Random Acts of Hope (2 page)

Liam. Just looking at him made my heart pound so hard it could be a pulse setting on a shower spray. Jesus. I hadn’t seen Liam in five years.

My hand went instinctively to my belly. I snatched it away like it was on fire. Five years ago Liam McCarthy got me pregnant and dumped me the moment I told him.

Over the phone.

And now I was seeing him for the first time since that pivotal call, the second-worst moment of my life.

The worst?

When I miscarried in
my
dorm bathroom
at college five
weeks later.

“Charlotte!” Sybil McCarthy’s shout pierced the air. This party was the first time she’d spoken to me in five years. Too much of my past was roaring forward right now. The buzz of vibrators on the kitchen linoleum faded as she dipped her perfectly coiffed head and hissed in my ear.

“Did you and Liam plan this?”

“Plan
what
?” My voice dripped with contempt. I couldn’t help it. My hands started to shake, and a thick wall of white rage filled my chest. She’d never called. Never said a word. Shunned me if we walked past each other at the grocery store or at a town event.

Me. The woman who’d carried her grandchild for a short time. All too short. A wave of pain shot through my belly, almost folding me in half. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction, though. I forced myself to stand even taller, dwarfing her by a good half foot. Liam had loved that about me—the freakish, six-foot-tall girl was a perfect match for Mr. Nordic.

Sybil seemed taken aback. She expected meek little Charlotte from years ago, didn’t expect to be challenged. Tough shit, lady. I bled your grandchild out into a toilet in a 1920s dorm on campus without any help. You don’t get any respect from me.

“Plan…this. It’s quite…”
S
he chuckled without mirth, searching for the right words. “…
u
northodox for you to be selling dildos while Liam is the beefcake.”

“Sybil,” I said coldly, flashing a smile and giving another partygoer my index finger, asking her to hang on, “I haven’t seen Liam in five years. You’ve treated me like a piece of radioactive dog shit every time I g
o
t within
one hundred
feet of you in town. I hardly think I’m about to sabotage one of the biggest parties I’ve had in this business so I can ogle a man who did what he did to me.”

I walked three steps before she yanked, hard, on my hand. I stumbled, my eyes catching Liam’s just as she pulled me back.

“What
he
did to
you
?” she said hoarsely. “What you did to him was so disgusting. A
high school senior
who—”

Liam’s voice cut through her rant just as my hand itched, pulled up nice and tight to deck her.

“Let her go, Mom.”

Titters rippled through the crowd. “Mom?” they whispered.

“I will not let her rewrite history, Liam.”

His cold eyes took us both in, and he took a deep breath. Thirty sets of female eyes were on him now, and even in my white wall of rage I could see how amazing he was. The boy
with so much promise
from five years ago had filled out into a giant,
cut-
marble statue of a man. He exuded masculinity, and even my shallow breaths infused me with his musk, a mixture of soap, aftershave, sweat, and something else that made every part of my body want to press against his.

H
e reached up to his neckline and a ragged ripping sound filled the room
as his uniform peeled off and he stood there in a g-string that was so tiny it might as well have been Rob Ford’s chances of becoming prime minister
.

And
then
Liam McCarthy showed me just how much of a man he’d become.

Liam

“Charlotte? CHARLOTTE?” Sam said, mouth gaping open. “You stripped in front of Charlotte?”

“Don’t forget his mom, too. Your boss totally owes you hazard pay for that one. Maybe even mental health leave. You’re going to need ten sessions with a psychologist before you can get a woody again,” Trevor added.

Sam, Trevor, Amy, and Darla were hanging out at a new coffee shop the size of a janitor’s closet. The ristretto pull was too perfect not to come here for macchiatos, even as Darla dumped enough sugar to put a diabetic into a coma into her delicate drink.

I waved my hand. “Mom wasn’t too bad to deal with. She just stormed out. Never got that $5 tip, now that I t
h
ink about.” I was pretending to be fine, but my stomach lurched. Mom would tell my dad. Dad would call me, furious, and insist it was time to join the family business.

Screw that. I’d rather strip naked for old ladies like Celeste than become my father’s bitch.

“Who’s Charlotte?” Darla asked. Trevor’s arm was slung over her shoulders and I saw it go tense. My own hand gripped the tiny espresso cup so hard I thought it would burst. Sam gave her the side eye and Amy had a pained expression on her face.

The guys knew what had happened, but Amy… I didn’t know whether Sam told her what I’d told him about five years ago, when she cheated on me and got knocked up by some other guy.

I decided to keep it simple, because once you got complicated with chicks it turned into a mess.

“My ex-girlfriend. From high school.”

Darla made a face like she was
in
pain. “Ouch. You had to strip in front of an ex? That would suck. And your mom on top of it all? You got some bad karma, Liam.
One hell of a long shot to have that happen. What are the odds?
”

I pretended to laugh. It cut through the moment and I saw Amy go quiet, her eyes deep and still, like she was thinking. Uh oh. I didn’t want more questions now. She and Charlotte had known each other in high school and I never asked what she knew.

“
Well, Darla, that’s me. Long shot. If something’s one in a million, you can bet I end up being that one. Too bad it never happens for the lottery.”
 

Amy just stared. She
’d nev
e
r asked me what happened, either. Comforted me? Yes. Just been there? Sure. But I’d never spilled my guts to her. Didn’t see the point.

And then she’d come to me about how Sam had disappeared on her, and we’d, well…

Now was definitely not the time to talk about Charlotte.

Amy opened her mouth to say something just as Sam reached over and stuffed a piece of frosted cupcake in there.

Best timing ever, dude.

“Mocha cream cheese cupcake,” Sam moaned, rubbing his stomach. “I got two and can’t eat them all.”

“Are those toffee sprinkles on top?” Darla said, eyes wide, licking her lips. For a moment, she looked like Bridget last night, who had viewed me as quite the cupcake to taste.

Thinking about Bridget made me think about Mom, which made me think about Charlotte, and right now, I wanted none of that.

The barista came over, a hot chick named Cari. Tiny waist, big tits trying to escape a scoop-neck t-shirt, and an ass with grab handles for two.

She shoved a wall of long black hair behind one shoulder and smiled at us, perky and sweet. “They’re a new addition. Jeddy’s
Diner
started selling their baked goods to coffee shops, so look for more here. Next week we get peanut butter pistachio!”

We all groaned. Sam looked at Amy and kissed her cheek. Then he licked a dot of chocolate frosting off her mouth and she giggled.

Something in me clenched.

God
d
amn Charlotte. You spend five years pushing down the pain and then suddenly it appears at work, playing with vibrators on a kitchen floor, bent over with an ass that won’t quit and a smile that pierces your soul.

Karma. Maybe Darla was right.

“Your mom touched your ass?” Trevor added, flashing me a look as his eyes flicked to Amy, then back to me.
Message received, dude.
 

I cocked one eyebrow. “She wanted the officer to cuff her because she’d been a bad, bad girl.”

Me, Sam, and Trev all started gagging. Boners across the room sagged
in
horror.

Darla and Amy laughed until tears ran down their faces, their brays carrying through the tiny place and bouncing off the walls like a chorus of donkeys.

“You asses,” I joked.

“Yo
m
ama’s ass,” Darla shot back.

A new round of laughter.

“Ha ha.” Now I knew what Trevor felt like when the topic of chickens came up. Great. Even
my boss,
Louise, had cracked up when I told her what happened last night, and Louise rarely laughed.
Running an entertainment management corporation that featured male strippers like me and Sam should have been fun, but you wouldn’t know it from her no-nonsense attitude.
 

She’d asked whether the tips had been especially good, and when I told her Celeste had slid a $20 down the back of my g-string and come damn close to giving me an unsolicited prostate exam she’d laughed so hard she needed an inhaler afterwards.

“Because I’ve provided you all with so
m
uch entertainment, my fee is another macchiato.” I nudged Trevor. “Go on! I won’t require tips if you get me some more.”

“What about that nice b
i
g tip you got fro
m
the blue hair?” Sam asked. “Blue hair” was code for “old lady,” because so many of them did something to their hair to make them look like they was
h
ed it in steel shavings.

Darla and Amy raised their eyebrows while Trevor let go of Darla and obeyed my command.

“Good dog,” I called after him. He flipped me the bird.

“Good chicken is more like it,” Darla whispered, triggering a round of snickers. Not aimed at me. About time.
Trevor had gotten high on peyote last year, hitchhiked to western Massachusetts, stolen a chicken he named Mavis, and tried to marry her (no bestiality) when
Darla’s uncle, a trucker, found him on the Mass Pike. He gave him a ride (sans chicken) to Ohio, and that’s how Darla met Trevor.
 

Joe drove out to the sticks to rescue Trev, and when he met Darla, well…now they were the weirdest fucking “couple”—triple?—I’d ever known.

I sighed and watched Cari fix Trevor’s order, those luscious breasts bouncing and practically calling my name.
Liam, Liam,
they begged, like little mewling princesses needing to be saved by—

“Take a picture, Liam. It lasts longer,” Darla said, studying me.

“Oldest joke ever,” I snapped back.

“The oldest joke ever is your
face
.”

Trevor came back with my coffee and a cupcake the size of his head. “Cari said they’re about to close and she has to throw this away anyhow,” he said, shoving it my way.

“Wha
t
is it?”

“Cheesecake cream.”

Darla and Amy moaned.

“I never hear you make that sound for me,” Sam said, pretending to pout.

“Cover yourself in cream cheese frosting and fresh raspberries and I’ll moan,” Amy said, waggling her eyebrows.

“So will I,” he muttered, shifting in his seat.

“It’s mine!” I said, curling my arm around it.

“Share?” Darla begged.

“Oh,
now
you like me,” I groused.

She frowned, eyes turning down. “Of course I like you. Why would you think I don’t?” She swooped in with a finger and took a big chunk of frosting, shoving it
in
Trevor’s mouth.

He moaned like a girl.

“Because you rag on me constantly.”

“That’s how you know Darla like
s
someone,” Trevor said through a mouthful of ecstasy.

“If she’s not giving you shit, she doesn’t think you’re worth her time,” Amy added, reaching for her own pa
w
full of my cake.

Two hands planted themselves on my shoulders, sensual and warm, kneading my neck. “Hey, Liam. How’s the cheesecake? It’s a mouth orgasm, isn’t it?” Cari’s voice in my ear made me come close to an orgasm, and it wasn’t in my mouth.

Holy fuck.

I turned around to a face full of bare breast, the tiniest hint of a nipple’s edge peeking out from her bra.

I
gr
oaned.

“That good, huh?”

That good.

“You closing up?” I said, my voice
all jagged
gravel and need. “Want to get a drink after this?”

Her eyes, green and perky, clouded with disappointment. “Can’t. I have to be at my other job tonight. But maybe another time?” She reached for my hip. Considering space was at a premium in my general crotch area, this filled me with alarm.

“What are you doing?”
And keep doing it, a little to the left.
 

“Where’s your phone? I’ll program my number in it.”

I lifted my hips up and fished around in my back pocket, sure everyone could see my g
r
owing erection.

“Here.”

She programmed it with ligh
t
ning speed, her movements making her breasts bounce. In front of my face.

“Call me whenever. You know. I know you guys work late.”

I bristled. Did everyone know I was a stripper? Hell. Was that a pro or a con?

“I mean, being in a band and all,” she added.

“You follow them?” Darla asked, reaching in h
e
r back pocket for a card. “Here’s a free pass for the next performance on Friday.” Always a promoter. Because of her and our show on the r
e
sort at Eden, bookings had doubled. If we could double them again, Sam and I could quit stripping and live off the band earnings exclusively.

“Thank you so much!” Cari s
qu
ealed. She bent down for an awkward hug with me, giving me a mouthful of creamy chest.

“No, thank you,” I murmured.

“Your mouth orgasming yet, Liam?” Darla asked with a wink, and she and Amy dug into my cupcake.

My mind, though, was on one thing. And one thing only.

God damn Charlotte.

Charlotte

The stack of orders from last night was a blessing and a curse. A blessing, because I counted them—twenty-six orders. Out of
thirty-some
attendees, that was a fabulous sales rate. My district manager would be pleased.