STRIPTEASED (Roommate Reverse Harem Romance)

As we finished up breakfast, I noticed that Denver was fairly quiet, too. But unlike Austin, he seemed to be in a good mood. He popped up, retrieved a pot of coffee, and offered us all some. Then he sat back in his spot, practically beaming.

“What’s up with you this morning?” Tonio said.

“Something happened last night,” Denver began.

“I’ll say it did.” Knox looked over at me and smiled.

Denver grinned, too. “That was spectacular, but I mean something else happened last night. Remember how we met with a woman just before the club closed?”

Tonio raised an eyebrow. “I would’ve thought our little Emma here would have wiped her from your mind completely.”

Denver laughed as if nothing could get him down today. “It’s not like that. She offered me a job as a choreographer.”

We stared at him in surprise, and then Tonio clapped him on the back. “Congrats, man!”

“That’s great,” I added. “Instead of just teaching dance, you’ll be making up the dance and then teaching it to others.”

“Congratulations,” Knox said.

I glanced over at Austin’s stormy face. “Aren’t you happy for him?”

“As it turns out, there’s a job for him, too,” Denver said. “He’s going to be one of the dancers.”

“That’s incredible! That way you can still work together.” I couldn’t understand the look on Austin’s face. “Is the job at a new club? Wait, it’s not in Nashville, is it?” Nashville was over an hour’s drive away. I didn’t like thinking of the twins making that trip late at night after their act.

“No, not Nashville,” Denver said. He took a deep breath. “The thing is… the woman we spoke with is a recruiter for a band that travels all over the United States. She’s asked us to join them on their next tour. Which means…” He trailed off, looking a bit less certain.

But Austin finished his thought, speaking for the first time in at least ten minutes. “Which means we’re leaving.”

25

Knox

On Sunday, I spent the afternoon in my favorite chair, watching the football game with Austin and Tonio.

Except none of us were paying it much attention.

“Where’s Denver?” I asked. I didn’t have to ask about Emma, because I knew she was upstairs working in the little room we’d fixed up for her. Tonio’s sister had encouraged her to get her next book out as fast as possible. Since Emma had a hard drive full of older stories, it seemed likely she could publish again before Christmas. That gave her about six weeks.

“At the university,” Tonio responded. He had the other armchair, and Austin was stretched out on the couch.

There was a state school thirty minutes up the road, but we rarely drove up that way. “What for, the library?”

“No, he’s watching some dance rehearsal,” Austin answered. “He thinks it’ll give him choreography tips.”

“So you’re really leaving?”

“Just for six months,” Austin said. After the twin’s announcement yesterday, we’d all been subdued, not to mention downright exhausted from the events of the night before. So we hadn’t gotten many details. “That’s not that long.”

“Unless you decide to go on the next tour, too.” Evidently Tonio had been talking to the twins because he knew more about the situation than I did.

“Being on the road like that… the hotels, the different cities, no home base… it’s not easy,” I said quietly.

They both looked over. “How do you know that?” Austin asked.

I didn’t answer. The version of me that had gone from town to town with as part of a crew—a crew that only valued my brawn, not my brains—didn’t exist anymore. I’d begun to change before I met Emma, but she helped me complete the transformation.

When they realized I wasn’t going to respond, Tonio turned to Austin. “Why are you doing this again?”

Austin swung his long legs off the couch and sat up. “What am I supposed to do, tell my brother that no, he can’t live out his dream? He’s always been there for me. Always.” Austin ran his fingers through his short hair and exhaled loudly. “It’s not like we can work at a strip club forever. You guys don’t want to, either.”

“True,” Tonio said, and I nodded.

Tonio wanted to run his own business. I wasn’t sure what I wanted, but it didn’t include being a bouncer. However, I knew just as surely as I knew my own name that it involved Emma. I hated what this was doing to her. She’d been so upset after the twins told us about going on the tour. She said she was tired and asked Tonio if she could take a nap in his room. Maybe she’d gotten some sleep, but her eyes had been red and puffy when I went to check on her.

I wanted to be mad at the twins for hurting Emma and breaking up the group just when everything had gotten so good. But I couldn’t be angry with Denver. He was so damn happy that it was like he was walking on clouds. And Austin… it was clear he didn’t want to go, yet he was doing this for his brother.