I try to focus on how good he looks in a pair of tattered jeans and a formfitting, long-sleeved white Henley with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows—as well as all the wonderful, glowing things Tiffany just said about him, answering all my questions about why he’s so adamant about this—but it’s impossible. Instead of PJ stalking across the yard toward me, his face suddenly morphs into Vincent’s and instead of PJ’s voice telling me what I can’t do, I hear Brian’s.
Shoving my glass of wine at Ariel, which splashes all over our hands as she quickly grabs it, I move a few feet down the sidewalk, meeting PJ halfway.
Tick, tick, tick . . .
“These girls work their asses off. They deal with shitty customers and shitty tips and they do it because they have nothing else. It’s not something new and exciting they thought would be a ton of fun to try out because they’re going through a little bit of a hard time! If you think—”
Tick, tick, tick . . . BOOM!
“Oh, shut the fuck up!” I scream at the top of my lungs, cutting off his tirade.
“Oh, shit . . .” Ariel mutters from behind me.
“I am so sick and fucking tired of people thinking they can tell me what to do!” I shout. “You don’t know a goddamn thing about me, so SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY!”
PJ’s eyes widen and he smartly keeps his mouth closed, but the beast that has been hiding inside of me has been unleashed and there’s no pulling her back in right now.
“A little bit of a hard time? Are you fucking kidding me with that shit?” I yell, advancing on him and poking my finger into the rock-hard wall of his chest, not even caring that I’m screaming in my front yard loud enough for all the neighbors to hear. “You want to know what’s NOT a little bit of a hard time? Finding out your husband has been fucking the babysitter right under your nose, when you tried for THREE GODDAMN YEARS to get him to fuck you, but he didn’t want you, and the closest you’ve come to an orgasm that you didn’t give yourself in thirteen years was from a lap dance you gave the most annoying, egotistical asshole you’ve ever laid eyes on!”
“Oh, she’s going to regret that in the morning when she’s sober,” I hear Belle whisper from her spot next to Ariel.
I ignore everything that’s happening around me and keep right on going. It feels too good to stop now. Like a weight is being lifted from my shoulders, like a ton of bricks is being removed from my back, like a whole swarm of nervous, prude, stuck-up butterflies are finally escaping from my stomach and flying free.
“You want to know what else is NOT a little bit of a hard time? Coming home from grocery shopping one day to find divorce papers and his fucking closet emptied. Oh, and let’s not forget the little motherfucking tidbit of him stealing over five million dollars from his own parents’ company, emptying out our bank accounts, cancelling all of my credit cards, leaving me with NOTHING. And getting hounded and yelled at and threatened by my piece-of-shit in-laws because they seem to think I know where the money is and can just hand that shit over!”
I take a breath and continue gathering steam, not giving one flying fuck that everyone is still standing around in my front yard watching me lose it. Maybe it’s the wine talking, maybe it’s the fact that someone finally pushed me past my breaking point. Whatever it is, I don’t care.
“It’s just soooooo fucking easy and breezy to try and convince your baby girl that her father didn’t leave because he didn’t love her enough. To convince yourself that he didn’t leave because you weren’t fucking good enough!” I shout, blinking back the tears that have started to blur my vision as I continue poking my finger into PJ’s chest, punctuating each word that comes flying out of my mouth. “I didn’t just decide to open a stripping business because I thought it was the easiest option. I’m not a goddamn bored housewife with nothing better to do with my time!”
“I know you’re not. Just let me—”
“I KNOW IT’S HARD WORK, AND I RESPECT EVERY SINGLE WOMAN WHO HAS EVER TAKEN HER CLOTHES OFF FOR MONEY!” I scream, cutting him off again. “I’m not doing this because I think it sounds superfun and exciting. I’m doing this because I don’t know who the hell I am anymore! I’m doing this because I’m so sick and fucking tired of no one seeing me!”
Without even thinking about what I’m doing, I grab the hem of my tank top and rip it off of my body, chucking it as hard as I can at PJ’s face before throwing my arms out wide on either side of me, my chest heaving as I stand here in the middle of my front yard in a red, lacy push-up bra.
“Oh, sweet Jesus. I think we broke Princess Barbie,” Ariel whispers.
“I’m tired of fucking beige! I’m tired of fucking blending in with the goddamn background! I’m tired of no one fucking listening to me and thinking they know me! I’m tired of not having any fucking balls to stand up for myself! I JUST WANT SOMEONE TO FINALLY FUCKING SEE ME AND HEAR ME AND REALIZE—”
PJ’s hands are suddenly cupping my cheeks and before I know it, he’s yanking my face toward him and his lips are on mine. My palms immediately smack against his chest to push him away, but his tongue pushes between my lips and grazes against my own in the most mind-numbing way. I fist the material of his shirt in my hands when he tilts his head to the side and deepens the kiss, his tongue swirling around mine as I let out a small, involuntary moan into his mouth. He tastes like peppermint, smells like heaven, and the way his mouth moves against mine and his tongue works against mine sends tingles down my spine and an explosion of heat between my legs.
I’ve never been kissed like this before, so hard and gentle all at the same time. His warm, soft palms still hold my face in place, but his lips are bruising, and his tongue should be registered as a weapon of mass destruction for how perfectly it slides and pushes against my own.
I stumble toward him and my eyes slowly blink open in confusion when he abruptly ends the kiss, pulling his lips away from mine. He still holds my face in his hands as he looks down at me, his thumbs gently rubbing against my cheeks as he stares down into my eyes.
“I see you. I hear you. And I’m sorry,” he whispers.
“Okay,” I reply lamely, the wine, the kiss, and my minibreakdown suddenly catching up with me until all I want to do is pass out in bed.
Or throw up. Throwing up all this wine churning in my stomach while I stand here pressed up against a man who can kiss like a God and confuses the hell out of me would be good right about now.
PJ’s hands drop from my face as he steps away and continues walking backward toward his car, never taking his eyes off me.
“I’ll pick you up at ten a.m. tomorrow, so make sure you’re ready.”
I glare at him and start to let loose another tirade of how he must not have heard a word I said about people telling me what to do, but he quickly backpedals when he sees the look on my face.
“Is it okay if I pick you up tomorrow at ten?” he asks instead, pausing by the side of his truck.
His manly, hot truck that makes him look all manly and rugged.
“What for?”
He smiles at me and, it’s pathetic how I can’t take my eyes off his lips as I watch them move.
“Boot camp, baby. No more lessons with my dancers.”
“Oh, don’t you even—”
He holds up one hand to cut me off.
“Not because I doubt you. If anyone is going to teach you how to do this, it’s gonna be me. Ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”
His eyes move from mine and travel down my body, making my skin break out in goosebumps with the way he takes his time staring at me until he makes his way back up to my face.
“We’ll be in a public place, so you might want to think about putting a shirt on.”
Giving me a smirk and a wink, he gets inside his vehicle, starts it up, and backs out of my driveway.
“And will all of my dancers who are on the schedule tonight, please get their lovely asses back to work within the next hour?” he shouts out of the open window as he backs out onto the street.
I watch him go until Ariel walks up next to me, and I turn to face her.
“I took my shirt off in my front yard,” I tell her.
“Yep.”
“I said fuck a lot. Like, A LOT,” I add.
“You did.”
“I made out with a guy with my shirt off, in my front yard, after saying fuck a lot, and I’m still not wearing a shirt,” I remind her.
“Are you gonna pass out? Because if you are, I’ve had entirely too much vodka to carry your ass into the house, and the guy who did it last time just left.”
I take a minute to think about everything that happened tonight as I look around the yard to see everyone going about their normal business, laughing and drinking like it’s no big deal. I anticipate the weight and the pressure of the guilt to pile itself on top of me again, but it doesn’t happen. All I feel is . . . free.
Walking around Ariel, I go over to the pile of beige clothing and gather up as much of it as I can before turning and marching across the yard to the fire pit everyone is standing around.
Ariel and Belle meet me by the fire and stand on either side of me as I chuck it all into the stone pit and smile when the flames get higher.
“LET’S BURN SOME SHIT!” I shout, which makes everyone around the fire cheer and yell and clink their glasses and bottles together.
Belle rests her head on my shoulder as she stares into the fire with a huge smile on her face, and Ariel wraps her arm around my shoulder, giving it a squeeze.
“Welcome home, Zero Fucks Given Barbie. Welcome home,” Ariel says.
Chapter 17: Nipple Nut Clusters
“I was fired from the PTA.”
“Good. You better not be wearing those mom jeans on your date with PJ.”
With a sigh, I shift my cell phone to the opposite ear as I turn from side to side and check out my reflection in the mirror. The one perk of having a teenager daughter: I can steal her clothes.
“We burned those jeans last night, remember? You chanted ‘Fuck mom jeans’ and made everyone do a shot before you threw them in the fire,” I recap. “And stop calling this a date. It’s not a date.”
Turning completely around and looking over my shoulder at my butt, I smile to myself when I see the way Anastasia’s skinny jeans hug my curves and sit low on my hips. I paired them with a fitted pink-and-dark brown flannel that I tucked into the jeans, and finished the outfit off with a cute brown belt and pink ballet flats, all courtesy of my daughter, who doesn’t make me call her Asia anymore, but still refuses to wear anything with color.
“Hey, are you still there?” I ask Ariel when she doesn’t immediately reply. I turn back around to face the mirror, checking out the messy bun I attempted myself, since there’s no way I wanted to try keeping my hair down and curling it like Tiffany did last night.
“Yeah, I’m here. Sorry, I still can’t get used to you dropping f-bombs like it’s no big deal when two weeks ago you were still saying shit like goshdarnit and tarnation. Also, this is sooooooo a date. He picked the time. He picked the place. And he’s picking you up in ten minutes. It’s a date.”
It’s not a date. It’s stripper boot camp, just like PJ said, whatever that means. I’ve been texting him all morning asking where we’re going, and he just keeps telling me it’s a surprise and reminding me to wear a shirt.
Annoying man.
I’m not at all freaking out that I ripped off my shirt in front of him last night, drunkenly went off on him, then let him stick his tongue down my throat while everyone in my yard watched, as well as a few neighbors I didn’t realize were lurking around. They all just stood there and stared while I got lost in his kiss, never wanted it to end, and wondered if a woman could drop dead in the middle of her front yard from overstimulation.
Nope, not freaking out at all. I’m cool as a cucumber now, but only because I did all my freaking out last night after everyone went home and I spent all night stress baking. My kitchen counter is currently full of Anxiety Apple Pie Muffins, What the Hell Did I Do Last Night Lemon Tarts and I’m Never Drinking Again Donuts. All full of gluten and sugar.
“It’s not a date. I’m changing the subject. Did you hear me when I said I got fired from the PTA? In an email. Can you believe that? They couldn’t even tell me to my face that I’m no longer welcome, or that they’ve decided to go in another direction for the running of the bake sales,” I tell her in annoyance as I make my way downstairs.
I’m not even kidding when I say news travels fast on this street. I received my first firing email exactly one hour after my little strip show in my front yard. No more being the PTA president, no more being in charge of all PTA bake sales, I was kicked off the homeowner’s association, and removed as chair from the Fairytale Lane Party Planning Committee. The hits just kept coming, one right after another, all night long, until I finally had to put my phone on silent so I wouldn’t throw it across the room each time it dinged with a new email. I’ve suddenly become the pariah of the neighborhood.
“Thank God they finally fired you. Your cupcakes suck,” Ariel complains.
“Those were vegan cupcakes, you asshole, and I didn’t tell you to waltz into my kitchen and help yourself,” I say as I get to the base of the stairs and take a seat on the bottom step. “These committees, that PTA . . . it’s my whole life. Gone, just like that. Just because I live on a street filled with judgy idiots.”
“No, it was your whole life. You were filling the void doing a bunch of shit you didn’t even care about so everyone would continue thinking you were perfect. Your life is no longer perfect, it’s a hot mess. You’re selling your belongings to pay your bills, opening up a business where you’ll take your clothes off for money, cursing like a sailor at the top of your lungs in your front yard, and making out with a hot strip-club owner with your top off, also in your front yard.”
“Gee, thank you so much for reminding me of all the mortifying things I’ve done in the last twenty-four hours,” I deadpan.
“You’re also finally standing up for yourself, you officially pulled that stick out of your ass for good, you’ve loosened up, you’re figuring out who you want to be, and you’re making out with a hot strip-club owner with your top off,” Ariel says with a smile in her voice.
“You already listed that in the mortifying column.”
“It deserves to be in both the mortifying column and the kick-ass column. And honestly, those things are only mortifying to you. I think it’s all awesome, but especially the topless make-out business. That was hot to watch.”
She lets out a dreamy sigh and I start to get lost in a daydream, remembering how it felt when PJ kissed me. How he held my face in his hands, how my lips felt bruised for hours after he left, and how I could still taste him on my tongue even after I drank two more glasses of wine while we burned shit.
“Hey, I’ve got an idea.” Ariel’s voice through the line makes me jump, and I quickly drop my hand from my mouth, realizing I was tracing my fingers over my lips while I thought about PJ’s kiss. “If this at-home stripper party business doesn’t take off, you could bake in the nude. Ooooooh, you could call it Baking in the Buff! Your menu items could include Nipple Nut Clusters and Pecan Pussy Pudding.”
“I’m hanging up now,” I tell her as the doorbell rings and I stand up.
“Just think about it. Imagine a guy sitting in your kitchen chair, beating off while you beat egg whites. That sounds like a gold mine to me.”
“Good-bye, Ariel.”
I end the call as I open the door, wondering if I’ll ever stop having butterflies in my stomach when I see PJ. He looks as good as he always does in jeans and a fitted, light gray sweater, and I have to press my hand to my stomach to try to subdue the butterflies when I look at his face. Or, more accurately, his lips. No matter how much wine I had to drink yesterday, I’ll never be able to get the image of kissing him out of my mind. Combine that with all the flirty texts he’s sent me in the last week, the way he stared at me after our kiss an
d softly told me that he saw me and heard me, and I suddenly feel like I’ve turned into a nymphomaniac who can’t stop thinking about sex. Particularly sex with this man.
“Good morning, Cin.” PJ greets me with a smile, the nickname sounding entirely too dirty this early in the day.
Since I can’t seem to take my eyes off his lips as they move, I notice the scruff around his mouth, and it suddenly occurs to me that I didn’t feel it scratching me when we locked lips. He must have shaved yesterday, and now that I see him with a five o’clock shadow again, it’s all I can do not to stand here rubbing my legs together to get rid of the ache between them, thinking about that stubble scratching all over my body.
This is not a date, this is not a date, this is not a date.
That kiss yesterday was a fluke. It was a product of all the wine I drank and balls I grew, nothing else. He probably flirts with every woman he comes in contact with. I don’t know if he kisses every woman, but I’m just going to assume he does and pretend he’s a manwhore that I’m only using for my own benefit , letting him give me as much business knowledge and help as he can. That will help calm my nerves and put an end to any more all-night bake-a-thons.
“I hope you don’t mind or think this is weird, but I got a little something for your daughter. My mom taught me good manners, so I figured she deserved a present for letting me steal her mother away today,” PJ says, handing me a box with a pink bow on it.
Luckily the present gives me something to look at other than this man’s mouth, but it doesn’t help very much with the this is not a date mantra I’ve been chanting in my head, because it’s the sweetest thing ever, and I almost want to sit down and cry at his thoughtfulness.
But I don’t. Because when I see the present he got Anastasia, I kind of want to laugh, which would be very rude.
“Yo, mamacita. Who’s he? Oh my God, do you have a date?”
I turn to see my daughter come down the stairs and walk over to me, looking PJ up and down as she moves.