Page 61 of Wingwoman
Vivian was onstage.
With a stripper.
Riding him like a pony.
And the weirdest part? It wasn’t even weird.
I was laughing my ass off and having the most fun I’d had in my life. Male strip clubs were a whole other ballgame versus female strip clubs. First of all, that whole ‘hands off’ rule at the female strip clubs? Out the damn window here.
These women were touching, licking, petting, stroking… and the dancers would lift the girls up and do all kinds of dirty things to them onstage. Who knew Magic Mike was actually a documentary, not fiction?
The only thing that sucked? Hope would barely talk to me. She sat as far away from me as she could.
But I didn’t stop watching her.
I watched as she drank four more cosmos and conservatively placed dollar bills in the g-string of the stripper, then patted his head and waved him away like a grandmother would do to her grandson.
It was adorable.
Again, song lyrics swirled in my head, just the whisper of notes and lines from a song forming.She doesn’t dance on tables, empty bottles and glasses surround her ankles—
“Hey.” Beside me, Maggie plopped into a seat and grinned at me.
“Um… hey.”
I looked around her for Matt, who was nowhere to be found. “He’s in the bathroom,” Maggie said, reading my thoughts. The two had basically been inseparable all night. They weren’t making out or running off to get naked in any corners. They were talking. And laughing. A lot from what I could tell.
“Are you having fun?” I asked.
“Actually, yeah.” She pulled her beer to her lips and took a sip from the bottle. “A lot more fun than I expected to have at an old lady’s bachelorette party. Hell, I didn’t even have fun at my sorority sister’s bachelorette party.”
“You and Matt seem to be hitting it off,” I said. Just in case she was getting any ideas about hitting on me while he was gone.
Her smile told me how wrong I was. “I really like him,” she whispered, even though no one in this bar was listening to or cared about our conversation.
“For what it’s worth, I think he really likes you, too.”
I might be breaking bro-code telling her that, but I wasn’t sure I cared. She was sweet. And Matt could use more sweet girls in his life rather than the ball-busting shrews he usually dated.
Although something gnawed at the back of my mind. “You’re Hope’s other client, aren’t you?”
“Otherclient?” she asked, perplexed. Very quickly, I realized my mistake as her expression morphed, lifting with realization. “Oh my God. You hired Hope too?” she hissed, leaning in.
I cringed, but nodded. I’d sort of assumed Hope would have filled her in on some things, but clearly she didn’t. I guess that NDA really was ironclad. Though it took some of the air out of my tires to know that even despite my best efforts, Hope wasn’t chatting about me to any of her friends.
“Why would you do that when you so clearly love her?” Maggie continued.
“Love her?” I sputtered. “I wouldn’t go that far.” Not yet at least. That was the plan, but that usually took more time… didn’t it?
Even still, my heart gave a little sputter like an engine being revved after years of sitting unused in a garage.
Maggie tilted her head. “Oh please. You got her Lucchese. And designer scarves. And flowers. You’re in love.”
So Hopedidtalk about me. She told Maggie about the gifts.
My conversation with the cheerleader drifted back into my brain.Men don’t like shopping.I quickly brushed it aside. This was different. I was shopping online and having them delivered. Not waltzing around Rodeo Drive like some schmuck in a romcom holding bags of clothes for the woman he loved.
Loved. There was that word again.
