She smiled. “I know, right? Everyone seems to want those these days.” She turned to find me a bottle of something dark. “Here you go, sweetie.”
“Thanks!” I slipped a couple of dollars into a tall carafe nearby. “I appreciate it.” She winked at me as I spun away toward a large set of doors with sunlight flooding through the windows, and not for the first time I found myself wondering whether I should ditch Don and try a woman. He hadn’t been doing the job lately, I reflected with a slight frown, but then he wasn’t the most perceptive man. And part of it, I knew, was me. My hours sucked, and I didn’t make much of an effort with him.
There was another guy there to open this door for me, a natty little fellow in a clean blue suit, and I was already flashing piña colada smiles right and left. “Thanks!” I burbled, putting a big pair of sunglasses on as I strode across the deck. My heels on the wood sounded like a dominatrix moving toward her prey. The thought made me smile again as I reached the sturdy railing at the edge of the sea, the harbor in front of me a bobbing thicket of white masts from the members’ boats, and I stood there a moment with the sun on my skin and the ocean in my nose, enjoying my day.
Half the beer was gone, on top of the piña colada, and my teeth were losing feeling when I heard footsteps beside me. I turned away from watching a seagull drop a crab onto the rocks by the seawall and saw a man in a nice grey suit, just a little taller than me. He seemed familiar.
Especially when he smiled.
“Thought that might be you over here,” the stripper said in that rolling, surfer-boy voice of his. “I thought it was weird that Ava invited me, but if you’re here it makes a little bit of sense.”
“H-hey!” I managed, my shock probably obvious. I straightened, blinking furiously behind my glasses, trying to understand why this guy was here. “Steve?”
He kept his smile and cocked his head pleasantly. I noticed his shades were more expensive than mine. “I’m so sorry,” he began earnestly, “but I forget your name…”
“It’s Nadia.” I knew I was grinning, grinning like a fucking madwoman, remembering what he looked like naked. “Nadia Sloman,” I added automatically.
“It’s so hilarious that she invited us,” he went on, leaning against the railing beside me. He had a wonderful manner about him, and holy shit he looked good in that suit. I took a convulsive sip of my beer as a breeze stirred my hair. “She sent me a note at work.”
“Like, through the stripper people?” I giggled. For an instant I wondered whether my cleavage looked indecent, but then I remembered how he’d stared at my tits with my finger up his butt and decided it didn’t matter what I showed. “Strippers-r-Us?”
“No, we’re called Dirty bASStards,” he replied with an easy laugh. He conjured a business card from his suit pocket and offered it to me.
“I think your, uh, your friend already gave one of those to my partner.” I just couldn’t stop smiling. “I bet Ava might want it, though.”
“Right?” He shrugged. “No, she called me at the gym. I’m a personal trainer at Coast.”
I arched an eyebrow. “How did she know that?”
He straightened a little, looking out at the bay. “I mean, I do talk to people sometimes. I don’t just let them suck frosting off my chest, then get my penis stuck in their cooch.” We laughed a little breathlessly. “She asked when she saw my muscles. Before we did it.”