Strip for Me

by Coffman, Georgia

  “Are you actually writing that down?” She leans over and paws at my notepad like it’s another glass of wine. “Give me that. That’s for groceries only.”

  “And more wine is a grocery.” I shrug. “I need this for future reference. You know my memory sucks.” I stick my tongue out at her as I walk back into the kitchen.

  Emma sinks even deeper into the couch as she mumbles, “Skank.”

  “Gym ho.”

  She giggles and reaches for the wine bottle. With nowhere for her to go today, I let her have at it. Normally, I have to force it down her throat, so this is a welcomed change.

  But when I return from the shower, a towel on my head and a robe wrapped around me, I start to worry. “What’s the deal here?” I ask, pointing to her head tilted back as she takes superhuman gulps of wine right out of the bottle.

  Doesn’t seem like fun and games anymore.

  She shrugs with a mouth full of wine. I’d join her in a second glass—hell, a fifth even—if that shit didn’t taste like just… well, shit. Her diet doesn’t allow for moscato or white zin because unfortunately, it’s full of sugar and not so much alcohol. So cabernet it is. There’s no taste, but at least there’s not so much guilt.

  “Since when do you drink right out of the wine bottle? In the middle of the day?” I place my hand on her forehead. “Are you feeling okay?”

  She averts her gaze out the window on the far wall by her bedroom door.

  “Hey, what’s going on? I thought we were having fun here.”

  A small smile tugs at her lips. “I am having fun.”

  “Then why do you look like someone died? Oh my God, did someone die?”

  “Did you see me take a call or something? You’ve been with me all day.”

  I shrug. “Anything could’ve happened while I was in the shower.”

  “You do take long showers. A whole apocalypse could’ve gone down while you were in there.” She pours wine into a glass as I take a seat next to her. Then she looks into her glass without smiling. Instead, she swirls the red liquid around like it’s tea and she’s reading tea leaves.

  I nod, unsure whether to pry. I want to. Haven’t seen her this sad since we were thirteen and her parents divorced. No matter how much they reassured her that they still loved her, that she’d always be the center of their universe, she knew better even at thirteen. But it didn’t sting any less when her mother drowned herself in alcohol, especially after her dad remarried and had more kids, everyone forgetting Emma’s existence in the shuffle.

  Unless it’s her birthday or Christmas. Then her father makes sure to wire money, and her mother sends a wrinkled card, wine stains smudging the words, three days late.

  “You can talk to me, you know.” I take her hand in mine just as my phone vibrates.

  It’s Lauren complaining about wedding things and checking in to make sure I have my bridesmaid dress ready. Which I haven’t picked up yet, but I don’t tell her that. With the wedding only a week away, I can’t have her flipping out.

  Because I’ll get it before then. She doesn’t understand that it’s okay not to do something seven weeks ahead of time.

  I roll my eyes at her incessant use of emojis. Some are unnecessary. Like what the hell did she send a shark for? Is she admitting she’s vicious? Should’ve just used the snake.

  We may only be a year and a half apart in age, but we’re a lifetime of experience different. She’s an old soul, but not exactly wise. I’m carefree, but not exactly level-headed at all times. I’m not too good to admit it, but I don’t need it shoved in my face every minute. Mom, Dad—

  “Are you listening?” Emma snaps her fingers at me.

  “Yes.”

  “But what do you think about the other thing? It’s weird, right? That he’d go home with two other girls? And the way he stared at me earlier—God.”

  I nod, unsure of what she’s talking about. And if I didn’t have my judgmental family on the brain, I’d be intrigued that Emma is clearly talking about a guy and may be jealous.

  No way. I read her wrong. That can’t be what she’s talking about. She hasn’t been jealous or anything over a guy since Brant cheated on her, and that was almost two years ago.

  Wait.

  Two girls… and he was staring at her earlier…

  “Wait, Ty? Why do you care what he’s up to?”

  She shakes her head and laughs, but it’s not a cheery one. “I don’t. That was so stupid. Forget I said anything.” She waves her hands in front of her face, and she looks like she did in middle school, wide-eyed and vulnerable. Not like a grown woman living in LA with her own business.

  She squares her shoulders in true Emma style and announces she’s going for a walk, as though our lower body workout earlier was a joke.

  When she asks me if I want to join her, I scoff. “Yeah right.”

  She rolls her eyes.

  “But you’re okay?”

  She nods with her hand on the door, and I start getting ready for work.

  And then… Sebastian.

  My heart flutters at the thought of him coming over, emphasis on coming, but my stomach drops at the thought of his face when he left earlier. Hesitant and a little distant. And I hope it wasn’t because of what Emma said, that he was the best I’d ever had.

  It’s true, but I didn’t want him to know it for fear that he wouldn’t think me a challenge anymore. That I was too easy to please. That he’d be bored.

  By the time I’m ready for work, my usual insecurities have set up camp in my lower stomach, making me want to throw up. Especially when I’m helping customers at work, and they take their shoes off. It’s not always a pleasant experience, but I’ve gotten good at holding my breath, refusing to smell the air around me.

  By the end of my shift, I’m ready to call Sebastian and cancel. Tell him I had fun and that I’ll catch him the next time he’s in town.

  But when his name pops up on my phone, I smile, my resolve to cancel forgotten. I instantly feel lighter, even though he only sent a smiley face. Makes me think it’s all in my head, the insecurities Adam put there long ago coming back to haunt me like they always do.

  But with Sebastian, it’s different. He makes me feel good about myself for once.

  As I type back that I can’t wait to see him tonight, I breathe a little easier, thinking he could be the one to take all my insecurities away.

  Chapter 29

  Sebastian

  My adrenaline races, heart pumping and legs trembling. The same high I get from working out, but I’m on stage now finishing our last show in LA.

  I laugh with the guys as we head backstage. “Nice air at the end, man!” Jordan high-fives me, referring to the ending backflip.

  “All you, Jordan.” I shrug. “You’re getting a lot better. You’re going to take center stage in no time.”

  Ty snaps his head back at me, glaring.

  I throw my hands up. “Don’t look at me. You better get your shit together before you lose your spot to a rookie.”

  That earns me a slap to the back of my head, just before he turns to Jordan with a smile. “I don’t mind some competition.” Then his facial expression morphs into one I imagine the Italian mafia gives its victims before slicing their faces off. “But watch yourself.”

  “Good luck to you,” I say to Jordan and shake free of their tension. I’d make a joke to lighten the mood, to keep the dancing on stage, but as long as I’ve been here, this is how we do things. It’s all in good fun.

  We all get along with each other—Leo makes sure of it—but spending so much time together makes us think twice about crossing each other.

  Naked Heat is more like a family, something I’ve never known before.

  Naked Heat gives it all to me.

  A sense of belonging and acceptance.

  Something I never had with Joelle.

  This is what’s on my mind when I pull up to Kendall’s—wanting her to accept me too.

  And maybe if I sh
ow her more about myself, like I intend to tonight, she’ll be more accepting.

  She answers the door in high-waisted ripped jeans, her feet bare and nails painted pale pink. They give her a girlish quality, a contradiction to the fierce woman I’m used to, but her low-scooped tank does the job.

  All thoughts of Joelle, her engagement, Naked Heat—it all dissolves as I enter Kendall’s magnetic field, pulling me toward her.

  She takes my breath away, face glowing and hair pushed to one side like she spent an hour in front of a fan. Or driving through LA in a convertible with the top down.

  I smile at the thought of driving with her along the water through Malibu, my arm around her shoulders and her laughter for music instead of the radio, her smile pierced in my mind.

  With a hand on her hip, she smiles. “Are you coming in or what?”

  An overwhelming need for her consumes me, as it has the last couple days. I take her in my arms and kiss her against the nearest wall, push my body against hers with the front door wide open.

  A throat clears a few feet from us. When I back off, I notice we’ve attracted a small audience. An Asian couple across the dim hall glares while covering their young daughter’s eyes.

  “Show’s over, Mr. and Mrs. Lang.” Kendall kicks the door closed and jumps onto me like a cat pounces on a mouse.

  She swallows any uncertainties I had when I walked in, and when I cup her ass and squeeze, I all but lose consciousness from the urge to be closer to her. Especially when she hugs my waist with her firm legs.

  She peers down between us at my obvious hard-on, even through my jeans.

  “You ready?” I say, my voice strained with indecision between taking her out as promised or locking us in her room and kissing up and down her naked body.

  She catches her breath. “You sure you don’t want to…?” She nods toward the bedroom.

  I kiss her pouty lips. “I want nothing more than to bury myself inside you all night, but I have dinner waiting for us in the car.”

  “Huh?”

  I kiss her one more time and set her on the ground. Taking her hand, I call over my shoulder, “You’ll see.”

  Chapter 30

  Kendall

  Sebastian kisses me, lingering and pushing me against his car, so close together the slight evening breeze is unable to get between us.

  I smile against his lips. “This is what you had planned? The big surprise?”

  “A kiss in the parking lot isn’t romantic?” He smiles slyly. “Because it took my breath away.”

  I shove him back. “Nerd.”

  He clutches his chest in as dramatic a fashion as posting to Instagram without a filter.

  I open the door to his car and settle inside, smoothing my jeans down and wondering where he’s taking me. When he showed up at my apartment, I was giddy—actually giddy.

  Especially when he said he had a surprise for me. No guy has done anything like this.

  Sebastian Davis is indeed one of a kind.

  He drives across town, holding my hand the whole way. We near downtown and keep going, past the throngs of people out for dinner and fun. This is what I like about LA and the city life in general—the fact that people are out after eight o’clock and that everything’s open.

  In Alabama, Walmart was the only thing open all night, and if you knew any better, you wouldn’t visit past nine. It was a “proceed at your own risk” kind of thing, since that was when the shady night crawlers came out to play.

  The local Walmart became the Upside Down from Stranger Things after dark.

  “You’re smiling, and I didn’t put it there.” Sebastian pulls me out of my thoughts. “Who is it? Who’s the other guy making you smile?” He squeezes my hand and looks away when he says it, not even toward the road but out his window.

  Like he really thinks there could be another guy.

  When he turns back to me, he forces his best angry look with squinty eyes that make him look more like he needs a bathroom.

  For now, I roll with his playful manner. “Is that supposed to be your mad face? Because you’re going to hurt yourself.”

  His expression softens, his eyes on the road. When we pause at a red light, he turns to me, leaning over the console and placing a soft kiss on my lips.

  My heart.

  My heart stops at the gesture, like he’s trying to tell me something too precious for words even, and only a kiss will do.

  A magical kiss.

  Honking behind us breaks us apart. I touch my lips as I look out the window at the blur, catching glimpses of strangers, our paths crossing for the briefest of seconds.

  “I knew everyone in my hometown,” I whisper.

  He stays silent, but his silence is the kind that encourages me to go on. That’s how Sebastian works. He silently presses to get to know me, and I’ve never been able to stop from sharing myself with him no matter how hard I tried.

  “There’s a population of ten thousand, but still, I knew everyone. Not like LA. I go weeks, months without seeing the same face here. Without people knowing me.”

  He shifts in his seat slowly while he nods.

  “I love going to the grocery store, to work, anywhere. They’re all new people every day, and I can just blend in.”

  We turn onto a gravel lot, an empty field stretched in front of us. It’s dark, and the city lights are faint out here. Downtown is close enough, though, reminding me that we’re not out in the middle of nowhere.

  I reach for the door handle, but Sebastian stops me. “You are beautiful. Let the world see you. It’d be a shame for you to hide in the crowd.”

  That’s not what people from my hometown think.

  I open my mouth and close it as I stare at our laced fingers. When I look up, my mouth hangs open at the way he stares at me. Like he’s hungry for me, for my beauty. He looks like he admires me, and not just physically. His gaze is trained on mine like he sees past the surface.

  He watches me with so much conviction; I believe his words when I’ve never had a reason to believe them from anyone else.

  We get out of his Jeep, and while he retrieves something from the back, I step toward the field. The gravel crunches beneath my feet, but other than that, it’s quiet here. LA’s downtown bustle is faint, white noise behind us like static.

  The stars are bright and plenty. Tilting my head back, I close my eyes and let the breeze brush across my cheeks.

  That’s when I hear it.

  The soft waves of the ocean.

  I don’t come down this way at all, so I hadn’t realized where Sebastian was taking me.

  “Ready for the best surprise ever?”

  I turn around to see him holding a blanket and cooler. “A picnic?” I can’t contain my smile.

  “A picnic for my lady.” He walks past me to the edge of the gravel where the grass begins. A few feet in, he sets the cooler down and lays out the blanket. “Are you going to drink your wine from all the way over there?”

  I shake my head, moving my legs closer to him.

  A picnic under the stars with a gorgeous man.

  No, this most certainly has never been done for me before.

  Chapter 31

  Sebastian

  She sways her hips when she walks toward me, tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear.

  Her jeans hug every part of her, and her hair slightly moves in the breeze.

  She’s fucking breathtaking.

  When she delicately sits next to me on the blanket, it takes everything in me not to pull her onto my lap and hold her there, kiss her neck, and revel in her vanilla scent.

  And she wants to disappear, to not be noticed at all in the LA crowd? She has no idea how beautiful she is. No idea that no matter how hard she tries, she’ll always be noticed. Even in LA, where she’s surrounded by models and actresses, she’ll always stand out.

  She has a soul that attracts even the most brokenhearted, the most undeserving of us. We want to be in her presence for even just a
glimpse of her light.

  “This is it,” I say, holding my hand out to the empty lot, gulping in anticipation of her reaction.

  She looks around with a shy smile, confusion hiding there. Her eyes dart back and forth over the emptiness.

  It makes me chuckle as I pull out the small boxes of personal pizzas and the bottle of cabernet sauvignon. “This is the lot I told you about. Where I want to build my hotel.”

  Her mouth falls open as the realization settles. Bringing her hand to her chest, she says with reverence, “It’s…” She keeps her gaze out into the distance. “It’s perfect.”

  She places her hand on mine, stopping me from getting the food ready. She studies me, not in confusion or hesitation, just awe. Like I told her I found the cure to cancer.

  And I feel it. The feeling tugs at my heart, opening it up to this woman on this blanket in the middle of a field full of dreams. Instead of letting it swallow me right now, I shrug, playing off the whole thing while I sift through the cooler.

  Kendall smiles. “What’re you waiting for?”

  “I’m trying to find the damn cups I brought for this wine. Hold your panties.”

  She slaps my arm and moves closer to me. “I meant the hotel. Why not go for it? Buy the lot and open your hotel. It’s your dream.” She hesitates, then says, “You found your dream, and you shouldn’t waste it.”

  This is where her light dims. Her hesitation in herself. Her inability to acknowledge that light of hers exists.

  I’ve gotten more than a glimpse of that light, but only spurts. I want more. I want to do everything possible to keep her light there because as much as I want to keep it for myself, it’s not something to hide from the world.

  “It’s not that easy.” I shuffle the items around once more in the cooler with no sign of the cups.

  But when I turn around, Kendall is drinking straight from the bottle. “I don’t like to wait.” She takes another sip before handing it to me. “What’s not that easy? I mean, what’s wrong with this land? Seems like this would be a good place to do something, but why hasn’t anyone snatched it up already?”