Undertaking Love Page 0,50

consider his options though, because Dan yanked him sideways into a black doorway and up some narrow wooden stairs.

Five minutes later, he found himself installed in a red velvet booth with a cold bottle of Budweiser and a half-naked blonde thrusting a G-string clad bottom at him from a nearby pole.

‘A strip joint. Really?’

Dan winked and chinked his bottle against Gabe’s, clearly pleased with himself. ‘So. What’s your poison tonight my friend?’ He inclined his head towards the woman wrapped around the pole. ‘Blonde?’

Gabe took a slug of beer and looked away.

‘Not blonde. Okaaay … how about a classic brunette?’

Gabe followed Dan’s gaze across to the main stage, where men were shoving bank notes of encouragement into the silver thong of an exotic looking girl as she peeled down the straps of her bra. He took it all in, feeling detached and grubby. He’d been in strip joints several times over the years; enough times to know it wasn’t his scene.

‘A nice little redhead, then? You seem to have developed quite a soft spot for them lately.’

Dan slid his sly eyes from Gabe’s with a grin and nodded towards a girl at the bar with wild red curls and barely there black lace underwear.

Gabe drained his bottle and reached behind him for his jacket.

‘I’m gonna shoot through. This isn’t for me tonight, mate.’

Dan pouted and punched him on the shoulder. ‘Lighten up, man. It’s just a bit of fun.’

He winked at the blonde, who licked her lips and held a hand out to him in reply. Dan shrugged his shoulders with a helpless laugh at Gabe.

‘Wait for me, yeah? I’ll be back in five.’

Gabe sighed in resignation as he watched Dan trail off behind the glistening blonde like an excited puppy with a juicy bone. He traded his empty bottle for a full one from a passing waitress and settled in to wait, trying to avoid the parade of girls vying for his attention.

‘Feelin’ lonely, cowboy?’

Gabe glanced up from the depths of his beer to find the redhead from the bar had slid into the booth alongside him. Her riotous red curls sent a vicious kick of longing into his stomach.

Yeah. He was feeling lonely.

She scooted closer and trailed long emerald green nails along his thigh.

‘I can make you feel a whole lot better.’ She batted her false eyelashes and wiggled her cleavage closer to his chest.

He couldn’t help himself.

He looked down.

He had to hand it to her; she jiggled in all the right places. She dipped her head for a second, her hair tumbling over her face, and with the benefit of a few too many beers she might have been Marla. When she threw her head back and grinned, a ridiculous shiver of disappointment ran through him.

The girl was wrong. She couldn’t make him feel better. In fact, with one flick of her red curls she’d managed to make him feel a hundred times worse.

‘I’m not a cowboy,’ he muttered.

‘That’s alright, darlin’. You can be anything you like in here.’

‘I’m an undertaker.’

To her credit, she faltered for only the briefest of nano-seconds before she was right back on her game.

‘Kinky.’ She swung a leg over him and straddled his thighs. ‘Then I’ll be Buffy the Vampire Slayer.’ She flashed her eyes and leaned close to whisper in his ear. ‘Here, or somewhere a little more private?’

Out of the corner of his eye Gabe spied Dan as he sauntered back across the bar. Thank God. ‘I’ll pass, thanks.’

‘Come on, goth boy …’ The girl started gyrating to the music.

‘Get off me. Now.’

She could obviously tell from his tone that he meant business, because she stood up and tipped his drink into his lap.

‘Get a life, weirdo. You’re in a strip joint, remember?’

‘Nice taste, man,’ Dan murmured as he slid into the booth, swivelling his head to check out the redhead’s bum as she strutted away.

‘Did you just put her up to that?’

‘Fuck off. You must have given her the glad eye yourself.’

Gabe brushed the beer from his crotch and Dan’s face creased up with laughter. ‘For fuck sake, Gabriel, I did you a favour. That girl was smokin’.’

‘I don’t need fixing up.’

Dan shook his head without malice. ‘I hate to say it Gabriel, but from where I’m standing, it kind of looks like you do.’

As they grabbed their jackets, neither of them noticed the floppy-haired guy alone in the corner, phone in hand.

Chapter Twenty-Two

‘I need to make another appointment with the midwife for three weeks’ time, please,’ Emily said