“The party’s more of a…place where I take my clothes off.”
Suddenly Brody looked like one of those wax statues—eerily human without actually being alive.
I waved my hand in front of his face but couldn’t get him to blink. Thankfully, I was certified in first aid and CPR, because there was a good chance I’d just put Brody into some sort of catatonic trance.
Finally, he seemed to move again—first his eyes and then his jaw—but it still took him a moment to find his words. “Just to be clear, are you taking your clothes off for the kids you work with? Because that’s a kind of fucked-up I don’t wanna be a part of.”
“No! God, no! The party doesn’t have anything to do with the after-school program. I get paid to take my clothes off because I’m a stripper.” I should’ve known I’d have to spell it out for him, but it still felt weird to say the words.
The color seemed to return to Brody’s face, and as he smiled, he seemed to look proud. “Dude! That’s awesome. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”
“I know, it was probably stupid, but I was worried you’d think it was creepy or something.”
“No way, man. I’m totally cool with it.”
“I thought you would be, but I wasn’t sure. And I also wasn’t sure how everyone else would be. Your sister, Drew, Aamee, Taylor. Look, I can’t tell you not to say anything, but I’m asking you as a friend to keep this between us for right now. It’s just…weird. Ya know?”
“Yeah, I get it.” Then Brody made a gesture of zipping his mouth shut and throwing away the imaginary key as if that would actually keep his lips closed.
“Thanks, man. Y’all are such a fun group, and I just don’t want anyone to think differently of me.”
“See!” Brody was almost bouncing. “That was it! The southern thing I was talking about. ‘Y’all,’” he clarified. “Only southern strippers say that.”
“Asshole,” I said, though we both couldn’t help but smile. Brody was one of a kind.
T A Y L O R
I knew when I moved in with Sophia at the beginning of the summer that time would fly by, but I hadn’t expected that I’d be as sad as I felt getting ready to part ways with my best friend.
Even if I were still in the area, it wasn’t the same as rooming together. We’d had so much fun over the last couple of months, I’d almost forgotten the real reason I’d decided to get an internship near her college and not my own. Almost.
I couldn’t forget completely. Not really. The physical distance helped, as did staying in a nice apartment complex, but it would take more than a summer away to fully rid me of the memories of Brad. Maybe I could call Sophia’s friend Xander and ask him if he knew where I could score some ecstasy. A guy we went to high school with used to pop them like Tic Tacs. His drug use caused such extreme memory loss he needed to be taught to eat again.
On second thought…
“Do they still perform lobotomies?”
Over the flattened boxes I was carrying, I couldn’t see Sophia’s or Aamee’s faces, but without missing a beat, Aamee said, “You can get any type of work done if you know where to look. What kind we talkin’ about here? Ice pick or head holes?”
“What’s the matter with you?” I’d known Sophia long enough to recognize she was disgusted but also slightly impressed. In the short time I’d gotten to know Aamee, I’d noticed she seemed to have that effect on many people.
Aamee shifted the boxes she was carrying as we approached the door to our building. “Nothing’s wrong with me. Taylor’s the one who wants a lobotomy.”
“I didn’t say I wanted one.” Which was true because the more I thought about it, the more I’d prefer that Brad forget about my existence instead of the other way around. “I was…asking for a friend.”
“I’ll ask around for your ‘friend,’” Aamee said, clearly assuming the friend was me.
“Seriously?” Sophia asked her. “You’re gonna ask people about back-alley lobotomies?”
Aamee let out a sound of disgust. “Ew, no. Alleys are so early two-thousands. I’ve heard the trend lately is Airbnbs.”
I scanned my key fob on the door and pulled it open with two free fingers. Pressing against the door so Sophia and Aamee could enter, I heard a deep “I got it” followed by some quick footsteps behind me. Thankfully, I recognized the voice as Ransom’s, or I might have been more startled when the door I’d been leaning against pulled away from me, causing me to nearly fall over.
I caught myself, though barely. But I did manage to drop almost all the boxes I’d been holding in the process.
“Oh, no. I’m so sorry,” Ransom said, reaching down to pick up the cardboard as quickly as he could. And since neither of us had any part of our body on the door anymore, it swung back toward the frame, smacking my ass with the glass as I bent over. “Are you okay?”
Ransom wasn’t usually flustered, but this encounter seemed to do the trick. For an athletic guy, it surprised me how clumsy he could be sometimes. About a week ago, he spilled a beer—which wasn’t even his own—all over both of us when we were at the Yard with Carter and Sophia. Though Drew had given us both free T-shirts with the bar’s logo on them so we didn’t have to go home to change. So I guess it hadn’t been all bad.
Once I righted myself from where the door had thrown me off-balance, Ransom managed to collect the boxes and keep the door open so I could go inside. Apparently Brody must’ve gone in
