me checking him out. Moving with a swift athletic grace, he sweeps me up in his arms and hugs me, his voice gruff when he speaks. “See, hugging is good.”
I slide down him, my body pressed tight against his.
He frowns, looking down at my shirt. There’s a white logo on the front of a girl sliding down a pole. “You’re a stripper?”
I stiffen. I’ve learned that some people get weird when they find out where I work. I once had a professor who discovered it and pulled me aside after class one day and got a little too close when he asked what nights I worked. Just no. I was glad when that class ended. “Would it bother you if I were?”
“Fuck yeah. I don’t want anyone looking at you like that.”
I cross my arms. “As it happens, I don’t strip, but if I did, it would be fine. Mara owns BB’s and I mostly do office work and sometimes tend bar.”
His lips compress.
“What?” I ask.
He rubs his face. “Just…I don’t know. It’s not a safe place to work, even if you’re not…”
“It is. Mara runs a tight ship. We have bouncers and our place is clean. Plus, some of the girls are like family to me.”
His chest rises.
“Z, you have no right to judge where I work. Don’t even try.”
“I know, I know. Just…maybe I should come check it out.”
“I can handle myself. You have no clue how I grew up, okay? Hockey in the suburbs is your normal, and hanging out at a strip club is mine. It doesn’t mean I have questionable morals. In fact, Bennett was my first.”
He frowns and holds a hand up. “Okay, just stop and let me back up. I know you’re not a bad person. I’m just…surprised.”
“I didn’t grow up rich.”
His face softens. “And I like you the way you are. I wouldn’t change a damn thing.”
“Good.”
“Nice place,” he says as he walks toward what is obviously my side of the room since the TV is on. He takes in my white duvet and fluffy pillows.
“It’s not, but it’s all that was left. I was supposed to move in with Bennett this semester.” I move to the desk where the bottle of vodka sits. “You want a drink or a donut?”
He surveys the room, taking in my books before his eyes land on the vase of flowers. “Nah.” He picks at one of the blooms. “An admirer?”
I detect a steely glint in his eyes.
“My ex. They were here when I came home tonight.”
His nose flares. “I see.”
“He leaves gifts for me, trying to get me to talk to him.”
His shoulders stiffen. “Are you still in love with him?”
“He cheated on me. He lied.”
He stares at me. “That doesn’t mean you don’t still love him.”
I pause, thinking.
There are residual feelings of loneliness, especially hurt, but he tossed me aside to be with someone else on a whim, and that…that I can never get over no matter how many flowers he sends me.
“I don’t love him.”
“Good.”
An easy silence fills the room, as if the tension has dissipated, and his gaze washes over me. I tug at the tank I’m wearing, but really what’s the point? I’m braless and he knows what I look like.
“I have to say, it’s a nice look for you,” he murmurs. “Now we just need a stripper pole in here…”
I roll my eyes, go to my closet, pull out an HU fleece jacket, and jab my arms into it while he looks around the room.
I watch him warily as he paces around my space, taking in the bookshelves bolted to the wall and the attached desk where I have my laptop. He stops a few feet from my bed and takes in the collage of Post-it notes I’ve stuck up above it. They’re all done in hot pink and neon yellow and it’s quite garish, but I get a buzz when I read them.
He leans in over my bed. “Modern art?”
I snort. “More like modern shit.”
He plucks one of the squares of paper and stares down at it.
I shuffle my feet and take a seat on the chair next to the TV. I want to keep as much distance between him and me as I can, and I tug at the edges of my soft jacket, not quite meeting his gaze. “Those are my way of dealing with Bennett. We broke up in December, and coupled with the holidays, it was rough.”