Page 30 of Trick Play (Playing the Field #4)
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
Micah
Then
The ocean and my carefully crafted hair colors do not mix, but my skin and the sun do. I’ve never paid much attention to tanning before, much less tan lines, so I’ve always stayed pretty pale. However, since I started dancing at Mischief, Frankie has been trying to get me into a tanning bed. I relented somewhat and have been trying some self-tanning and sun tanning, too nervous to make that leap into a human panini press—I mean, tanning bed.
When Tahegin spontaneously called this morning to invite me to the beach with him, Rix, and Zeke, I had an initial moment of panic, but then I remembered that my hair and nails are fresh from the salon. If they hadn’t been, I definitely wouldn’t have been caught dead in public. Luckily, though, I have a new, pretty pink hair color, matching acrylics, and a cute pair of bright pink swim trunks that couldn’t be shorter if they tried.
Hendrix and I are still landside since we have zero desire to join our men in shark-infested, salty, fish-poop water.
Okay, well, I don’t want to mess up my hair, and Hendrix hates the sun, but same difference. I’m sure neither of us wants to risk being eaten by Jaws either.
Tahegin and Zeke do, though. They’re out on the water, catching waves and surfing it up. Gin has completely recovered from his injury, and their off-season is in full swing, so it’s good they’re out there being athletic and having fun before it’s time to get serious again in the fall.
Meanwhile, I’m living the good life. Just me, my sunglasses, my best friend, a giant beach blanket, and Rix’s shade umbrella to keep him from turning into ash. Seriously, the guy hates sunlight for whatever reason.
Oh, and a good view. Zeke is looking exceptionally delectable, all shirtless and wet and working out. Yummy.
The only negative would be if he were to be eaten.
“Oh, Hendrix,” I sigh as I settle more comfortably in the lounge chair. “Thank you for being a reasonable man and not running out like an idiot into shark-infested waters !” I raise my voice at the end, directed at Zeke. He’d picked me up from my place this morning, and when he informed me of his plans to surf, I’d instigated a slightly heated debate that lasted the entire drive about how if he became a shark attack victim, I would be left alone and sexless—and I can’t have that! Doesn’t he care about my needs?
Beside me, Hendrix pulls a face that says he’s not impressed and shakes his head at me.
“What? I’m just saying . . .” I ask, feigning innocence and raising my hands in mock surrender. Turning my face to the sun, I try to block everything out and enjoy the warmth of the morning before it gets too hot to tolerate. Hendrix doesn’t say anything in response to my last words, but I feel his gaze on me, studying me in the way he does when he’s thinking hard and wants to say something. I offer him the push he needs. “You’re staring,” I singsong without turning to face him.
“You’re beautiful,” he responds instantly.
Those words from him are so unexpected that I do look now, lowering my sunglasses down my nose and quirking a brow at him.
Rix shifts nervously. “Uh, what I meant to say was, it’s great that you’re being more yourself out in public. The look suits you.” He must be referring to my makeup. I’ve worn it around him in the past, but only in the apartment we shared during college. I was always too afraid of people’s judgment to wear it out. I’m surprised he even noticed.
“Thank you.” I study him a little longer, trying to figure out what’s changed. The fact that he even woke up this early to join us today should have clued me in that something inside him is changing. Him actually acknowledging something physical about me is a definite one-eighty from Past Hendrix. We’ve been best friends for years, and I think we’ve only hugged . . . once? Twice, maybe? I mean, the guy buys me beer as a Christmas present every year.
I don’t drink beer.
To be fair, he always ends up drinking it all during our all-night Christmas movie night and allows me to pick the cheesiest holiday romance movies. So, I’ve never faulted him for the beer move, not as long as he keeps giving me the remote.
“Are you and Aleks official yet?” he asks, and this time, it’s me doing the one-eighty. We’re friends? Mmm, no, I don’t think so. Friends wouldn’t remind you of your hopelessly romantic love life.
“We’re casual,” I manage to grit out without letting the disappointment show on my face.
Obviously, I don’t succeed because Hendrix fires the look I gave him earlier right back at me.
I crack instantly. “It’s . . .” I sigh, trying to get my words straight. It isn’t even that I don’t know if Zeke the Playboy would want to go steady with me; it’s that I’m keeping a secret that would definitely prevent us from being in a healthy relationship. I’d either be lying to him, or I’d tell him about Mischief, and he’d leave anyway. My nights dancing naked for money are the one thing keeping me from just asking Zeke for more. “Fuck, Rix. I can’t tell you.” I can’t tell anyone for fear of what they may think of me. “I’m so sorry. I . . . I can’t imagine what you would say, but I can imagine the disappointed look in your eyes, and . . . I can’t do it.”
Hendrix’s brows furrow. “Micah, you are my best friend,” he tells me, and he sounds so sincere. “Nothing you could tell me would be able to change that.”
“You’ll think less of me,” I insist, with tears beginning to fill my eyes. God, I’m always such a crybaby. “You’ll think I’m . . . I don’t know. It isn’t illegal, per se. Just frowned upon, and you already frown so much.” What am I even saying? Yes, Rix frowns at everything. He frowns when the sun shines. We know this. It isn’t new. I’m just a blubbering mess and not making sense.
“Micah,” he warns in a low voice. “You better fess up now because I promise you, the thoughts going through my head are way, way worse.”
Groaning, I curl up on my chair and cover my face with my hands, knowing I’m about to lose this battle. I’ve always been the type to spill all the beans under any form of pressure. Hendrix knows this, and he doesn’t usually press me to tell. If he’s demanding I confess to him, then he must be thinking the absolute worst.
I can’t let him sit there and think I murdered someone, can I? No way! I have to tell him something, so it might as well be the truth, I guess.
“I’m a stripper,” I admit, and it comes out all muffled from beneath my hands. Cracking an eye open, I peer at my best friend to see if he understood.
Rix stares at me, face void of any emotion. “What?”
“Did you not hear, or did you not under?—”
“Did you say you’re a stripper?” he asks entirely too loudly, and I cast a worried look toward the water to make sure Gin and Zeke are riding the waves and not approaching our blanket.
“Sh! Oh my God, Hendrix. Could you have yelled that any louder?”
“It’s not any worse than yelling about sharks like you did earlier.”
I huff and glare at him for that unnecessary reminder of Zeke’s life being in danger. “Thanks a lot, Rix. Now I?—”
“Do you sleep with people for money?” There’s no judgment in his voice, just curiosity. And a lack of delicacy.
“No!” I nearly topple off my chair trying to climb onto the lifted back in my haste to regain control of the conversation. “Hendrix, no. I. Am not. A sex worker,” I state, clear and concise.
“Okay.”
“I just dance, sometimes not wearing a lot of clothing, and get paid.”
“Okay,” he repeats, and I can tell he’s trying to wrap his head around it. “How . . .”
“Remember that pole dancing class I took as a joke during our last year of college?”
He nods.
“Well, I met Frankie in the class. He said I was a natural on the pole, and he could tell I took dance classes throughout grade school. He told me to check out the club. One thing led to another, I needed a job, and it just kind of . . . happened.”
“Okay,” he says. Again.
I can’t get a read on him other than the “what the fuck” swirling in his wide eyes, so I just keep going. “See how you’re reacting? What am I supposed to do about Zeke, huh? Let’s say he’d consider hanging up his playboy personality and actually dating me. I have two options: either I keep it a secret from him, which isn’t the basis of a healthy relationship, or I tell him and risk this reaction.”
Hendrix shakes his head, face pale. “I’m not having a reaction,” he tries to insist unconvincingly.
“You literally just asked me if I sleep with people for money, Hendrix.”
“It’s a lot to process.”
“So, you see my predicament.”
Rubbing his hands over his face, Rix groans and reluctantly nods. “Yeah. I see. This doesn’t change anything for us, but I understand your hesitancy to tell him. It’s a tough situation.” He sighs and shakes his head again, and I get the sense he isn’t quite sure how to process or handle this information. “A stripper,” he mutters under his breath in disbelief. “Wow.”