Man cave, p.7
Man Cave, page 7
She was quiet.
“You’re serious.”
I sighed. “I’m serious.”
“You were arrested. For prostitution. Your friends, too?”
I raised my face to the sun. The past two days, the warm weather had been amazing. Now, all I wanted to do was cry. This was the worst trip ever.
Lindy had been here back in August, returning married to Dex without remembering it, broke up with him and lived on my couch for a week. That had turned into a happily ever after, but I didn’t think this was going to have the same outcome.
“No, just me.” Alana, Megan, and Lia had been at the craps table with some cute guys from Georgia and I’d gone to the bathroom. And never came back.
This morning, they were already gone. Their flights home had left first thing. I hadn’t even been able to say goodbye in person. I’d been able to send Alana a text before the fingerprinting and they took my things away. I’d only just learned they’d left my suitcase at the hotel concierge for me because she’d left a freaked-out voicemail in response.
“You didn’t really do it, though, right? I mean, I know you wanted to have sex with a guy and all, but this is–”
“Sh–sugar, Bridge. Of course not!” I sighed.
“Then how–”
I realized something and my eyes flew open. Panic shot through me, and I cut her off. “Please tell me Mav isn’t right there. You can’t tell him about this. He can never, ever know.”
“What? No, he took Scout for a hike.”
Meaning they were back in Hunter Valley. I wanted to ask what the outcome was with her dick professor, but I didn’t have it in me.
I sighed. “Good. But promise me. You can’t tell.”
“Mal.”
“I didn’t tell anyone when you stole those tampons at the drug store by sticking them up your hooha.”
“I was twelve, had my period and it was epic and I thought I needed three at once and I went back and left five dollars on the counter later that week. There’s a big difference in vagina stories here.”
“No Mav,” I threatened, although I was the one stranded in Las Vegas.
If Mav knew, that meant the others would hear about it. Lindy, Dex. Silas, probably. Theo. Not that any of them would blab, but I was a flipping first-grade teacher who went to Vegas and got arrested for prostitution.
And while Theo might not have found me skilled the other night in the restaurant parking lot, I didn’t think he was looking for a woman to be on the other end of the experienced spectrum either.
“I could lose my job over this,” I said, dropping the big one which scared the shit out of me. There weren’t tons of teaching jobs in town and if word of this got out, I’d never be employable again, even if they didn’t yank my teaching certification.
“Shit. Yes, fine. No Mav. Just come home and you can tell me about it over wine and ice cream.”
I stood, paced. “I can’t. Bridge, I’m stuck in Vegas.”
“What do you mean you’re stuck? You’re still in jail?”
I shook my head, but she couldn’t see.
Two women came out the courthouse doors. Their names were Trixie and Annie and actually were prostitutes who’d been in the holding cell with me. They were gorgeous and sexy and really nice. Somehow–because the police officers thought I was as gorgeous as them to be considered a call girl–I’d been swept up in the same undercover raid or whatever it was that they had. High-class hookers who made more in a weekend than I made in two months. To pass the hours in the cell between the late-night arrest and our court appearance times this morning, we’d talked about everything from sex moves to lipstick colors. Boy, had I learned a lot. I even got their contact info to meet up when we had our court appearances in nine days.
On their way to an awaiting car, they gave me a wave and I offered one back, completely unfazed they were leaving jail. Jail!
Me? I was about to lose it. “No. I’m out. I went before the judge and I’m free to go, at least for now. But I missed my flight this morning and it’s on that cheap airline where you have to pay for a carry-on and water and a seat belt. I have to buy a new ticket without any notice, and I maxed my credit card to pay my bail. I have something like twenty-six dollars in my wallet and I covered my parents’ rent this month and… Bridge, I have no way to get home. If I ask Arlo for the money, he’ll think I’m turning into my mother and that is something I absolutely can’t do. I may have to stay here and sleep on one of my new hooker friends’ couches. I don’t want to ask, again, because I’m not my mother, but I’m literally stuck in Nevada.”
Like the bestie she was, all she said was, “On it.”
15
THEO
* * *
I was on Mav’s huge sectional watching Dex’s hockey game on his big screen TV. Scout was snoring on his plush dog bed in front of the fire. It was pumping out the heat and I didn’t know how he could lay that close without overheating, especially with all his fur. The front door opened, and Bridge bolted from her spot beside Mav.
I heard whispers and glanced at Mav, who was sprawled low on the other side of the sectional, his socked feet propped up on the coffee table. We’d cleaned up dinner of spaghetti and garlic bread. The kitchen was clean, and I was lazy and full. I’d make it back to my little house, but I wasn’t in any rush. A perfect Sunday evening, the kind I never knew existed.
Being lazy. Full. A beer in hand. Good sports on TV. Hanging with family. A fire and a dog.
Two weeks ago, I was either in the OR or sleeping in my bare, boring apartment before another long shift at the hospital. It had been the same, day after day. Patients, operations, sleep. Repeat.
“I can’t believe you got conned into speaking at career day,” Mav commented.
“Conned? Blackmail. I was in the back of a destroyed car trying not to succumb to claustrophobia. I didn’t have much choice.”
Maybe there were a few downsides to small-town life.
Mac and the crew of firefighters had that totaled car pulled to pieces well within the ten-minute window for being forced to speak at Mac’s kid’s school assembly. I’d been covered in a blanket and hadn’t seen them at work, but they’d blown out the back window, sawed through the roof supports and opened that thing up like a tin can. A medic had climbed in and settled beside me, offering me pretend injury assessment and placed a cervical collar around my neck. She’d been following protocol and her skills were excellent. So was her lady balls for climbing inside the back of a wrecked car, pretend or on a real scene. Once the Jaws of Life had pried open the back door, I’d been carefully loaded onto a backboard and placed on a stretcher in one of the ambulances for continued mock patient care.
After I’d been freed from the straps and neck brace, Mac had transitioned the training to me being the doctor I was and the EMTs and paramedics giving me a report on the fake patient they’d just saved. I had newfound confidence in the town’s emergency services.
After cleanup, we’d shifted the meal from dinner to lunch and gone to the same restaurant/bar that I went to with my brothers over the summer. After burgers and a few beers, it seemed I made friends with all of Hunter Valley Fire Department. I wasn’t sure if they liked me, or that I paid.
There was no question Jeff–who’d volunteered me for that morning of fun–knew what I’d been in for. Most likely he and Verna were still laughing about it, even a day later.
“You don’t even like kids,” Mav reminded. “How are you going to keep an assembly of them from falling asleep?”
I titled my head and glared at my brother. “I like kids,” I grumbled. I didn’t really, for no other reason than I didn’t know any.
“What? You?” he shrugged. “You don’t.”
Out of the corner of my eye Bridget and Mallory–heads close together–cut past the great room and up the stairs. Mallory didn’t stop to say hi, didn’t even look this way.
At the quick glimpse of her as she went by, my dick stirred. I hadn’t seen her since I left her in the parking lot on Thursday in that sexy dress and fake garter tights. Oh, and little yellow panties.
I shifted lower on the couch to get more comfortable with an instant hard-on.
I’d wanted to see her since, but I wasn’t going to go after her, no matter how eager my dick was. It had been sex. Or almost sex. My dick–yes, he was in fucking charge–knew the difference. Sex meant he was getting some action with a hot, wet, tight pussy. Almost sex meant some time with my hand.
“What’s up with that?” I wondered, tipping my chin in the direction the women went.
Mav kept his eyes on the game and shrugged. “She was in Vegas.”
I frowned. “Mallory was in Vegas?”
“Bachelorette party.”
Bachelorette party?
“Why are they whispering and hiding upstairs?”
A foghorn blared from the TV, indicating a goal. While Scout had slept through Mallory coming in the house, the sound startled him awake. He stood, circled three times, then dropped back down.
I caught the instant replay. Dex had scored again. The close up of his face as he grinned and fist bumped down the team bench made my night.
“Contrary to what you might think, Bridge doesn’t tell me everything,” Mav said. “There are some things I really don’t want to know. Like if Mal fucked a dude in Vegas.”
I sat up, placed my beer on the coffee table with a little more effort than necessary.
“A dude?” I asked, my voice practically a snarl.
“Whatever. I don’t need to know about her sex life.” He stood, pointed at my beer bottle. “Want another?”
I nodded. He headed for the kitchen and left me alone to wonder why I was so pissed off about that possibility. Mallory wasn’t mine. A little finger banging didn’t mean we were getting married. Hell, I hadn’t even kissed her. Based off of that alone, the fact that I’d gotten in her panties without any kissing meant it was just sex.
My dick twitched, reminding me it hadn’t been sex since all the action he saw Thursday night was me jacking off in the shower, then again in bed. All Mallory and I shared was almost sex.
I glanced up the stairs. Were they up there right now doing a play-by-play of a wild one-night stand? I had to know because no dude was getting that pussy. It was mine.
16
MALLORY
* * *
“Thank you so much for getting the ticket. I’ll pay you back,” I told Bridge as she tugged me into the master bedroom, shutting the door behind us. She flipped a switch which turned on a lamp beside a supersized, cushy reading chair in the corner.
With a quick hand wave, she shut that down.
“No, really.” I grabbed her hand, squeezed it, which had her eyes meet mine. “I will pay you back.” I was not my mother.
Bridget worked as a substitute teacher. I knew exactly how much she made a day. It wasn’t much. Less than me and without the good benefit package. Until she met Mav, she’d been living at home with Lindy.
Then she fell for a billionaire who rented this huge-ass house where they now lived together. She didn’t have to work again. She had a flipping jet at her disposal, which I could have probably flown if I didn’t want to keep my arrest a secret.
I would not–NOT–take advantage of Bridge’s new situation, or even her old one.
I was not my mother.
“I know. I did it for myself, really. I was selfish,” she admitted, cutting off my thoughts.
I frowned, crossed the room and dropped into the chair. Even though the massive bed was made, I wasn’t sitting anywhere near where she and Mav got it on. All. The. Time.
“Selfish?” I let my head fall back. “How?”
“What am I going to do with a BFF permanently stuck in Vegas?” She plopped down on the corner of her bed, crossed her legs like my first graders on the rug at the front of the classroom.
I wanted to cry all over again.
“And…” She raised one finger. “You haven’t heard what Mav did to Professor Dipshit.” She lifted another. “Plus, I’m dying to know why you got arrested for prostitution. I mean, prostitution!”
She waved her arms in the air and was way too excited for the situation.
I leaned forward. “Shh,” I hissed. “Will you keep it down? I don’t want the guys to hear.” Especially Theo. “Tell me about Professor Dipshit.”
“Fired. Papers he stole retracted.”
“That’s it?”
That totally sucked. Sure, I wanted the guy fired as much as Bridge, but that was all? After all the pain and suffering and sadness and anger he put her through? I wanted him tied to a spit and slowly spun over an open flame with an apple stuck in his mouth.
“With the university,” she clarified. “Legally, he didn’t do anything wrong so he can’t go to jail for what he did. But we can sue. We–the other women and I–are going after him in civil court. Lost income, emotional distress, defamation, and so on.”
I grinned. “Mav’s got ruthless lawyers, I’m guessing.”
“Sharks.”
I felt villainous and ruthless in the sweats I’d changed into in the hotel lobby bathroom when I’d retrieved my suitcase from the concierge. My hair was up in a sloppy ponytail and the only makeup I had on was left over from the night before. I should’ve cared I flew home looking like this, but I was just happy to be on the plane. Besides, no one looked all too hot on a Sunday flight out of Vegas.
“I love it,” I said, with a sly smile on my face. The first one of the day.
“So tell me about your new profession,” she said, shifting on the bed to get more comfortable. She was probably wishing she had a bowl of popcorn for the upcoming one-woman shitshow.
“After all you went through, we can’t be done with your ordeal after two minutes,” I said. She’d been expelled from MIT after being seduced and stolen from by a professor. It was a big deal, and this was very anticlimactic.
She shook her head, pushed up her glasses. “Mav and I have already been celebrating. In Boston, on the plane. Here.”
A pink flush spread across her cheeks and I really didn’t want to know any more details about how they celebrated.
“We’re going to have a party,” she added. “Get Silas up here and celebrate sometime Dex has a day or two off so he and Lindy can join.”
Silas was in Denver running James Corp from the main office and Dex was in the middle of hockey season.
“Now you, the hooker. Spill.”
I put my hand over my face, wanting to die of mortification all over again.
“Last night, we were in the casino,” I began. “Craps. Everything was fine. I had on that cute dress.”
“The green one?”
I nodded. “And the strappy heels.”
“Hot,” she confirmed.
“I had to pee. A guy came up to me by the bathrooms and we started talking. He was cute. Seemed nice. Asked me if I was up for a little fun.”
As far as undercover cops went, he had been really good looking. If he hadn’t arrested me, I’d have been into a date. But he lost that chance, the jerk. Mistaking a woman for a hooker wasn’t endearing.
“I asked him what he had in mind.”
Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open. “What? Why didn’t you knee him in the balls?”
“Because I was trying to flirt!”
“Okay,” she said, circling her hand in the air for me to keep talking.
“He said he had a room at the hotel, that he was interested in a blow job, or straight sex.”
Her eyes bugged out behind her glasses. “And that wasn’t a warning sign? I mean, I’m all for you having a one-night stand, but maybe his name would have been good? A drink at the bar first? And what’s with straight sex? Who has straight sex?”
If Bridge was asking that, then not her. Which meant she and Mav did all kinds of hot, kinky stuff. I hadn’t even tried straight sex yet.
I was hurt. Wounded. I felt… like a little kid. Inexperienced and left behind. “I got caught up on the fact that he wanted to have sex with me. Me!”
I stood, paced in front of the huge window that overlooked the entire valley.
“Why wouldn’t he want to have sex with you? You’re smart and hilarious and in that dress, gorgeous.”
I turned, rolled my eyes. “I’m me! Miss Almost-Virgin. Tom wasn’t all that interested.” I left out the stomach problems from the date. And Theo. And Theo’s fingers.
“Then what happened?” she asked.
“He said he’d give me a hundred. I couldn’t believe it, one because he wanted to have sex with me–”
“We need to work on your self-esteem issues.”
“Says the woman who didn’t think her brain was good enough for a billionaire hottie,” I countered.
“Yeah, well, I got that billionaire hottie and that magical dick of his, so it’s your turn to get your head on straight. You’re amazing and guys want in your pants all the time!’
“Oh yeah? What guy?”
“Tom.”
I shook my head. “Tom’s out. There is no line of men waiting to have sex with me, Bridge. None.”
“Fine, so you were stunned a guy in Vegas wanted to jump your hot bod.”
“Exactly. I got all sassy and said I was worth more than a hundred dollars.”
She raised her arm. “There you go! You’re totally worth more than that. You’ve got a high-price pussy.”
I nodded. “Exactly. Jokingly, I told him I was high-class and I only go for a thousand.”
She groaned. “Oh God. Having the big picture, that was probably a bad idea.”
“You think?” I countered.
“Shit, Mal. Your sass gets you every time.”
“I know!” I threw my hands up in the air. “Has your flirting ever got you arrested? Because mine has.”
She cringed because I definitely sank to an all new low.
“After that, I’m being handcuffed and read my rights, arrested for solicitation.” I dropped back into the chair. “Bridge, it was mortifying.”
