I’m serious about that, too. I’ve seen men come into my office whining about how their wives are parasites who stay home all day and drain them of their hard-earned money. Then, a second later, other guys show up bitching about how their wives are emasculating them by working for a living. I mean, make up your mind, dickwads.
“Thank you,” Julia moans, tilting her head back and exposing her beautiful throat. “God, it’s so nice to hear that all men aren’t cavemen.”
“Unless we want to be,” I murmur, kissing down her neck and sliding my hand into her dress. I slip under her bra, feeling her nipple peaking and getting hard. “Unless we want to grab a woman by the hair, bend her over a table . . . ”
“That sounds good,” she murmurs, breathless. She moans as I squeeze her nipple, her luscious lips parting with need.
“That’s it,” the cowboy bartender says, slamming our bill onto the bar. “Out.” He folds his arms over his gingham-plaid shirt, and spits a stream of tobacco juice into a bucket under the bar.
This is a classy establishment, as you can see.
We pay and wander back onto the street, Julia hanging onto my shoulder. The Vegas air is a warm embrace even in the middle of the night. The sky above is soft, black velvet, the world around us awash and hazy with city lights. Julia kisses me again, wrapping herself around me. Damn, I want to get her back to the hotel and into my bed. I kiss her, harder and more demanding, but she pulls back.
“Wait. You said your ex is in Vegas? You ever get tempted to call her while you’re here?” she asks, running a hand through my hair.
“Why? Jealous?” I ask, grinning as I lean in for a kiss. But she denies me again.
“Don’t you wanna, like, give her a piece of your mind?”
“Nah,” I say, shrugging. Like it’s easy. Though it feels easy right now, with Julia in my arms. “She’s got her air conditioner and her fucking parrot. She loved that thing. Peebles was the one nice thing about her moving out; no more parrot shit on everything in the living room.”
“Hold on,” Julia says, putting a hand on my chest. Her smile stretches out, impossibly wide. “What would you say to a little home invasion?”
I blink, not understanding. But when she explains her plan in depth, I can’t stop grinning either.
Is this legal? Abso-fucking-lutely not. But tequila, man. Tequila’s a helluva drug.
“We are the world’s greatest parrot-nappers,” Julia hisses at me as we climb out of the Uber. The driver looks over his shoulder at me, a querying expression on his face.
“This is being done for the good of the nation,” I tell him, giving him my best lawyer face. I can feel it; the muscles in my cheeks go slack every time. The guy only nods and lets me out.
As the car drives away, we do our best to walk in a straight line to the door. I only veer into a bush once, which means I am fucking golden, and I am going to break into a fucking house tonight.
Phoebe and her soul mate live in a subdivision out in the seemingly endless suburbs around the Las Vegas strip. Similar looking houses, probably beige and cream in the daylight, stand watch all along the street. The streetlights buzz like, like, uh, like buzzing things. Yeah. Buzzing things that watch people.
Watch this, you suburban pricks.
“What if they’re home?” I stage whisper to Julia as I follow behind her. My eyes trail to her perfect ass. Maybe we can get back at Phoebe by fucking right here, in the driveway.
She swats my hand away when I go after her. A woman who’s all about business; I can get behind that.
“We’ll pretend to be Jehovah’s Witnesses who forgot their pamphlets. I’ve done it before in high school,” she says, peering in through the window. “It’s how I got a look inside rich people’s houses. They had chandeliers and no shag carpeting!” She sounds awed by the memory. “Wonder how we can figure out if they’re here.” She puts her hands on her hips. Very nice hips.
I come up behind her, placing my hands on her waist. I sweep her hair aside and kiss her neck. She gasps a little.
“I think they’re gone,” I whisper in her ear, and nod at the drive. “This is a one-car garage. Phoebe’s Beamer always sits out here; I know because she bitched about it in one of our last breakup emails. If it’s gone, so are they. Probably having a night on the town.” I try to keep the mockery out of my voice. I don’t succeed.
Julia spins around, throws her arms about my neck, and kisses me. I want to keep going—maybe have a quick good luck fuck before breaking in. Like you do. But she pulls away. Dammit.
“Hold on,” Julia says, taking off her shoes and throwing them onto the lawn. “Give me a boost.”
“For what?” I ask, though I cup my hands and let her step onto them.
There’s an overhang above the porch, and Julia climbs up on top of it with my help. She crawls over to the window overlooking the street. The roof above is slanted, and I’m afraid one of the shingles is going to slip and she’ll go tumbling off and onto the ground. That fear creates a surge of adrenaline or testosterone or some chemical that reminds me how out of control this could be.