“No, Ernie. It’s only ten o’clock.”
“Good, good, good,” he says. “Then that means you can ride on down here and tell your tenants to shut the fuck up.”
I don’t bother to hide my grin since he can’t see me, but I do try to modulate my voice. “What have our tenants done now?” I ask, finding it hard to believe that our widow renter is causing any major problems during her annual trip this week.
“It sounds like a gaggle of geese over there, laughing and carrying on. Sure, they’re some lookers, but these ladies are out of control!”
“Gaggle?” I repeat. Charlotte didn’t come alone this year? Maybe she brought some other thirty-something women who wanted to get away from their men for a week and have a little fun.
“A gaggle! Now, are you gonna do something or not?”
“Can’t you just shove in some ear plugs, Ernie? I bet they’ll be settling down before I can even get there.”
“Do you want me to go over there and do your job? I will, but I won’t do it half as nicely as you. Or I could call the police. Doubt you all need any cops up in your shit, but I’ll do what I have to do to get some goddamn sleep tonight!”
Rolling my eyes at his exasperation, I give in with a heavy sigh. “Fine. I’m on my way.”
“Thanks,” he says with a huff before ending the call.
“Something up?” Winston asks.
“Just got a rowdy crowd over in the Tidelands rental, and Ernie is out for blood.” Sighing, I hang up my pool stick on the wall, telling them, “See you guys tomorrow,” before I head out the door and climb on my bike.
Charlotte Newsom
“Someone’s at the door!” Sydney yells.
“I’ll get it,” I say. “Who the heck would be showing up here at this time of night?” I wonder aloud to my tipsy self on the way to the side entry, which is where it sounded like the knock came from. I open up since there’s no peep hole, just a screen door, and find a tall man in dark clothes standing on the other side of the screen that I keep locked.
“Can I help you?” I ask.
“I think you know why I’m here,” he grumbles.
I rack my alcohol laden mind to try and figure out why he would be here when it finally hits me.
“Shit! Oh, shit!” I say as I unlatch the screen and push it open for him to come inside. “Wait, it’s not Thursday!” I laugh and slap his hard, very hard chest. “You’re a day early, dude! You weren’t supposed to be here until tomorrow night!”
“I wasn’t?” he asks, sounding confused. When I look up, up, and up even further at his face, his reddish-colored brows are bunched up, forehead crinkled underneath a flop of curly, auburn hair.
“Nope,” I answer with a slight sway to the right that I cover up by slapping my palm against the wall while studying our man. “And what’s with this outfit? I asked for a police officer.”
“Huh? Why did you ask for a police officer?” he asks while I take in his attire, a leather biker vest with white patches slung over a plain gray t-shirt with a pair of frayed jeans that have a gaping hole at the knee.
“Well, cops are hot and have handcuffs,” I explain. “But fine, forget it. You’ll do,” I tell him with a wave of my hand. “Tessa loved the Sons of Anarchy. Not to mention you look like a time traveling Jamie Frasier from Outlander.”
“A Jamie-what-the-fuck?” he asks, looking to me and then to the living room where the rest of the ladies are gathered around, laughing and talking about disastrous first dates. None have yet to beat mine and Adam’s. We ate at a new Mexican restaurant and both ended up in the hospital with food poisoning that night. But the next morning, when Adam got released first, he went to the hospital’s gift shop and bought me a bouquet of flowers as an apology and a request for a redo first date, which I happily gave him.
“Look, you screwed up the date and the outfit, so how about you stop asking questions, get your ass into the living room and start taking your damn clothes off already,” I order him since alcohol makes me even bossier than usual. Hiring a stripper is crazy, even I can admit that. But isn’t that what you’re supposed to do for the bride-to-be?
“You want me to take my clothes off?” the eye candy asks with a cocky smirk.
“That’s what strippers do, right?” I grumble as I look him up and down. “And seriously, dude, can’t you find, like, some other career? I mean, I get that you’re supposed to be hot and, like, every woman’s fantasy, but you’re taking it a little too far. It’ll probably be impossible for a woman to forget seeing you naked.”
“I apologize?” he says slowly, making it sound like a question with his dark green eyes full of humor.
“You should be sorry,” I tell him. “Now go.”
When he turns toward the living room, I follow behind, telling him, “Just a warning, these ladies will probably get a little handsy. Your manager or handler or whatever he is said that you don’t mind.”
“I don’t?” It sounds like another question before I give his tight ass a smack to get him moving.
“Go on now! Take your clothes off. I’ll turn on the music.”
“Okay then,” he mutters. “Guess it’s time for me to get naked.”
Good thing he’s pretty, because I’m starting to think that he’s not the brightest bulb in the box.
Chapter Two
Roman
Charlotte is even more stunning up close than she is from afar. I wasn’t prepared for that, and I was completely caught off guard by her playful, drunk rhetoric and confusing line of questions.
Which is how I somehow find myself in the center of the room with five
