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“Hello?” I hung back and answered my phone, but kept an eye on Megan and Nigel, who didn’t go far at all.
“Hi, um… I got your name from a friend?” The woman’s voice held an uncertain waver.
I was used to calls like this, and a little surprised I hadn’t gotten one in a little while. The conversation always worked out best if I eased the caller into it. “Are you looking for an entertainer for a party?”
“I think so, yes?”
It was amazing the number of people who wanted to hire a stripper, but found it impossible to say so. “I’m Landon, you are?”
“Katherine.”
“Hi, Katherine.” This was familiar. Easy to slide into. “Tell me about your party. What’s the occasion? About how many people do you expect?”
“There will be about twenty five or thirty of us.” With each response, she sounded less tentative. “It’s my best friend’s bachelorette party.”
Less than three months ago, Quentin said something very similar to me.It’s for my roommate’s best friend’s bachelorette party…And it turned my entire world upside down. “Sounds exactly like what I do.”
“To be clear, just so there are no misunderstandings later, you’re a stripper?” Katherine seemed to have found her boldness.
I hid my laugh at the direct question. It would make a lot of things easier. “I am.”
We spent the next five minutes talking about how I operated, how much everything cost, and all the other details of reserving my time. I was grateful I could recite it all from memory, because I had my attention on Megan and Nigel the entire time.
The way she was laughing. The way he talked animatedly with his hands… I bet it was one hell of a story. “I’m sorry, It’s loud in here. Could you say that again?” I should be listening to the woman on the phone, not letting my mind drift.
“That all sounds great,” she said. “I’d love to hire you.”
This size party, with my fee plus tips, was exactly what I needed to make up my missing income. Sayingyesshould be easy, but the word was stuck in the back of my throat. I also couldn’t saynobecause I’d spent a week fucking around a with a near stranger who loved another man.
AndfuckI hated to think of Megan that way, because she wasn’t a stranger. Neither was Nigel. I felt closer to them than I had anyone in a long time, despite how much it hurt to watch them from a distance as they laughed and joked. “When is your party?”
Katherine gave me a date that I didn’t register.
“Landon. We’re gonna go see the Harley exhibit.” Megan’s smile was bright when she called to me. When she saidmyname, not Nigel’s, but mine.
“Come on. We can’t go without you,” Nigel said.
I was so fucked. “I need to double check my schedule. When do you need an answer?”
“If you could get back to me by Monday afternoon, that’d be fantastic,” Katherine said.
I nodded. “I’ll let you know by then.”
I rejoined Megan and Nigel, and tried to ignore how the ping of longing in my chest became an ache of belonging over the next twelve or so hours. We hopped from one attraction to the next, and at the end of the day, I was the one who suggested we watch the drone light show that was happening at the edge of the city.
Our hotel room wasn’t close enough to hear the music, not over the crowds of the city, but it was high enough up for us to watch the hundreds of drones paint stunning visuals with light. We pushed the hotel furniture aside, and the three of us sat on a blanket and watched.
What was it about these two people that sucked me in and kept hold of me? Why were things so easy with them, despite my not wanting this connection?
After the show ended, none of us made an effort to move, with Megan mostly in Nigel’s lap, but her legs draped across mine. It wasn’t as though it was quiet up here—even seventy stories up, it was obvious the city was alive and loud below us. But with them, my brain was quiet enough that being here was still peaceful.
Still, these weren’t my people and this wasn’t my place. “I should…”leave the two of you alone. Let you be. Forget how much I don’t want this to end.The rest of my sentence wasn’t there, but I stood anyway. “Unless you had more plans.” Not what I should’ve said.
Nigel grabbed my wrist, and the heat that seared through me would’ve made Vegas asphalt feel positively frigid. “If it takes making plans to get you to stay, we will.”
“Don’t go,” Megan said.
It didn’t take plans. It only took his touch and her gentle request, and I settled in without further argument.
