Strip for Me

by Coffman, Georgia

  “You always hated that I was a stripper.” I shook my head at the surreal feeling to be having any conversation with her. I never thought I’d see or hear from her again, even if she did just marry someone very close to me.

  Someone who used to be close to me, anyway.

  “No, I didn’t like you being a stripper. Sorry, I thought you were better than that, but—”

  “Don’t talk down about it. Those guys are the best I’ve ever known. At least they’re decent human beings, unlike the bastard currently sharing your bed.”

  “Is that why you really called? You’re still mad about Sid?”

  “I don’t give a fuck about him.”

  “That’s convincing.” I imagined her rolling her eyes. “What I was going to say was that I thought you were better than to purposely steer away from a challenge to go back to your comfort zone like a child.”

  “I didn’t steer away. Your jackass of a husband fucked me over.”

  “You talked about going back to stripping long before the incident.”

  “That’s what you’re calling it now? An incident? Or is that what he said to make himself look better? What a tool.” I chuckled humorlessly.

  “My fucking point is that you’re the one who lost interest in the business, even though I knew you really loved it. Instead of being the responsible business partner, you’d go in late after being out all night with your stripper buddies, like you never left. You clung to them and your safety zone like a security blanket. It was sickening.”

  I get in line to order a smoothie now, my gut tightening as nausea consumes me. Joelle’s words replay in my head like there’s no stop button.

  She was right.

  Everything she said last night—she was right about me.

  The realization hits me like cold water splashing my face.

  I did steer away from a challenge. From a change. I got used to Naked Heat after five years with them. I didn’t know how to be anything other than a dancer, so I went back.

  Last night, when I didn’t answer, Joelle continued, defeated, “Sid saw it too. Got worried you’d be a liability instead of an asset. You should really talk to him.”

  “He should’ve talked to me first like a man, instead of fucking my fiancée behind my back.” I hung up, never taking my eyes off the water.

  I was scared—terrified—of taking a risk on my own business. When Sid offered to help, I jumped at the chance. I trusted him. But the fear never went away that I was failing, even after almost a year of running our small hotel. Naked Heat was the easier option, and I was good at it. It was easy.

  And when I saw Sid and Joelle kissing in our driveway, I didn’t hesitate to resume my old dancing position.

  Nor did I hesitate to punch him in the nose and never speak to him again.

  Although I was to blame for my own insecurities, Joelle had no right to do what she did. I don’t forgive her for that, but I’m starting to forgive her for calling off our wedding.

  She did me a favor, anyway, in more ways than one. We were wrong for each other in the end. The way she made the decisions without me should’ve been my first clue that she was more concerned about making wedding arrangements than life plans with me. We would’ve realized it sooner or later that we weren’t meant to be.

  With smoothie in hand, I walk back outside. Opening my phone, I read the texts from Kendall I got last night, cursing me to Hell. Instead of being angry, I smile at her audacity. Her intensity when she lets go is something I’ll always admire about her.

  After talking with Joelle, I feel lighter. Lighter than I have in a long time, like I needed that closure. Her reasoning as to why I wasn’t good enough.

  Why I wasn’t enough for her.

  That’s what was holding me back. I needed the closure in order to move on with Kendall and go all in.

  I’m about to call her, this overwhelming need to hear her voice consuming me, but Jordan jogs up with Leo in tow. “Hey, we need to do some last-minute prep. I have an idea how we can amp up the excitement for the ending of tonight’s show. Come up with us.”

  I clutch my phone tightly as I reluctantly nod.

  On the way up, my fingers itch to dial Kendall’s number, my body on fire knowing I have to wait.

  To wait to tell her I’m over my ex.

  That I’m over the past and want a future.

  With her.

  Chapter 45

  Kendall

  I take a sip of my third drink and bob my head to the music. Resting my elbows on the bar, I stick out my chest as I scan the crowd. I wasn’t planning on rebound sex tonight, but my buzz has me considering those options.

  Emma advised me against it because, of course, she knew what I was thinking before I even said it.

  She at least agreed with me that Sebastian was an asshole, but she wasn’t too eager to defend me. Instead, she had “I told you” written all over her smirk. It was visible even in the dark Uber.

  Which pissed me off.

  “Margo and George are on their way,” Emma shouts at me over her martini. “They’ll make you laugh.”

  Eyeing a hot guy on the other side of the bar, I answer, “But I have you to do that.”

  She snorts. “Yeah right. Now I know you’re drunk.” She points to my drink. “Maybe you should slow down.”

  “Maybe I’ll speed up and run over to that hot-as-fuck guy.” I smile at him and take a sip through my straw, taking extra time as I close my lips over it. Which gets his attention.

  And after all my texts to Sebastian have gone unanswered since last night, I need some attention.

  “Hey,” says a deep voice to my side, but it’s not the guy I was flirting with from across the room. “You never called.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I gave you my number weeks ago, and you never called.”

  His smile and bald head look familiar, but I can’t place him.

  “From the gym? I’m Rob.” He steps closer to me as people move around us.

  I shake his hand and suddenly remember giving his number to Emma when I got home from the gym that morning. “Of course.” I put on the charm. I’ve been out of the game for only a few weeks. A few weeks where I let my guard down with Sebastian. But I can do it. I reverted to my old ways at the reception so seamlessly, I can do it again now. “I’m such a stupid, stupid girl.” I place my empty glass on the bar. “Let me make it up to you?”

  He opens his mouth, but nothing follows.

  Now I remember him very clearly—the beefhead who can’t flirt.

  But he’s sexy in a Joe Rogan kind of way, so I lead him to a quiet corner where I’m hoping to test his kissing ability. And hoping he doesn’t fail.

  “Thought we could use some quiet.” I wink as I lean my back against the wall.

  “Yeah… I like… quiet.”

  “I bet you do.” I run my hand through my hair, waiting for him to make a move, when my phone goes off in my hand. It’s Emma calling.

  “You need to get that?”

  “No. It’s just my roommate.” I play it off with a wave of my hand, but a sinking feeling overcomes me. Especially when she calls a second time.

  But I ignore it again as he pulls me closer—she’s probably just trying to stop me from myself.

  Before he can kiss me, I panic. Placing both hands on his chest, I push him back. “Maybe we should just talk some more.” But I didn’t even want to do that. Suddenly I felt icky. Even being in his presence made me nauseated.

  Then Margo appears as if out of the walls and grabs my arm. “We need you! Emma just left.”

  Confused, I let her walk me away from… what’s his name? “So what if she left?”

  “She ran into her ex-boyfriend or something? Got all flustered and stormed out.” She shrugs, but her eyebrows are furrowed, concerned for our mutual friend.

  There’s only one ex she could be talking about, but I ask to make sure. “Brant?”

  She shrugs again. “That’d make se
nse. I don’t think anyone else could’ve gotten that kind of reaction out of her. She was almost in tears.”

  Understanding settles deep in my chest. If Emma ran into Brant, after all this time of no word or interaction from him, she’ll be a mess. I need to get to her.

  I nod at Margo. “I’ll go home and check on her. You stay with George, have fun.” I give her a small, reassuring smile before calling an Uber.

  I call Emma on my way home, but it goes to voice mail. I kick at the floor of the car like it’s Brant’s face. The motherfucker broke up with her after she caught him in bed with a woman from his real-estate agency.

  After Emma moved across the country for him. Gave up everything for him. And then, not even two months after she got out here, he left her broken.

  Even the thought gets me angry, so angry for my friend and her broken soul.

  And I’m even angrier that I wasn’t there to smash his skull into the ground and squeeze his nuts off.

  I clench and unclench my fists the whole way to our apartment, my temper ready to explode like it did at my sister’s wedding, which was the first time since Adam. I try to control my breathing, my nostrils flaring to the point of physical pain.

  By the time I make it inside, I’m still riled up, adrenaline coursing through me at a much higher rate than it does while I’m at the gym. Breathlessly, I open Emma’s bedroom door without knocking. “Emma? Hey, it’s me.”

  “I don’t want to talk to you.” Her voice is muffled by the comforter raised up to her eyes.

  I’m just about to close the door to give her some privacy, but the way she said “to you” makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. What does that mean? “Emma, what happened?”

  She sits up like a vampire in her coffin after coming back to life. “I’ll tell you what happened. Hmm.” I can see her, even in the dim lighting, put her finger to her lips sarcastically. “My so-called friend—that’s you—asks me to go out with her. Asks me even though she knows I have an early class tomorrow, and I want a good night’s sleep because I’m responsible. But she begs me to anyway like she always does, and I go because she needs a fun night out.” Then her tone changes to a very serious, non-sarcastic one. “Then she disappears completely to go stick her tongue down a random stranger’s throat.”

  Shocked that she didn’t mention anything about Brant or anyone else, just me, that I’m her problem, I start stammering. “What? That’s what… you’re upset about?”

  “Yes,” she seethes. And if the light were completely on, I bet I could see her red cheeks, like the way she gets angry when the TV is left on all night. Or when I don’t clean the blender right after I use it.

  I hold my arms out in my defense. “I was only gone for a second.”

  “Please. You ditched me the minute we got there. The only reason I went was to try to cheer you up. So much for a girls’ night.”

  “Oh, cut the shit. We were out to have fun. Sorry, if my idea of fun actually involves hooking up and doing grown-up things.” Pissed, I storm out of her room in a huff and into my own, slamming the door behind me. All my anger toward Brant, Sebastian, my life—it’s all redirected toward the one person I thought was on my side no matter what.

  And now she’s turned on me.

  I hear footsteps stomping before my door swings open. “Grown-up? You want to talk about being an adult? Ha! Like you know anything about that. You can’t even wash a blender on your own.”

  “Get over the damn blender, seriously. I wash it when I get home from work. Not a big deal.”

  “So typical of you. Nothing is a big deal to you. Just continue going out, having a bunch of sex, and forget about responsibility. Go on living your easy life while the rest of us are, in fact, adults.”

  “I don’t know what the fuck your problem is, but get out of my room. Go take a fucking Midol, or better yet, a tequila shot. Make it seven.” I fold my arms across my chest. Can’t believe I rushed home thinking she needed to be consoled for running into her own nightmare. I wouldn’t have bothered if I knew this shit storm was waiting for me.

  Emma walks out, but just as quickly comes back in. “You know, this is what your mom, Lauren, Sebastian—what everyone is talking about. You think the world revolves around you, and it doesn’t.”

  I open and close my mouth, the anger inside replaced with hurt.

  Because that stings.

  The words about my family sting.

  Emma knows better than anyone what my family is like and the hell they always give me. So for her to take their side now?

  It fucking stings.

  And mentioning Sebastian’s name makes it all worse.

  “Too far, Emma.”

  “Oh, did that hurt your feelings? That they actually have a point? That it’s not them, it’s you?”

  Tears prick my eyes, ready to spill over, as she slams my door shut. The horrid weekend, my family, Sebastian, and now Emma? The way she looked at me? It’s all too much. I have no words. I have nothing to say to her.

  Because she’s right.

  They’re all right about me. I’m a disappointment.

  And the realization has me crawling into bed like a wounded puppy.

  Defeated.

  When my phone lights up with incoming texts and calls, I don’t bother to look. No one and nothing can change the way I feel at this moment.

  Not even Adam made me feel this low. Not even all the times he made fun of my outfits or my accent.

  Not even when he repeatedly called me a psycho.

  Not even when he said he wanted nothing to do with me, after I told him I loved him.

  No, I’m at my lowest point now. And as I let the tears fall, my pillow soaked, I don’t know how I’ll resurface.

  I can’t sleep. I can already feel a headache settling in.

  I can’t stop thinking about the way Emma’s voice cracked and the way her eyes watered while she looked at me as though she didn’t recognize me.

  I turn over so I’m facing the window, the moon nowhere in sight, the streetlight outside too dim.

  Darkness surrounds me.

  I check my phone and see it’s almost 4:00 a.m. I have several missed calls and texts from Sebastian, but my stomach rolls at the thought of talking to him.

  At the same time, my heart lurches toward the phone, needing him to comfort me. He’s the only one who can, the only one who makes me comfortable enough to do so.

  But the way he looked at me in front of the church sinks in. His cold, dark eyes that sent cold shivers down my back like I was the worst person he’d ever met.

  I spent my whole adult life trying to make sure I did everything I could to make my parents proud. Turns out, not only have I disappointed them, but I’ve also made my friends and Sebastian—someone who could’ve been my future—hate me.

  The need to yell at him mixed with wanting to hear his soothing laugh have me calling him back. Even now in the middle of the night. The worst that can happen is that he doesn’t answer.

  Or worse, he does.

  “Hello?” His voice is clear, and something else…

  Pained.

  I inhale, imagining his cologne washing over me like it did so many times when he slept with me in this bed. “Stop calling me,” I whisper, and I hate my own weak voice. It doesn’t sound like mine at all.

  “Kendall, let me explain,” he pleads as shuffling sounds from the background, and then I hear silence. It’s so silent on the other end, I think I hear his heart beating. He sounds desperate, yet his voice is firm and confident, like him. No matter the situation, he’s always been confident, something I’m not. “I was a complete jackass. I shouldn’t have lashed out at you.”

  After having been yelled at earlier, it’s a relief to have someone speak gently and apologetically. I burst into tears.

  “Kendall, please forgive me. Please forgive me, and believe me when I say I didn’t tell you about Joelle because it was a fucked-up situation, and I didn’t want to bring you
into it.” He pauses, my involuntary hiccup filling the gap. He mutters a curse. “I want to see you. I want to hold you and explain and apologize profusely with my words, my mouth. I want to kiss you everywhere.”

  “Stop calling me,” I repeat, unable to say anything else. I can’t let his words take hold of my heart. I have to distance myself from him if I want to do what he and everyone else thinks I need to—grow up.

  He’s an unrealistic future for me.

  Everything is against us—our distance, our pasts, our present demons.

  “I’m going to call you tomorrow. I’m going to keep calling until I can convince you we’re meant to be together.”

  Another sob escapes me, and I sink farther into my pillow with the covers pulled over my head. Before I run out of here and drive to San Francisco to see him, before I can take seven steps backward when I should be moving forward, I say something I know will get him to back off, no matter how immature it might be. “We’re not meant to be. None of it was real. It was only good sex. That’s all.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “It was the best I ever had. And now I know what it should be like, thanks to you.” My voice is distant, the words not registering. Like I’m not speaking them. And the minute they leave my mouth, I want to take them back.

  To apologize and beg to see him.

  But I end the call instead.

  I only want to run to him because everyone else close to me isn’t speaking to me. They’re all mad at me, and I’m alone.

  And it seems I’m going to be that way for a long time.

  Because I need to grow up. To stop making excuses for my failures, when I’m the only one to blame.

  But tonight… tonight I wallow in my tears. For now, I allow myself to grieve, from the heartache of what was and what could’ve been.

  Chapter 46

  Sebastian

  The line goes dead, and my heart stills along with it.

  I lost her.

  The one girl who made me want to love again. And she’s gone.