I sat forward and pulled my wallet out from my back pocket. I plucked out a crisp hundred dollar bill, then I walked to the edge of the stage and held it up.
Shay caught a glimpse of me, standing politely, away from the fray, with my new hundred dollar bill. She sashayed over with enough swing of her hips to spin the sparkly pasties covering her nipples. Her plump round breasts hung low, near enough for me to smell the perfume on her skin, as she leaned down and favored me with that magazine cover smile. On closer inspection, her eyes were a sable brown with flecks of gold and those too full lips were shiny with gloss. I kept my focus directly on her face as I reached up and pushed the hundred dollar bill into the lacy band of her g-string.
She winked at me and swiveled away on her high heels, leaving everyone with an unforgettable view of her ass as she walked off stage.
I turned my attention back to Jack. "I need that girl."
5
One month later
The doorbell chimed, ejecting me from my deep, drunken sleep. My head nearly exploded with pain as I squinted into the streams of daylight seeping past the blinds. A small, soft foot pushed against my thigh, jerking me further out of my groggy state. I lifted the cover and noticed that a long, smooth leg was attached to the foot. And past the long pair of legs was a supple, naked ass with a blue ink dragonfly. The insect tattoo curled its tail as the woman under my quilt stretched and relaxed again on the mattress. A squeaky yawn came from the far corner of my massive bed, a sound that couldn't have been attached to the dragonfly woman unless she was seven feet tall. I lifted the blanket higher, and in the shadows of the bed linens, I discovered another woman curled up in a cozy sleep.
The doorbell echoed through the house again, stirring both of my drowsy sleep partners, but only for a few seconds before they both purred into a dream state again. I climbed out of bed. My feet landed squarely on a pair of silky panties. The trail of clothes and shoes led out the bedroom door to the hallway. A black leather mini skirt straddling the doorway was just about the only thing I remembered about the night before. I vaguely remembered the skirt shoved up above a pair of pink lace panties, which I didn't see anywhere in the room.
The pain in my head was compounded by the nausea in my gut. The room spun wildly as I grabbed my jeans off the floor. I pulled the phone from my pocket. It seemed my new friends and I had slept away most of the day.
I buttoned the fly on my jeans as I plodded down the hallway to the entry. Jack's tall silhouette filled the wavy glass on the front door. I pulled it open and headed into the kitchen before he'd even stepped inside.
"Do you mean you've been holed up right here in Malibu this whole fucking time? I've been calling and texting for days." Jack's loud voice ricocheted off the plaster walls and slammed right into my throbbing forehead.
I put my hand up to stop him from continuing. "You'll need to lower your voice about a hundred decibels unless you want to see my skull explode." I reached for the coffee pot and poured myself a cup of two day old coffee.
"Must have been one helluva night." Jack plucked something up off the stool in front of the kitchen island. It was the infamous pink panties.
"Guess I didn't just imagine those after all." I stuck the cup of coffee in the microwave.
"Is it safe to sit on this stool?" Jack asked.
"Unless you fall off of it, I think it's safe."
Jack settled on the stool and rested his forearms along the granite ledge. He was wearing that smug smile that sometimes made me want to throw my fist at him. "Well, Archer, you look like something my dog ate and puked back up."
"Thank you for lowering your voice, but one more rule. Don't talk about puking, otherwise you're going to find out what I had for dinner last night and something tells me it had to do with oysters." I pressed my arm against my stomach and closed my eyes until the spinning stopped.
"Nash, what the hell are you doing? It's been a month since you got fired. I thought you'd have your own equity firm up, running and steaming right past MG Enterprises already."
I pulled the coffee out and winced at the taste. "Shit, maybe this is even older than I thought." I dumped it into the sink. "I stupidly thought I could convince some of the big clients, people who I helped secure the equity they needed to start a successful business, to follow me or at least hand out some good recommendations. Turns out Morris Grant has a lot bigger hold on his clients than I realized."
"Fucking hell, so he got to them all before you could sweet talk them to your side?"
"Seems that way. Doesn't help that he let it be well known how I lost the deal with Rad Video. I think he sent out a 'lock up your daughters' kind of warning."