Landon squeezed my waist as he said, “It’s not easy doing it day in and day out, people groping you and shit. Rana tells me a lot of stories.”
I smiled at him. “It can be fun sometimes, I suppose, depending on the night.”
“Tell them about the snake,” Landon said.
“Oh.” I chuckled. “Yeah, my boss sometimes makes me dance carrying a snake around my shoulders.”
Mia gasped. “Are you joking? That would totally freak me out!”
Nodding, I said, “It was weird at first, but I got used to it. It’s amazing how many more tips it gets me, so I’ve learned to live with it.”
Landon and I took a seat across from them. He smacked my knee playfully. “Rana’s a trooper. Always up for anything. Ever since we were young.”
Dave seemed surprised that Landon and I had a history. “You guys have known each other for a while, then?”
I looked at Landon before offering my own spin on our story. “We were friends in junior high for about a year before I moved. I hadn’t seen Landon since I was thirteen, until we recently got back in touch.”
“That’s so sweet,” Mia gushed. “How did this reunion come about?”
Landon apparently decided the truth needed to be sugarcoated. “Rana was thinking of me one night out of the blue and decided to look me up.”
Mia looked at Dave. “So romantic.”
Not.
“It would’ve been romantic if I wasn’t drunk as a skunk when I dialed him.”
Ace spit out a bit of his drink. “Now that…is fucking awesome.”
“Landon here is trying to make me out to sound classier than I am.”
“Yeah, she drunk dialed me.” He laughed and seemed truly relieved that I was comfortable around his friends.
Over the next hour, we told stories about our childhood and our reconnection. With each sip of my drink, the night was seeming more and more chill.
At one point, Ace turned to me. “Hey, show us some of your dance moves.”
Landon scolded him, “Ace…”
“No, it’s fine. I dance for strangers all the time. I’m happy to dance for your friends.” I stood up and faced them. “Okay, so one of the moves is called a Figure Eight. This is a standard movement where one hip moves opposite from the other on a vertical plane. One hip moves down, away from the body, up, and then back to the center. The other hip moves up, into the center, down, and then away from the body.”
I demonstrated the dance repeatedly as their eyes stayed glued to my hips.
“Basically like drawing the number eight with your ass,” Ace said.
“Sort of, yeah. And then, of course, my hands can be doing a number of things, either clicking the finger cymbals, waving around rhythmically, or sometimes carrying a gigantic reptile.”
My skin was jiggling as I began to wiggle my hips at a higher rate of speed, demonstrating one of the faster moves.
This guy who happened to be passing by saw me dancing. He briefly placed his hand on my waist and said, “Keep shaking it, gorgeous.”
Landon’s face turned red, and his eyes were piercing. It looked like he wanted to kill someone. Luckily, the dude didn’t stick around and was gone before a blow-up could occur. Landon’s eyes followed the guy around for a bit, though.
Shaking it out until I finally came to a stop, I said, “Anyway, that’s a little sample for you.”
The four of them clapped for me as I sat back down.
Landon’s moment of jealousy passed as he looked at me proudly, once again seeming truly relieved that I was so at ease around his friends.
He leaned into my ear. “You’re amazing, you know that?”
“Your peeps are great.”
“I was worried you wouldn’t be comfortable.”
“You don’t have to be so protective of me. I’m fine.”
“As long as I’m around you, I’ll be protective, Rana. I don’t know how not to be.”
Before we left for the night, Landon left me alone with his crew while he went to the bathroom.
Ace, who’d definitely had a bit too much to drink, moved into the empty spot next to me. His eyes were glassy as he just stared at me for a bit.
I could smell the beer on his breath as he said, “I’m so happy you guys found each other again. I love that dude. Love him to death. He deserves happiness with someone who’s not fucking using him.”
The last part of his comment gave me pause. I wasn’t going to pry about any of Landon’s exes, despite my curiosity and urge to ask Ace to explain exactly who might have been using Landon. Any information on Landon’s past should have come from Landon, not his intoxicated friend.
I simply said, “I couldn’t agree more.”
Landon looked concerned when he arrived back and saw me talking to a drunk Ace. “Everything good?”
Trying to seem unaffected, I smiled. “Great.”
He looked back and forth between Ace and me. “Want to get out of here, Rana?”
“Sure.”
I was actually pretty tired and couldn’t wait to get back to Landon’s place. The whole night while staring at him in his sexy, fitted sweater, I wanted to just curl into his chest like a kitten. More than ready to be alone with him again, I hoped if he didn’t want to have sex with me tonight, that we could at least cuddle.
Landon side hugged Ace. “We’re out. Goodnight, man. Be safe. You letting Dave drive you?”
“Yeah.” Ace then kissed me on the cheek. “Night, Rana.”
“Night, Ace.”
After we said our goodbyes to Dave and Mia, Landon put his arm around me as we exited the bar.
“Was Ace behaving while I was in the bathroom?”
“Yes. He was just slurring his words a little and said how happy he was that you and I reconnected.”
“He gets mouthy when he’s drunk. I just wanted to make sure he didn’t say anything to upset you.”
“No, not at all.”
“You feel like staying out, or you want to go home?”
Home.
“Back to your place, you mean?”
“I certainly didn’t mean Michigan.” He squeezed my arm. “Yes, my home…which is your home here.”
“That sounds good. It’s been a long day.”
After arriving back at Landon’s apartment, we stood facing each other in the middle of his living room.
Buzzed and horny, my nipples hardened from merely the lustful way he was looking at me. We were definitely both feeling the effects of the alcohol, and you could smell the want in the air.
Landon inched closer. The feel of his breath on me was making me even weaker.
“You know when you were dancing tonight, I might have been going a little more insane with each movement of your hips. Like you, I, too, have a jealous side. When that guy put his hand on you, it made me momentarily lose my mind, which is kind of crazy because that kind of thing must happen to you all of the time. I’m just not there to see it.”
It felt good to be the recipient of his jealousy. Normally, it was the other way around.
“Yeah, it does happen quite a bit.” Any other answer would’ve been a lie. Men were always hitting on me at work.
“I envy all of those people who get to watch you dance every night.”
That gave me an idea. “I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going?”