We move through the stalls together, my goal now to find a gift for my dad, because I’d feel like an asshole only sending one to Martina. It isn’t like they expect it of me, but now that I have the cash to spare, I always feel a little bit like I should pay them back for everything they’ve done for me.
Not everyone adopts a fucked-up little kid, then lets him fly the coop on his own at eighteen to move across the damn country and start a pipe dream project with the best friend he met on the fucking internet. After everything, I got lucky with them.
“So if you’re not from here, where are you from?” I ask.
“A magical land,” Noelle tells me, avoiding the question as she twirls around to hold a purple bottle of perfume in front of my nose. “Smell.”
I pull a whiff of the perfume into my nose and shrug at her. “I got flowers and...something else.”
“Ugh.” She rolls her eyes and sets the bottle back onto the table. I catch myself taking note of which one it was. “Men are useless with fragrance.”
“Don’t you wanna know where I’m from?” I probe. I don’t know why I care so fucking much about making small talk with a one night stand. I don’t know why I’mhanging outwith a one night stand.
“You’re obviously from the south,” she snorts.
“Obviously?”
Throwing a thick, dramatized accent into her voice – more of a twang than the drawl I speak with - and batting her lashes, she says, “Well ya called me ‘Sugar,’ and your accent ain’t as faint as I think ya try to make it sound.” Her regular tone returns and she asks, “So did I nail it? What’s my prize?”
“Prize?” I ask with an arched brow.
“See you around, Eric,” she winks. Tossing her hair over her shoulder with a feline grin, she spins on her heel and starts walking away from me, the crease of her ass exaggerated with every step, showing just below the hem of those damn shorts.
And fuck me if I don’t love the view.
•
With hot water beating down on my back, I swirl the rum in my glass in time to the music filling the room and lift it to my lips, swallowing down the smooth liquid as I turn to face the stream of water.
I could live in this shower; like mine, it takes up half of the room. The wall behind the showerhead made of slate tiles, and at the opposite side is a window that covers the upper two thirds of the wall, looking out over the city and into the water. It would be criminal to leave here without fucking someone in front of it.
Stepping out of the shower, I set my glass on the counter and quickly wrap a towel around my waist. I pick up my glass, taking a sip from it and bobbing along to the music as I walk through the suite toward my suitcase.
My shit is all over the place, most of it piled on top of the suitcase sitting on the floor near a couch at the center of the suite. I didn’t really expect to be here this long, but it’s working out fucking fantastically for me.
I dig through the pile of clean clothes and pull out a plain old black t-shirt and a pair of jeans. Throwing them on, I grab my cologne and give myself a few generous spritzes with it before tossing it back into the pile. Colt would lose his shit if he knew I brought a two thousand dollar cologne with me, but I’d tell him what I always tell him: it’s just money, I can’t take it with me when I go, so why not enjoy the shit while I can? That’s the whole damn point of having it.
Since Bill and Martina brought me home, I’ve never had to worry about money. I was always comfortable. I never went without anything I needed in their house. Now I’ve got so much goddamn money, I don’t even know what to do with it. So if I like something, I don’t give a shit about the price tag. It keeps coming in faster than I can get rid of it, so who cares how I choose to spend it?
•
The subject of tonight’s ‘research’ is fucking massive. The building itself has to be fifty, sixty feet high. The crowd is packed tighter than a can of sardines, grinding in unison to the music blasting over the speakers underneath neon spotlights that flash in shades of green and orange.
Several dancers hang from the ceiling, putting on a fucking sexy display in plexiglass boxes, lined on the bottoms with neon lights in varying colors. I gotta log that shit away in my mind, whether for our club or for my own personal use.
It takes some effort, but I make my way to the bar to order a tequila, using my hands to gesture to the bartender that I want it on the rocks rather than as a shot. When the guy comes back with my drink, I gesture toward the bottle on the shelf and back toward myself, trying to tell him I just want to buy the whole damn thing.
It took too fucking long to get over here to be coming back all night for refills.
He looks at me funny for a second, but I reach for my wallet and hand him my card, gesturing with it one more time toward the bottle, until he takes the card and swipes it, bringing the bottle over to me.
“Thanks, man!” I shout at him over the music.
I turn to make my way back through the crowd, moving my hips to the music, stopping occasionally to give a little grind to a nice ass if I pass one, putting feelers out for the end of the night.
I pass a group of women dressed in nothing more than string bikinis, a couple of which are hanging on for dear life to the bodies they’re tied to, and I try to remember if I’ve ever done four at once. I know I’ve done three a couple of times…
No, I don’t think I have. Huh. That might be a new goal to set for myself.
