Leah sniffed. ‘Her mother must be proud. Anyway, they’ve been split up for a long time. While it’s nice and all for you to be understanding, that bitch needs a smack.’
Kate shrugged and downed her drink. Wow, she was tipsy. It was a good thing Eve was thousands of miles away or she would have gotten a smack.
She snickered. ‘I’m done with her. I told her off, but she doesn’t care. Dix says he told her off too. I believe he did. But like I said, she doesn’t care. She can’t possibly think she’ll win him back. She couldn’t do that before I entered the scene.’
‘Maybe she just wants to drive a wedge between you.’ Leah shrugged, and Kate was comforted by how much her friend saw in people.
‘Her latest is to use the girls and Dix is really upset. I feel bad for him, you know? Holy shit, you could bounce quarters off his ass.’ Kate nodded her head back to the stage where pirate boy had pulled off his skin-tight pantaloons and made a slow, sensual circle with his hips. ‘Christalmighty, I’m having impure thoughts about a boy I’m probably old enough to have babysat for.’
‘That hip action is impressive,’ Leah said, rapt.
They were both silent a while as they watched the grace and blatant sexuality the pirate guy brought out of his body. A flex, a shimmy, it was more than just shaking his cock. He owned it, owned his sexual lure, clearly revelled in the power he had over this room of women. The cocky smile, the coy look through his hair as he glanced back over his shoulder – the man was all about that moment on stage and while it was fun to giggle, there was a definite depth of pleasure emanating from him. Pleasure at being happy in his skin. Leah needed that with Bingo, er, Brandon. And truth be told, Kate knew she had to figure out how to get that with Dix. How to move past this current Pickle-sized hurdle and embrace their future. They’d worked through her reluctance regarding dating a co-worker and now they had even bigger things to deal with.
‘What’s his plan then? Has she said things about you to the kids?’ Leah broke away from the scene on the stage for a moment to look at Kate.
‘She hadn’t before this latest little stunt. But … oh wow, a threesome.’ Three of the dancers got on stage and did a sort of unified grinding thing. So totally homoerotic and what girl didn’t like that? ‘Whew, guh, wow. All hunks all the time. Yannow, I can watch men crawl all over each other all day long.’
Leah snorted a laugh and they clinked their glasses together as they continued to watch the show and the roiling wall of women who grabbed any male who came within grasp.
‘Oh holy shit, that thing …’ Leah’s voice wandered off as they both watched pirate boy jump up on a table and pour two bottles of water over his body. In the lights his skin glistened blue as the water sluiced down over a very defined chest and belly. ‘He’s so wet. I should be disgusted but I’m not. I feel dirty.’
They both laughed. Kate’s sides already ached from all the laughing they’d done since arriving in Las Vegas. They’d both needed this trip.
‘Uh huh. Really dirty. He has nipple rings. That’s really fucking hot but only in context. Like on guys like him. On Dix, it would make me laugh. A tat? Now that would be hot.’ Kate shifted, squeezing her thighs together a bit.
‘We need to get the pictures with them afterwards.’ Leah’s statement was decisive and Kate nodded. Leah loved strippers of all kinds and she was Kate’s best friend. What sort of friend would refuse a photo op with the fine young pirate? She snickered. Yeah, right. It was all about Leah.
‘I can see you blaming this all on me if photographic evidence leaks out,’ Leah said.
‘Hey, I will not hesitate to throw you under the bus. Remember when those Borg things came at us at the Star Trek Experience at the Hilton? Bitch, please, you’re Borg meat and you’ll slow ’em down so I can get away. If Dix sees a pic of me looking all stunned by that flat hard field of twenty-two-year-old stripper ass? It’s all you. You made me and shit. I’m a pawn, an innocent.’
‘Cold. So very cold.’
‘Totes.’
‘Back to Pickles.’ Leah made a circular motion with her hand, telling Kate to get on with it.
‘So until her arrival at the lake house she hadn’t said anything to the girls, but I think that might change. I don’t want to put him in the middle. That’s the one thing I’ve always promised myself. I demand he give me all of himself, yes. But they come first. He’s a father first and I respect that. It’s one of the things that makes him so sexy. He loves his daughters and they love him. They trust him, Leah. They simply know he will be there for them and he is. I can’t get in the middle of that. She’s trying to put me there and I know it’s hurting him. I don’t want to be the source of that sort of conflict for him. It hurts me that Eve would try to use those girls to harm him. That’s just so fucked up.’
Leah took a deep breath. ‘She’s a douchenozzle. And we hate her. But you can’t let her win. Katherine, this woman cannot best you. She’s a complete and total idiot. You’re Katherine Edwards and she’s Pickles. And from what you’ve said, Dix’s daughters love their dad, he loves them and they’re certainly old enough to spot bullshit. Why let her do this?’
‘Whoa! Wow, is he double-jointed?’ Kate blinked as
