Page 134 of Nick and Noel's Christmas Playlist

Noel recognized every single one of them, her cheeks burning as they gyrated their hips. But when a bearded Santa slid across the stage almost directly in front of her, lifting his pelvis to the sky, she covered her mouth with both hands.

Pike humped the air three feet in front of her in a black leather thong and Santa hat. The minute he caught her gaze, he froze mid thrust.

Gabby danced up to the stage, waving a handful of ones. “Damn, Pike! I didn’t know you were a stripper.”

Noel closed her eyes in horror as Gabby started stuffing the ones into her friend’s G-string like it was a slot machine.

When she opened her eyes again, Pike had moved to another group of women and she got a good look at his tight butt cheeks.

She was never going to be able to look him in the face again.

“Are you surprised?” Amber hollered over the music, a faster version of “Jingle Bell Rock.”

Noel nodded. “Yes! Did you know?”

“Of course. Guy is one of the strippers. See him in back? He’s the one who told me about it.”

“You could have warned me!”

“I wanted to see the look on your face. Sorry.”

Gabby grabbed her hand, pointing at a guy swaggering toward them. His dark curly hair fell to his ears and his light piercing eyes stayed on Gabby the whole time.

“Check him out.”

He walked up to Gabby, grinning like a sinner. “I see we have a bachelorette in the house.”

“Yes we do,” Amber screamed.

“Then we need to celebrate.” The guy lifted Gabby out of her chair and led her up onto the stage. Another man slid behind her, holding her hands above her head.

Amber leaned towards Noel, clapping. “I paid them a hundred bucks to do this.”

“She looks like she’s enjoying it.”

Gabby squealed when the curly haired guy threw her legs over his shoulders and buried his face between her legs.

Noel covered her face with her hand, laughing into her palm, horrified and amused all at once.

“She’s having fun, right?”

“She is. Thanks for setting this up. I know I wasn’t completely on board at first, but she deserves to have an amazing time.”

Amber looked at her, as if she couldn’t figure her out. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

“Because I don’t want to hate you anymore, Amber. Two of the people I love most in the world saw something good in you. I’m choosing to do the same.”

“But…a week ago, I was trying to get Nick back.”

Noel’s lips thinned momentarily and then she breathed out. “I know. I don’t like what you did, but I’m hoping that now we can all move on.” Noel laughed as a blond stripper brought a chair onto the stage and Curly sat Gabby in it, rubbing his balls in her face.

“Are you going to tell Gabby what I did?”

Noel shook her head. “I’m not going to ruin your relationship with Gabby. What happened is between you and me. Besides, she’s got enough going on without getting pulled into our drama.”

“So, what? We pretend to like each other?”

“No, I don’t think we’ll ever be friends. But maybe we don’t have to be enemies.”

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