a ginger ale.” Candace yawned. She was fading quickly. We needed to move things along fast.
“Not yet.” She waved Marco over. “We want one classic cocktail, maybe an Old-Fashioned. Clean. And maybe to spice things up, one dirty, DIRTY martini.”
“Hey, you didn’t order my ginger ale!” Candace whimpered.
Jane focused on the door. “I’ll order that in a minute,” she answered distractedly as she looked down at her watch. She muttered to herself, “We’ll see if they’re as hot as Marco.”
Marco reappeared, with two strapping men right behind him. Hottie number one, dressed as a (hot!) cowboy, had an all-American, clean-cut yummy type of look to him. He had a lasso, too. Hottie number two was dressed in a modified tuxedo. He was hot in a Miami sensual summer sort of way. He oozed dirty sex. They came over and introduced themselves.
“I’m Dan.” Cowboy tipped his hat. Oooh, it suddenly got a little steamy in here.
Dirty Sex said, “My name is Paul.” He grabbed Candace’s hand and kissed it. She blushed so hard I thought her water might break right there on the floor of the VIP room.
I looked at Jane. “These guys are perfect. How did you . . .”
She waved the menu in my face. “I ordered them.”
“You WHAT?” I looked over at Candace, to shoot her a look of can you believe her? but she was too busy flirting with Paul. Paul was a much better stimulant than ginger ale. Who would have expected to see a woman carrying a cauliflower-head-size baby flirt so hard with a stripper? I needed a drink. Desperately.
Jane tossed her hair back. “Well, at the fancy strip clubs we go to for work, they have these menus where you can use innuendo to request a type of stripper to come to you. Usually they’re drink menus, so you might order a tall White Russian if you want, well, a tall White Russian. One time I went to a dessert-themed strip club and they likened types of women to ice cream flavors. So fucking weird, right?”
This whole thing was weird. But I couldn’t help wondering what kind of “order” I would give for Nolan. A bourbon, neat? A Gold Rush? Maybe Whiskey Smash?
Melody, stop thinking about Nolan and smashing. Stop it.
No one in my entourage seemed to remember why we were there, including me, so I took charge and handed Paul and Dan my business card. “Gentlemen, no stripping required today. I have a well-paying job for you two, and it will be fun and worth your time, I promise. Call me tomorrow.”
Paul eyed Candace up and down and said, “Count me in.”
Dan tipped his hat in agreement, and Paul followed him out of the room. Candace giggled and bit her lip. “Where do you think they put their business cards?”
Jane sat back into the couch. “Well, you got your cosplayers, and I got some killer ideas for my bachelorette party.” She ordered the overdue ginger ale and handed Marco a hundred-dollar bill, which he rolled up and put in his thong. The lack of pockets didn’t stop Marco from collecting cash in his crotch bank. Maybe he had a hidden slot for business cards, too. As we left the club, I wondered what Marco did with spare change.
Chapter Sixteen
My friend Nick Cabot was the first person I called to help with the game trailer. He had just moved back to Seattle after working at an ad agency in London for two years and had some time to take on this freelance video project. Hooray!
Ziiiiiiip. Nick talked to me while opening boxes with an X-Acto knife. “Mel, darling, the only games you and I REALLY enjoy playing are those junky time wasters on our phones.” Ziiiiiiip. “Are you still playing Candy Casino? And that ridiculous one where you fling rubbish at the British aristocracy?” Nick had been my boss and mentor at my previous job, and he had started a new ad agency in the SoDo district. They had a few local clients, but their main source of revenue came from creating trailers for independent films.
“No, I’m not addicted to those anymore, thank you very much. Anyway, I really think your video experience making gorgeous film trailers will be perfect for this assignment.” His design aesthetic and promotional sensibilities would work well for this game trailer. I proceeded to tell him about Ultimate Apocalypse.
He laughed before I could finish. “I love how ridiculous the premise is. And it sounds so fun. Okay, so the