Jocelyn laughs as she scribbles another note in her workbook. The lecture room is set up in one of the hotel’s event halls, meaning it has excessively busy carpeting and dim, romantic lighting—not conducive to staying alert.
I’ll just... close my eyes... for a second...
“Asher.”
I startle awake.
Joss leans close to my ear. “If you can stay awake until the end of this lecture, I’ll pay for your drinks tonight.”
I yawn. “Joke’s on you. Drinks are free if you’re gambling.”
“Then I’ll pay for a lap dance.”
Skrrrt. What? Did she just saylap dance? It snags in my brain, a jagged fingernail catching on satin.
She cocks a smug eyebrow at me. “Just kidding. Awake now?”
My flat stare only makes her laugh.
“Get a man’s hopes up only to shoot him down,” I say.
She rolls her eyes. “You arenota lap dance sort of man.”
“I’m not?” Is there any other kind of man?
“You’d have her whole life story and make sure she was up-to-date on her Pap smear before the song was over.”
“HPV is no joke, Joss.”
With a snort, she returns her attention to the lecture. I continue to stare at her, narrow-eyed. She’s wrong. Iama lap dance sort of man. The couple I’ve had were... solidly okay.
A little awkward. Expensive. Unsatisfying.
Hold up. Does Jocelyn know me better than I do? I find this annoying. Unsurprising, but annoying.
An hour later, we’re exiting boredom hell, and I’m all smiles. I clap my hands together at the edge of the casino floor. “Change, eat, gamble? Eat, change, gamble?”
Joss looks down at her conference clothes and scrunches her face. “Let me change. I look like a librarian.”
She kind of does. The kind who gives lap dances. Not the awkward ones, either. Definitely expensive, though.
Will never say this.
Can’t even believe I thought it.
Upstairs, it takes five minutes to change into jeans and a short-sleeved button-up with tiny ducks on it. Thirty minutes later, I’m hangry and texting her relentlessly from where I’m stationed against the wall outside her hotel room.
Are you ready?
I’m near death from starvation.
You are not this high maintenance. What’s taking so long?
Are you dead?
Would you chill?
I’m coming
