“Holy shit, I didn’t even think of that. Fuck me. Now I’m even more worried.”
“You can always take Moira up, that way if you step on her, she might not get as mad.”
“Says who?” Moira says as she joins all of us. “I don’t want to get stepped on. Have you seen his feet? They’re huge!”
“Isn’t that supposed to be a good thing?” Aodhan laughs.
I look down at my feet, then back up at Moira and smile. She’s laughing as she watches me.
“What time do we have to leave?” I ask.
“We try to be at the club around three. The doors open at five, first show’s at six. Second at eight,” Francesco says to me.
“Are you all coming?” Celestino asks.
“We come to every show,” Luciana says as she rolls her eyes at her brother. “Tonight all the women are coming. Mancini, Athanasiou and Nikolaidis too.”
“It’s going to be an interesting night.” Lorenzo laughs.
“When all the women are at our shows, it’s always interesting.” Celestino laughs.
I hold Moira as we watch our family. I always wanted siblings, and now I have them. At the beginning, I worried because this is Francesco’s family. And when I first met him, I hated him. He’s the one that had Maeve’s heart. But the more I got to know him, the more I realized that he didn’t hurt her on purpose. When he left her, he wanted to come back, but didn’t know how. I can see how that could happen. So in the last year, we’ve become like brothers. And I’m truly happy for both of them. Saoirse still calls me ‘Da Callum’ and I hope she never stops. I know I’m a lucky man to have Moira, she understands my situation with Saoirse. And she loves her as much as I do.
My Lake Renegade family is the kind of family that people dream of. They protect and support each other no matter what the situation is. It’s a rare thing to find.
Moira
I have mixed feelings about Callum stripping tonight. Trust is not the issue here, my issue is the women. I’ve seen what they do and it can be a lot to deal with. My other option is that I could stay home, but I think that would be worse. Plus, I’ve always gone to the shows. I’m not going to stop now.
“You look concerned,” Luciana teases me.
“I feel like I need to apologize to you.”
“Me? Why?” She frowns.
“Because of when we first met Rónán and you said you had issues with the dancing. I was like, WHY. It’s your club and there’s no way he’d do anything to hurt you. But now? I get it. I’m dreading watching those women putting their hands on my Callum. Ugh.”
Every one of my girls are snickering at me. Even Maeve. Sweet, innocent Maeve…is snickering. I squint at each of them. And flip them off.
We decide to all head to the club together. Luminescence is owned by the Bastianini and Mancini families. It used to be a regular bar club. But about six years ago they changed it to a club with strip shows. They do it more like a burlesque show, but with men performing. Earlier this year they did a night with women and it went over just as well. So they’ve decided to do one night a month with both men and women shows.
“So I looked up what a guy version of a burlesque show is.” Quinn grins. “It’s ‘bro-lesque.’”
We all laugh.
“We should market that. Brolesque.”
“What the fuck is ‘brolesque’?” Celestino asks as he comes out to the stage area.
“It’s the male version of burlesque.” Luciana giggles. “We’re going to market your show with that.”
“Um, no,” Francesco says as he joins us.
“Why not? It’s perfect. None of you like it when we say strippers. Brolesque dancers sounds exotic enough.”
I’m trying not to bust out laughing just from the looks on the guys’ faces.
“Baby…” Rónán says as he raises an eyebrow at her.
