“And you must be the prude. Eric Sailor, nice to meet you,” he says with an even wider smile, dimples appearing in both his cheeks.
“I am not a prude,” I argue.
“You wore a suit from Talbots and pearls to a strip club. You’re a prude,” Ariel informs me.
“It’s from Ann Taylor, thank you very much. And these pearls are a family heirloom,” I tell her, picking a piece of lint off of the three-quarter-length sleeve of my navy blue-and-white tweed jacket before smoothing my hands down the sides of the matching, knee-length skirt.
Granted, maybe wearing something so businesslike wasn’t the best idea when coming here today, but this is what I feel comfortable in. It’s like my suit of armor, and it gives me confidence. Ariel wears a low-cut pink tank top, which shows off an ample amount of cleavage, paired with an extremely short, tattered jean skirt, and flip-flips; and Isabelle wears a white eyelet-lace sundress that comes to her knees, and a pair of ballet flats. We all wore what we feel most comfortable in so we could face this day. There’s nothing wrong with that.
“Did you know the word prude originated in the early eighteenth century from the French word prudefemme, which means worthy or respectable woman?” Isabelle asks the room.
“And you must be the librarian. A prude, a mouth, and a librarian walk into a strip club . . .” he trails off with a laugh.
“Look, Chuckles, we’re just here to meet with Tiffany. So if you’ll just move the fuck out of our way so we can get down to business, that’d be great,” Ariel tells him.
“And since Tiffany is one of my employees, you’ll understand why I’m a little hesitant to let just anyone into my club to speak with her,” PJ says, finally stepping forward to stand next to Eric while Beast continues to glare from a distance.
“You own Charming’s?” Ariel asks in shock while the butterflies in my stomach suddenly come to an abrupt halt, each one dying a slow, painful death.
Of course. The first time my libido decides to wake up and take notice in lord knows how long, it’s with the owner of a strip club. Granted, it’s a lovely strip club and very well taken care of, but it’s still a strip club.
And then I remember I’m standing in the middle of said strip club, fully prepared to take stripping lessons from one of the dancers here as a last-ditch effort to try to make ends meet before my house is foreclosed on. I’ve applied to hundreds of jobs over the last few months, but no one wants to hire a housewife with no college education, no matter how many bake sales she successfully ran or how many marketing ideas she came up with to make them successful. So I really have no right to judge. If I didn’t think everyone would look at me like I’d lost my mind, I’d smack myself in the arm to save Ariel the trouble.
“We’re actually co-owners. Well, I own a fleet of luxury yachts that I rent out and just gave him investment money for the place, so I guess you could say I’m more of a silent partner. He does all the heavy lifting,” Eric says, shooting Ariel another dimpled grin.
“Is that supposed to impress me or something? How about you practice that whole silent thing and stop talking already?” she responds.
PJ finally shows an emotion on his face other than annoyance, and he chuckles softly, the sound of it making my heart beat faster.
I really need to get a grip. I have no business feeling anything when it comes to another man. Sure, I’m divorced, and I guess what one would call a “free agent.” But I have too many other things to worry about it my life right now to let this man, who so clearly is annoyed by us, give me butterflies. I also have zero experience when it comes to the opposite sex, and something tells me I’d need to have a lot of experience to catch the eye of someone like PJ. No matter how rude and annoying he is, he’s still nice to look at.
“Look, we’re not here to divulge any secrets about what goes on in the underground world of strip clubs or anything. What happens behind closed doors, stays behind closed doors and all that shit,” Ariel tells PJ. “Your buddy John suggested we come meet with Tiffany, and since you got a front-row seat to our disastrous first attempt at stripping, we thought it was a good idea.”
“Wait a minute. You’re the strippers that were hired for PJ’s thirty-fifth birthday party?” Eric asks in astonishment before letting out another laugh. “Oh my God. Now I’m even more pissed off that I had a date that night and had to miss all the excitement.”