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“Me, too.” I was older than Andrew, heading toward my mid-30s. I shouldn’t have tried to keep up with the younger guys. I heaved myself onto one elbow with effort and noticed my friend was twinkling. “Whoa. You have glitter in your hair.”
“Cause I’m getting married.”
I thought of my husband Price. We’d just recently wed, and I adored him with all my being. “You’ll love being married, babes. You’ll love it so much.”
“Shh. You’re talking so loud.”
“I’m whispering, though.”
One of his friends appeared, holding his head the same way Andrew was holding his, which I found extremely funny. If only it didn’t hurt to laugh. He addressed the room in a ragged stage whisper.
“Hey. People. There’s a very angry daddy at the door. Tall. Blond. Very angry. He’s looking for Cher.”
Craig’s soft, rueful voice began to sing from the corner. “If I could turn back ti-ime…”
I nudged my friend. “Andrew, I found Craig! He’s in the corner.”
“Nobody puts Craig in the corner,” Andrew replied with a flash of temper.
“Where is Cher?” asked Andrew’s friend in a plaintive voice.
“Oh,” I said. “Not the performer Cher. It’s me.” I hauled myself to a full sit, looking around for my phone. “It’s me. I’m Chere.” Shit, where was my phone? I’d suddenly realized I knew who the very angry daddy was, and the angry part didn’t bode well for me.
“Andrew?” I poked him, but he’d curled back into a fetal ball with his hands over his head. “Help me, Andrew. What time is it? Where’s my phone?”
“I’m not getting married until Saturday,” he protested, pushing my hand away.
I looked down to be sure I was dressed, and I was, although I’d gotten a stain on my wrinkled silk dress that might have been salsa, or strawberry margarita.
The man at the door gave a small, aggrieved aghhh as my fiancé barged past him, looking very angry indeed. His lips were set in a line and his vivid blue eyes seemed to shoot fire.
“Daddy,” I whispered admiringly. “Angry daddy.”
He moved toward me, and in spite of my burgeoning fear and head-splitting hangover, I had to admire the way his jeans fit over his lean, powerful thighs. A pale blue sweater stretched across his broad chest. It matched his eyes and looked so soft.
“What time is it?” I asked when he reached me. He was so tall. Probably because I was still sprawled out on my blanket on the floor. “I lost my phone.”
“I know. I went to where your phone was. I’ve been looking for you for hours. I had to play fucking connect-the-dots with fifty of Andrew and Craig’s drunk friends and a dozen gay-stripper agencies to figure out where you fucking ended up last night.”
“Oh.”
“Oh,” he mimicked, crouching down beside me. “You had a three a.m. curfew, which I thought was very generous. It’s eleven in the morning now.”
“I’m sorry.” I clutched my head, unable to hold eye contact. “I didn’t think I drank that much. But I did drink too much. We were drinking here, too.”
“There were strippers,” Andrew murmured beside me, still half asleep.
“There were strippers, yes. They were funny.” I tried to smile at Price, but it hurt my cheeks. “They banged on the door dressed like policemen, and I thought we were all going to get arrested for drinking and making noise, and then they were strippers. Can you believe that?”
“Yes, I can, since that’s literally what all male strippers do, Chere. One of them is still asleep out in the living room with a police badge taped to his chest. He’s the only reason I found you, because he had the courtesy, the thoughtfulness, to check in with his employer before he passed out.”
The way Price emphasized thoughtfulness, well, I knew that was it for me. I pulled the blanket over my head in hopes he might forget I existed and go away.
“I’m sorry,” I said from behind the fabric when he didn’t leave. “I was going to call to tell you I was ready to be picked up, but I must have fallen asleep.”
“Fallen asleep, or blacked out? And it would have been hard to call me, since you left your phone behind at Slapping Cheeks Gentlemen’s Cabaret at some point.”
“Sweet slapping cheeks,” said Andrew with a sigh.
