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Chuckling, I scooped sour cream out of a little dish and slathered it on my baked potato. “What’d you guys do?”
“One of my buddies looked at me and deadass said ‘thanks for dinner, Daddy’ and his brother just smiled and repeated it.”
“Oh my fucking god. Did they give you the bill?”
“They kinda threw it at me and ran away in horror.” He grinned and sprinkled pepper on his food.
“Amazing. Nothing that exciting has ever happened to me at the end of a meal. I feel cheated.”
“Life with the twins is never dull.”
“These’re the twins you work at the club with?” I took a bite of my steak and stifled a moan. It was perfectly cooked and so tender it practically melted on my tongue.
“You mean the ones you watched dance with your tongue hanging out of your mouth? Yes. That’s them.”
“My tongue wasn’t hanging out of my mouth while watching them. That would be my friend Sloane. Pretty sure that dance awakened something in her.”
He loaded up his fork with chicken and rice. “Wouldn’t be the first time they’ve had that effect on someone, and it won’t be the last.”
“Probably not.”
We ate in silence for a moment. The flickering light from the candle in the middle of the table cast a soft glow over Graham’s features.
Goddamn, he was handsome.
I cleared my throat. “How did you get into stripping, if you don’t mind me asking?”
He finished chewing and politely wiped his mouth with his napkin. “It was a complete accident. I originally applied to be a bouncer, but when I got to the interview, my old boss told me they were only hiring dancers. I needed the work, so I faked my way through a routine as my audition and started that weekend.”
“Are you close with the guys you work with?”
“Some of them. There’s a group of us who all started around the same time and they’re my best friends.” He dropped his eyes and pushed some of his food around on his plate. “One of my oldest friends works there too. We’ve known each other our entire lives. He’s leaving in a few weeks to go to grad school. It’ll be weird not seeing him every week. He’s not going far, just to Seattle. But things have been different between us for a long time. We used to be really close, but he’s moving on. Same as Eli.”
“He’s going away for school too, you said?”
“Yeah. To Stanford. He’s leaving in a few weeks.”
“I’ll bet you’re going to miss him.”
He sighed and stabbed a spear of broccoli with his fork. “More than I should.”
“What do you mean?” I took another bite of my steak. Jesus, it was good.
“Eli isn’t just my little brother. He’s my best friend. Some days I almost feel like his dad, as stupid as that is.” He shook the broccoli off his fork.
“Doesn’t sound stupid at all. From what you’ve told me, you two had to stick together a lot.”
He nodded, his gaze on his plate. “Things were tough growing up. We never had enough of anything. Our mom did the best she could, but we pretty much had to raise ourselves.”
“Or did you raise him?” I asked softly.
He chuckled affectionately and lifted his eyes to meet mine. “You don’t raise a kid like Eli. You try to make sure his curiosity doesn’t get him in trouble and let him do his thing.” The smile fell from his face. “I’m happy for him. He’s worked so hard for this, and his dreams are finally coming true. It’s just tough being the one left behind.” He took a bite and shifted in his seat.
Taking the hint, I changed the subject. We spent the rest of the meal chatting, and the strangest part of the whole experience was how it wasn’t weird at all. Graham was a good conversationalist when he wasn’t being a dickbag, and he had a wicked sense of humor that was just as dry and sarcastic as mine.
When the moment of truth came and our server approached us at the end of the meal, we grinned at each other.
“Are we all done tonight?” she asked, even though she’d already asked us that a few minutes ago.
