Shopping for a CEO (Shopping for a Billionaire Series Book 7) (34 page)

“The circle of knowledge? And hold on. You mean you all
don’t
have your periods right now?” 

We three shake our heads.

“Damn it! I
do
!” she cries out, clasping the heating pad hard to her belly.

“Oh, man,” Amy mumbles in sympathy.

“And I’m the only one in here who can’t get pregnant!” Carol grouses. “But I still get my stupid periods. I’m between you three and Mom and Pam. I’m stuck in the middle.” I’m assuming that’s an allusion to having her tubes tied after she had her youngest son. 

No one is listening to her as we change clothes and fluff and primp and get ready for a night on the town.

Carol jumps up, sighs, and pops some ibuprofen.

“All right. What can I squeeze into from Amy’s closet? Dad’s got Jeffrey and Tyler for the night.” She sets down a half-eaten pint of ice cream, licking the spoon clean and shoving it in the treat. “Might as well have some fun that doesn’t involve using my mouth.”

We all practically crack our necks looking at her.

She grins back.

And looks just like her mom.

* * *

A long time ago, Shannon informed me she wanted a private room at a huge piano bar for singalongs and strippers. Hiring male strippers who can sing was surprisingly easy. 

As we walk in to the private room, a familiar Billy Joel tunes carries through the air from twin baby grand pianos that face each other. A row of tables sits in front of them, with layers radiating out from the center formed by the two pianos.

There is no bar tonight. It’s all an open bar with table service, and all bankrolled by Anterdec. The only stipulation James McCormick placed on me when I made the bachelorette party arrangements was that I invite enough Anterdec employees, contractors, and subsidiary company workers to make it a legitimate business deduction.

That was easy.

Half of the male performers from O are here. I invited Declan’s assistant, Grace, and Andrew’s assistant. Shannon invited a gaggle of women she works with in Marketing at Anterdec, so we’re pretty much covered there. 

As we settle in at the table of honor, one of the cocktail servers plunks a bottle of chilled Champagne and a bucket of chilled wine coolers on the table.

Actually, that’s not a bucket.

That’s a
trough
. It takes two servers to lift the ice-and-bottle-filled bucket onto the table in front of us.

“Now that’s what I call table service!” shouts a familiar voice.

Shannon gives me a look, as if Satan himself were whispering our names from the depths of Hell.

Right behind us.

We turn around slowly to find a
very
pleased with herself Marie, holding an open bottle of Champagne, standing next to my mother, who appears to be as drunk as I have ever seen her.

And Josh is behind them, giving us a sour look.

Mom and Marie do a surprisingly good imitation of Edina and Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous.

“Uh....” Shannon and I say in twin voices that sound like a boat propeller revving down.

“Thought you could outsmart us, huh?” Marie crows, nudging my mother, who falls against Josh, who knocks into a six-foot-tall stripper wearing less around his waist than Josh has on his balding head.

They’re a game of human drunk dominoes.

The stripper holds Josh up with big, thick hands and winks. “Most people slip a five dollar bill in there after touching me like that.”

“I—uh—um,” Josh flounders, reaching in his back pocket for his wallet.

“It’s okay. I give one free grab per cutie,” the stripper says, walking off with a gait that shows off every butt muscle.

Josh grabs the Champagne from Marie and guzzles half the bottle.

“We, uh....” I look wildly around the room for Amy and Carol, who appear to be hiding. “We weren’t ditching you.” 

Busted.

Shannon rolls her eyes and stands, giving Marie a grudging hug. “You win, Mom. You figured it out.”

“See?” Marie says, then hiccups, slinging her arm around my mom. “Told you they tried to exclude us old birds.”

“Actually, I figured it out,” my mom protests. 

Seventysomething Grace picks that moment to appear, a Corona in hand. “Marie! Good to see you. Shannon’s got one hell of a party here, huh? I could use a different kind of eye candy myself, but a woman can admire the fine lines of a man without wanting to sleep with him, right?” She turns to Josh and clicks her beer bottle against his Champagne.

Josh and Marie share a horrified look.

“I don’t understand what she just said,” Josh whispers. 

“Me either,” Marie says.

Josh takes the bottle and drains it.

I leave Marie to do the introductions. I pull Shannon aside, but before we can escape, Marie is huffing with indignity, hissing in our faces. She’s abandoned Josh and Mom. I hope someone, somewhere, introduces them all to each other. 

“You invited Grace and tried to ditch me and Pam?”

“Grace isn’t my
mother
,” Shannon says with a
grrrr
. Literally. Like a dog. She makes noises like I imagine Mr. Wiffles sounds when upset.

“She could be your grandmother!” Marie snaps back.

“She works for Anterdec! She’s Declan’s longtime assistant and like a mother to him.” 

“
I
am like a mother to him! If you’re going to include Grace, you should have included me!” 

“MOM!” Shannon bellows. Her eyes are rimmed with red rage and she looks like she is about to pop. “You have taken my entire wedding and turned it into a giant clusterfuck!”

Marie gasps in horror, because Shannon rarely curses.

“I never wanted the Scottish-themed wedding. Didn’t care about Farmington,” Shannon screeches. The piano players vacillate between playing louder to cover up the argument, and softer to listen in. A small crowd of Shannon’s coworkers and friends is forming around the two women.

“I have put up with the tartan thongs. With having a cat as a flower girl. With the spun sugar, life-size likeness of me and Declan next to the wedding cake. And the ice sculpture. And the ninety-minute video that takes our lives and turns it all into a time capsule. The live streaming video thing was way over the top, but did I complain? NO!”

The crowd tightens.

“All I wanted was one night. One tradition. One ritual that was mine. Just mine, exactly the way I wanted it, with a bunch of women I could let loose with and party. But no. You had to crash it. You had to ruin this for me. I’m not going to worry about your feelings of hurt because I didn’t invite you, when you show no concern for my feelings!”

Marie blinks, then sniffs, then blinks again.

Shannon is panting, her top glimmering in the dark lights of the club, her breasts turning into shiny waves.

“Are you done?” Marie asks in a patient voice.

“Yes.”

Marie reaches out and pats Shannon on the cheek. “It’s okay, dear,” she whispers. “I can tell you’re
really
having your period and this is just the hormones talking.”

And with that, Marie walks over to a stripper who is on his back on a long table, his body covered with little green vodka jigglers, and slurps one up with more tongue than Chuckles licking a bowl of cream.

I resist the urge to shove Shannon’s eyeballs back in her head.

“HOW DOES SHE DO THAT?” Shannon screeches.

My own mother comes over and gives Shannon a sympathetic pat on the back, then stumbles slightly.

“’sokay Shannon, honey,” Mom says. “Did you know that nine percent of all brides don’t even have a bachelorette party?” 

We look at her.

“Wedding insurance project,” she adds, giving us a big smile. It lifts twenty years off her face, and I see myself in her. I look more like my dad, so this is a revelation. 

“And,” she says, pulling Shannon closer, whispering in her ear, “between twenty-five and fifty percent of brides and grooms don’t even have sex on their wedding night.”

Oh, now I
know
my mother is drunk.

She’s talking about sex.

“Don’ be one of those, Shannon. Have sex with Declan. It’s okay to lose your virginity on your wedding night.”

“I already lost my—”

I grab Shannon and leave my mom to stagger over to Marie, where I don’t want to know what happens next. I hear her say to Marie, “You know, I haven’t had sex in seven years...” and that is when my circuits overload. 

Hold on.

Mom doesn’t date.

Ever.
And dad left twenty-two years ago.
 

So, who did she—?

Not my business. Not my business. Not my business.

Tonight, I am determined not to drink. At all. I’ve had too much over the past few months. I’m normally a two-to-three drink a month person. Shannon and Marie have overindulged, too, and while a bachelorette party is the place to let loose and go wild, for some reason I’m living life backwards, anyway, so I might as well stay sober tonight.

Someone has to keep an eye on everyone anyhow.

And I’m the fixer.

Over the course of the next few hours we sing Garth Brooks, Billy Joel, Snow Lion, a hair-raising version of “Macarena”, and we learn that both Marie and my mother know all the words to “Paradise by the Dashboard Light”.

Even the baseball announcer’s part.

After that last song ends, there’s a short break. The room is so quiet my ears ring. Shannon is laughing it up with Grace and some other women from Anterdec. My mom and Marie are giggling in a booth over something they’re watching on Marie’s phone. Carol is flirting with a stripper who has more tattoos than he has skin. Amy is dancing to nothing. Just by herself, glass held high above her auburn hair, dancing to silence.

“HEY!” booms a loud, man’s voice. It is, to my surprise, Josh. 

Josh, who is shirtless and stretched across a long bar table on his back, with his navel filled with liquor.

And Spritzy is on his abs, happily licking from the little pool.

Henry the stripper walks by, taps me on the head, and says, “I’ve seen some kinky shit before, but...”

“Get your dog off me!” Josh screeches as my mom grabs Spritzy off his belly and stuffs her in her purse. 

“DoggieDate indeed,” mumbles Carol as Henry tosses Josh a bar towel and he cleans himself, muttering about wasted tequila.

I briefly wonder if tequila is okay for Spritzy but figure if it’s a problem, Mom would panic, and given her current state of chill, I’m guessing the crisis has been averted.

The bar sound system starts up with—yep.

The song “The Dog Days Are Over” by Florence + The Machine. Henry looks at me from the stereo and winks. 

Amy’s dancing takes on a distinct beat and soon, the crowd is lost in the relentless pounding of the tune, clapping and stomping in time.

Staying dry while everyone around you drinks is its own little world. I am an island.

And then I am on my knees doing a blow job.

Hold on—it’s a
drink
.

Fine, fine.
One
won’t hurt anybody.

Every woman is being asked by the strippers to do a blow job as a way of honoring the bride, and who am
I
to dishonor my bestie? 

You might even say I’m
required
to do this blow job.

Might.

The splash of liquor and mocha against the back of my throat reminds me of “breakfast in bed” with Andrew, of antics under the sheets and the morning breve that followed. Funny how viscerally we embed memories via physical events. A scent. A sound. A texture. An image. Our senses store memories in our physical bodies as much as our minds are computer banks filled with the recall. 

And as I swallow, on my knees and bent down to the floor to bite the shot glass between my teeth and tip its contents back, mind and body work together to make me recall what I’ve lost.

Who
I’ve lost.

When Henry offers me a second blow job, I don’t say no.

And this time, his navel is the shot glass.

“A-MAN-DA! A-MAN-DA!” the crowd chants. They start banging shot glasses against the scarred wood tables, the sound like that popular Queen song, the one people sang at football games back when I was a cheerleader. 

That’s what this reminds me of. The spotlight. The fun. Being the center of attention for highly-structured entertainment that delivers exactly according to audience expectations. 

I deliver.

Six blow jobs later and boy, does my jaw ache. Marie and my mom are sitting next to one of the piano players, stuffing bills into a pint glass and begging them to play “Freebird”.

Other women are stuffing even more money in the tip jar to stop the “Freebird” madness.

“C’mon,” my mom pleads. “If you won’t do ‘Freebird’, then how about ‘Dog and Butterfly’?” 

“Pammy! I love that song!” Marie squeals, stuffing what looks like a free coupon for a Starbucks latte into the tip jar.

“I hate being called Pammy,” my mom mutters.

“You’re my new best friend, Pammy!”

Meanwhile, the piano player just watches with a languid amusement.

I get the distinct impression he’s been through this more than once.

“I am the bride, so I pick the last song!” Shannon slurs. I look at the big clock behind the bar, shocked it’s nearly one a.m. already. I lost track of time slurping off the navel of a man. 

Sue me.

“‘Imagine’!” Shannon cries out.

The entire room groans in unison.

“We’ll all start crying if you play that!” I argue. “How about something happier?”

“’The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’!” my mom suggests.

“Not happier, Mom.”

Mom gives me a petulant look.

“I know!” I whisper it in Shannon’s ear and she nods vigorously. She goes to the pianos players, and within seconds the opening lines of Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” start playing. 

And we dance, Shannon’s brown eyes wild and full of unfettered joy as she spends her second-to-last night as a single woman surrounded by women who love her. 

Plus Josh, who is happily pouring shots into some guy’s belly button. Except I’m not sure he’s a stripper....