matter now, I lost my job. I ended up working as a stripper.”
“What?” I yell louder than intended at the same time Mason says, “Nice!” My dad reaches over and smacks Mason across the back of his head.
“Yes, I was a stripper. At two different clubs. One of which Caleb owned.” She tries to keep her head held high, but I can hear the vulnerability in her voice, the shame seeping through her words at having to admit something so personal to her son. I knew once upon a time, my parents’ friend Caleb—Marco’s dad, who’s also a retired fighter my dad used to train—briefly owned a club. I remember them all discussing it when I was younger. What I didn’t know was that it was a strip club or that my mom worked there.
“First off,” my dad says to my mom. “Don’t you ever feel shame for what you did. I might’ve hated it, but I respect the hell out of you for what you did.” Then he turns his head toward me. “Your mom would’ve done anything to make sure you had a roof over your head and food in your stomach. She didn’t think twice about t
aking her clothes off to make sure you were taken care of. So before you judge a woman, think about that. You don’t know this woman’s situation, and just because you have bad luck with women doesn’t mean every woman is going to have something wrong with her. Not every woman will be a druggie. Not every woman will choose another man over you, and not every stripper is a bad person.”
Well fuck, now I feel like a judgmental asshole. I had no clue what my mom went through when I was younger. I knew my deadbeat biological father left when I was little. She met Kaden, and once they were married, he adopted me. He’s been the only dad I’ve known my entire life.
“Plus, those women aren’t even strippers,” Mason adds. “They’re just topless dancers.” He shrugs, earning himself another smack to his head by Kaden.
Chapter Nine
Tristan
“What do you mean the website is down?” I glide my fingers across the trackpad on my laptop to wake the screen up, then type in the web address for the gym I own here in Los Angeles: Scott’s Gym. Sure enough, the damn site is down.
“Okay, let me get back to you.” I hang up my cell phone and throw it down onto the desk, taking a minute to calm down. I knew the site was due to renew. Instead of trusting someone else, I should’ve handled it myself. After Stacy, my last web designer, quit to become a stay-at-home mom, she recommended a friend of hers. I thought for sure I could trust her recommendation.
Obviously, I was wrong. I told the guy the site needed to be renewed before the end of September and he assured me it wouldn’t be a problem. Well, it seems like it was a damn problem as my site has been taken down due to nonpayment. I had no clue until a member went to check the schedule and couldn’t find the site and called me.
There’s a quick knock on my open door and a “Hey Tristan” that follows. I look up to see Brent standing in the doorway. Not only is he a good friend of mine and Mason’s, but he’s also the gym manager.
“What’s up?”
“Lexi’s coloring all over the gym equipment again. Just thought you’d like to know.” I glance at the clock and see it’s already noon. Four hours have flown by since we got here.
“Thanks,” I say, standing. “I’m going to head out. The site is down. Do me a favor and print out the schedules of the classes and put them on the front desk until I get it back up and running.”
Locking my office door behind me, I head out to the main floor to find my daughter. I spot her sitting on a mat in one of the octagons, coloring with markers. “Hey, Picasso!” She turns to me, her eyes going wide. She knows better than to do this shit.
“Get the cleaner and clean your picture up. You know there’s no coloring on the equipment.” I point to where the cleaner and rags are.
She pouts, her bottom lip jutting out.
“Don’t give me that. You know better. Want to have your coloring stuff taken away?”
She glares as she stands and stomps over to grab the spray and rag. “It’s not my fault. I need to get ready for the painting contest at the library, and the poster board is going to be so, so big! I don’t have any paper that big, and this place is boring!”
I hold back my smile. Lexi’s entire world revolves around art and she hates the gym. Because of her birthday being in October, she doesn’t start kindergarten until next August. I’ve considered putting her in preschool a few days a week, but because I own the gym and can work my own hours, I’ve never had to depend on anyone but family to occasionally watch my daughter. Between Mason, my sister Morgan, and me, we’ve been able to take care of Lexi. She’s so close to starting school, I had planned to spend these next ten months with her. Once she’s in school, I’ll have no choice but to let her go. I know she would love going to preschool, but selfishly, I’m not ready to let my little girl go just yet.
As she gets older, we spend a lot of time at the library. She loves reading the big books of art and they do a lot of arts and crafts there, which she enjoys. Currently, she is excited about the upcoming painting contest. It’s supposed to be for only school-age kids, but the librarian is letting Lexi join in since she knows how much she loves art. She’s five years old, which meets the age requirement, but she’s not in school.
“I don’t care how bored you are,” I say in my dad voice that tells her I’m serious. “You don’t color on anything besides paper. You aren’t a baby anymore, Lex. Finish cleaning up the drawing and then we’ll go to Jumpin’ Java to get lunch.”
“But—”
“Lex,” I say, stopping her from arguing. I swear this child is five going on fifteen.
“Okay.” She drags the word out in defeat then starts cleaning up the massive-size rainbow on the mat.
When we get to Jumpin’ Java, the local coffee shop and bakery Lexi loves, she runs right up to the counter to place her order. Shawna, the owner, is standing in front of the register and spots Lexi immediately. Since Jumpin’ Java is only around the corner from the gym, we’ve been coming here since it opened two years ago.
“Miss Shawna!” Lexi yells way too loud in the quiet shop, practically bouncing in place. Shawna smiles, not caring how loud my daughter is, and bends over the counter to speak to her.
“Lexi, what would you like today?”
Lexi puts her finger to her chin like she’s thinking, which has us both laughing. She always wants the same thing. “Chocolate chip muffin and chocolate milk, please.”
“Lex,” I say, not having to explain myself because she knows the rules.
“Fine,” she huffs. “Fruit and yogurt, please… with a chocolate chip muffin and chocolate milk.” Not exactly what I had in mind, but I’ll take it. At least she’s attempting something healthy. You would think being raised in a home where both adults eat healthy, she would accept it. But no, Lexi is one hundred percent a sweet eater. Getting her to eat fruit and vegetables is an everyday battle.
“Coming right up,” Shawna says to Lexi then looks up at me. “Your usual?”
“Yes, please.” I pay Shawna then have a seat in a corner booth. Lexi has already grabbed the paper and crayons Shawna keeps here for the kids and is coloring her little heart out.
“I’m so excited for the contest,” Lexi says while drawing. “I can’t wait to paint on that big poster,” she adds, and I smile. It won’t even matter if she wins or loses—Lexi is simply happy when she’s creating.
Shawna sets our food and drinks down, and I pull my laptop out of my bag and open it up so I can try to get some work done while Lexi is busy. I call Stacy and let her know her recommendation completely flaked and I won’t be using him in the future. Good thing I didn’t pay him yet. Then I look up web designers in the area, emailing each one, asking about pricing and timeline.
I find out because my domain lapsed, I’ll have to have a new site created, which is fine since the old one was looking outdated. When I bought the gym after I graduated from college, I made a lot of renovations. I’ve added a variety of classes for adults as well as teens and kids. In addition, I added a new weightlifting room and redid the three octagons. Even though the majority of my members are part of the UFC, I’ve branched out and welcome anyone to workout at my gym. The old website didn’t feature any of that.
I’m about to email another web designer when my phone rings. The name Bella flashes across my screen and I smile. There’s only one reason she would be calling.
“Did she tell him yet?”
“Ha ha! No, not yet,” she says in response. It’s a running joke when her daughter, Micaela, will spill the beans to her dad the sex of the baby Bella’s carrying.
“Who’s that,” Lexi asks, looking up from her picture.
“Your aunt Bella.”
“Hi, Aunt Bella!” Lexi yells then goes back to coloring.
“Tell her I said hello,” Bella says.
“Aunt Bella says hello,” I repeat to Lexi, then to Bella I say, “And to what do I owe this call? Are you already missing LA? It’s only been a couple days since you left.”
; “Very funny, Scott. No, we just got home. I was calling to find out if you guys are coming home for the holidays. With me due in January, we won’t be able to go to the cabin for Christmas, so we’re thinking about doing Thanksgiving in Breckenridge.” Breckenridge is where our families have been traveling for vacation since we were little. My parents own a cabin there and we try to visit at least once a year.
“I haven’t thought about it, but the gym will be closed for the holiday so that could be fun.” Bella and I continue talking. The talk of the holidays and closing the gym leads to the website debacle.
“I need to find someone who knows what they’re doing. I need fresh pictures of the gym and a new site.”
“Well if you were here, you could use Sheila, who manages our site.”
“But I’m not there nor will I be.” We discuss the gym, Marco, her parents, and when she plans to go back to fighting after she has the baby. She sends over a couple web designers she found online in my area while we were talking and I pull them up on my computer.
The table shakes a little so I look up and see Lexi getting off her chair and walking over to the table next to me. It’s occupied by a woman who appears to be close to my age, and when Lexi hands her the picture, she smiles but it looks forced. Where have I seen this woman before?
She takes the picture from my daughter and Lexi begins to point out all the parts of her drawing, and then I remember. It’s the woman from the club—Charlie. I watch the interaction between them while talking with Bella for a few more minutes, but my attention is no longer with Bella and whatever it is we’re discussing, instead on Lexi and Charlie.
When Lexi puts her hand out to introduce herself, Charlie almost looks like she’s going to cry.
