Page 28 of Anyone But the Boss

‘I sent her an invitation by email, but she never responded.’ He looks at me. ‘Did she tell you?’

I move to shake my head but stop when it pounds. ‘No. She didn’t.’

I may not be the touchy-feely brother that Chase is, but I care for my sister. It’s taken a lot of self-restraint not to give the private detective Chase and I had vetted the go-ahead to track her down. I agreed to hold off only because both Mother and Bell made logical arguments about giving Liz space and time to get over the revelation that she’s a love child from Mom’s one-time affair.

We sit, two brothers stewing in mutual indignation for a few minutes, until Chase lifts his phone screen again, this time doing a double take.

‘What now?’ I lift my ice pack back in place.

He holds his phone up once more. I lean back, trying to bring the picture of the unfamiliar, bare-chested men into focus with one eye sans reading glasses. ‘Who are they?’

He swipes right, and for the first time tonight I wish I’d been knocked unconscious by that dildo. Because no one should see their mother stuffing twenties in someone’s G-string. Let alone a policeman stripper holding the weapon of my eye’s destruction in front of him mid-thrust.

* * *

Alice

Someone turns the music up. The Village People of all bands. Ridiculous but perfect for the fireman and cop costumes the strippers are wearing.

I would never have thought ‘YMCA’ good hip-thrusting music, but I’m proved wrong. Very wrong.

My smile isn’t as forced as it was. A Blow Job shot and a glass of champagne helped with that. Enough to have me raising my hands along with everyone else, shaking what little hips God gave me.

I bump butts with Mrs Moore, who, according to Bell, is fresh off her fling with the Bahamas cabana boy and is still making every minute of her matrimonial freedom count.

And by freedom, I mean tucking twenties into suspenders and G-strings.

I sweat. I laugh. I forget.

A song change later and a too-close encounter with the feel of the fireman’s hose through his parachute pants, I escape for another drink.

Never a good drinker, I’d thought of holding back tonight. But, things having gone the way they have… I pluck a shot off a brass tray and try and mimic the others when they’d downed it in one go.

I get the liquid down but choke on the mouthful of whipped cream.

Eyes watering, I twist the cap off a bottle of water just as George emerges from a bedroom, arm up like a bespoke Statue of Liberty. ‘I got it!’

I take a sip, the cool water calming my cough, as George bends down over an outlet. ‘What do you have?’

‘The perfect ambiance.’ He straightens with an expression of victory on his face, only to frown as he looks around. ‘Damn it. It’s too light in here.’ He waves his hand at me. ‘Flick that switch behind you, will you?’ He steps over to the door. ‘I’ll get these.’

The ‘ambiance’ George spoke of turns out to be a portable light projector, casting millions of lights around the room in various colors. Like a multicolored disco ball.

Almost everyone gasps in delight.

Who knew that turning off the lights would be the catalyst to penis party Armageddon?

As if he’d been waiting for the perfect moment, the fireman stripper yanks off his pants to reveal a Dalmatian-printed thong encrusted with diamond rhinestones. Rhinestones that sparkle tenfold under the new lighting.

A shadow streaks across the room.

‘No!’ Bell lunges toward it, but it’s too late.

Everything plays out in slow-motion.

Mike leaps on the coffee table, surprising Mrs. Moore who stumbles backward into the counter, upending the tray of Blow Job shots and catapulting them into the air, causing glitter, cream and alcohol to rain down on the party.

Entranced by the lights, Mike continues jumping, this way and that, like a Mexican jumping bean, turning over champagne glasses and penis candles, which instead of being doused, ignite the spilled alcohol.

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