“Hey,” he said, his voice slightly husky and his accent just a little more pronounced.
“Hey.” I stepped back to let him in, my voice steadier than I felt.
He stepped inside, his gaze sweeping the room before landing on the wine bottle. “Been pregaming without me?”
“Just one glass. I needed a little liquid courage.”
He nodded slowly, something unreadable flickering across his face. “You sure about this, Aves? Because we can just go to sleep. We don’t have to go further than that if you don’t want to. I’m just grateful for the escape from the crying.”
The out he was offering should have been tempting. Part of me wanted to take it, but I was tired of chickening out. Tired of letting Chris’s voice live rent-free in my head, telling me I was boring, that I wasn’t enough.
“I’m sure,” I said. “I want to do this. I just needed a minute to stop being in my head about it.”
He studied me for a moment, then his mouth curvedinto that cocky half-smile I’d seen him use on dozens of girls at parties. “So. What are we checking off your bucket list?”
“The striptease.”
A smirk tugged at his lips as he rubbed his hand over his mouth. “The striptease, huh?”
Hearing him say it out loud made my face flame. “You don’t have to make it sound so…”
“So what?”
“I don’t know. Clinical.”
His grin widened. “Would you prefer I say it sexy? Like…” He dropped his voice an octave, leaning in like he was about to tell me a secret. “So, Ava. I hear you want to take your clothes off for me.”
I shoved his shoulder, laughing despite my nerves. “Oh my God, stop.”
“What? That’s literally what’s happening.”
“I know what’s happening.” I pressed my palms to my cheeks, desperate to hide how red I had no doubt they were. “I’ve just never done anything like this before, okay?”
I was a dancer, but I’d never danced likethis.
He glanced around the room, before his gaze settled on my small Bluetooth speaker on the dresser.
“Tell you what,” he said, shrugging off his hoodie and tossing it over Sydney’s desk chair. “Let me go first.”
I blinked. “What?”
“You’re nervous because you’re worried you’ll look stupid, right?” He was already pulling out his phone, scrolling through something. “So let me show you how it’s done.”
“You’re going to do a striptease for me?”
He looked up, and the grin on his face was pure mischief. “You ever seenMagic Mike?”
I stared at him. “You’re not serious.”
“Dead serious.” He connected his phone to my speaker, and “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails started playing. “Sit down, Sunshine. Class is in session.”
I sat on the edge of my bed, mostly because my legs had stopped working properly anyway. “Liam, you really don’t have to?—”
“Shh.” He held up a finger. “No talking during the show.”
And then he started moving.
It was ridiculous at first—deliberately so, I think. He did this exaggerated body roll that made me snort, followed by a hip thrust that belonged in a bad eighties music video. But then he found the rhythm, and suddenly it wasn’t so funny anymore.
