Page 44 of The Chances We Take

“I didn’t! I swear!”

The second stripper, now down to his underwear, was about to start thrusting in front of my face when I yelled over the music, “Stop! We’renotgetting married!”

The power to the music snapped off, and both of the men stopped what they were doing as the one holding the stereo quietly shuffled toward the entrance of the house.

“Huh?” the first stripper asked. “Listen, man, we were just doing what we were paid to do.”

“Who hired you?” Colter asked, impatience coating his tone.

“Some girl named Isabelle?” the second man responded.

“Fucking Isa and Ellison.” I sighed, rolling my eyes. Directing my annoyance at the intruders, I explained, “It was a prank. Colter’s getting married to a girl named Ellison, not me. Can you uncuff us, please? We’ll give you money to go away.”

The strippers nodded, uncuffing us, and Colter and I handed them twenties.

“Sorry for the misunderstanding, man.” They both grabbed their personal belongings, not bothering to take the time to redress, and beelined it out of the house, letting the door slam shut behind them.

“Someone pour me another shot of Everclear,” I groaned. “I’m going to need it.”

“Mikey’s been making eyes at that girl over there for the past thirty minutes.” Colter chuckled as he nudged me.

After the male stripper debacle, we very quickly ended up at a bar. We had already spent about two hours commiserating over the prank and playing a few rounds of pool.

Over in the corner stood a group of three people: two girls and a guy. One of the girls had dark copper hair, and the other was a blonde. At the first sight of her, my mind drifted to what Isa was up to, but I quickly pushed away those thoughts.

“Listen, I don’t care what Mikey does as long as he doesn’t drag us all into it,” I replied, raising my hands in defense.

“Oh, look. She’s coming over.” Jake pointed at the copper-haired girl.

“Hey there, sugar.” Mikey flipped his baseball cap backward when she strutted up to him.

She looked him up and down, like she was assessing him. “Hi there.” She smiled at him, batting her eyelashes a little, and I rolled my eyes.

The other guys and I were just observing, having no interest in getting dragged into whatever Mikey was about to do.

“June, B, come over here!” the redhead called.

Her friend propped her hands on her hips and shook her head when the guy left her without hesitation.

“Hey, man, I’m Brady.” The guy waved, to which we all mumbled our hellos.

“I’m Mikey, and this is Reid, Colter, Jake and Hayden.” Mikey pointed at all of us, but it was clear in the way his eyes never left her that he was more interested in the girl.

“Wait, no way, you’re that bull rider!” Brady’s eyes went wide as he realized who we were. “Man, that’s sick.”

“That’s me.” Mikey smirked as his eyes flitted to Brady for a split second, the comment obviously stroking his ego. But then he turned his attention back to the girl.

“Well, I’m Ava.” She winked when she noticed him staring at her. “And my friend over there who is being atotal buzzkill,” she raised her voice, “is Juniper. Brady’s her boyfriend.”

The blonde, Juniper, finally walked over. Without acknowledging any of us, other than a pointed glare, she grabbed her boyfriend despite his protests and they left to go sit at a closer table.

Everyone except Mikey and Ava exchanged glances with one another at Juniper’s lack of response to us.

I shrugged when Jake gave me a look that said, “Kinda rude.”

Any thoughts of Ava’s friend went out the window when Mikey chimed in again. “So, what’s a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?”

I almost choked on my beer at Mikey’s sad attempt at a pickup line, the other guys having a similar reaction.

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