I’m not sure why this infuriates me, but I know that gender bias plays a significant part. I can’t recall another time that the fact I am a woman kept me from doing the same things my best friends are able to do.
Sure, Andrew and Dane are very different when it comes to our friendships. Andrew is the guy I can talk to about personal stuff. Not that I wouldn’t talk to Dane about personal stuff and have done so when all three of us were together, it’s just that over the years, Andrew has been the one who has become my personal confidant.
On the other hand, Dane is the one who pushes me to be my best. He’s always been the one to affirm and validate my abilities, praising me right when it was needed and gently correcting my course if I was sailing in the wrong direction. Dane was my own personal ego booster.
Despite these differences in our friendship, not once have I ever felt excluded until now.
I stand up from my chair and look down at Dane before angling my body so I can include Andrew in my line of sight. My gaze sweeps back and forth between the two men as I tell them exactly how it’s going to be. “Not once in the history of our seventeen-year friendship has either of you made me feel less than equal to you. This was especially so, Dane, when you invited me to join Caterva with you. You handed me a high-powered executive position, and you did it without an ounce of hesitation over the fact that I’m a woman.”
Dane is one of the most brilliant men I know, and I can see by the look on his face he knows where I’m going. He tries to derail me with a bored roll of his eyes. “You surely can’t compare your place in the board room to a sex club.”
“I most certainly can,” I snarl. “The mere fact that you seem to think I’m worthy of one but not the other makes me ashamed of you. It’s completely sexist.”
The asshole—who is also still my best friend regardless—doesn’t even look slightly abashed.
Andrew stands from his chair and walks around his desk. Without hesitation, his hands go gently to my shoulders and he gives me a reassuring squeeze. “Avril… it would just be weird.”
I give Andrew a brilliant smile and a tiny poke on the chest. “Bingo. It would absolutely be weird. If that’s the reason why you don’t want me to go, that’s legit. I’m not relishing looking at your man bits or have you staring at my woman bits.”
Dane’s voice is droll when he says, “I take offense to you referencing my dick as merely ‘man bits’.”
I turn to give Dane a very pointed look. “I’ve actually seen your dick, Dane. Senior year I walked into our apartment to see you fucking some bimbo on the couch. Trust me, there’s no mystery there.”
With a smirk, Dane replies, “Then you’ll have no problem admitting that I deserve to be referenced to as more than just ‘man bits’.”
I don’t bother responding to Dane as he does not need me to fuel his ego. He’s the most confident person I’ve ever met in my life. I do know he’s well hung, and he has the proof between his legs.
I turn back to Andrew, because he’s the one I can share personal stuff with. “Come on, Drew. Let’s go take a look at this place and see what it’s all about. You and I don’t even have to do anything. We can just stand around and be embarrassed. It will be fun. We can have a good laugh about it later.”
I can tell I have Andrew hooked by the nature of the smile he bestows upon me before lowering his face and shaking his head in amusement.
Turning to Dane, I merely raise my eyebrows at him in question.
His return look is flat and nowhere near amused the way Andrew’s is. He regards me silently for a moment before standing out of his chair.
“I’m going to take a pass,” Dane says as he turns toward the door.
I’m stunned and more than a little put out by how much me going to a sex club seems to bother Dane. He’s willing to take Andrew but not me, and that’s just not fair. I can do nothing other than chalk it up to Dane refusing to acknowledge that the services of The Wicked Horse should be equally available to me as they are to him and Andrew. For the first time in our very long friendship, I have a small kernel of doubt within me that Dane Hawthorne may not be as high up on a pedestal as I have put him.
“If you change your mind,” I call out to him. “You know where to find us.”
Dane throws a hand up to at least acknowledge my last statement, and then he disappears out the door.
CHAPTER 3
Andrew
“We’re seriously doing this?” I ask Avril as I tip the pint bottle of vodka back and take a healthy slug. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and pass the bottle to her.
“We’re seriously doing this,” she says confidently as she takes the liquor from me. She’s leaning back against the trunk of her car as she’d swung by to pick me up from my condo. We’re now hanging out in a parking garage beneath Onyx Casino, getting fortified by vodka.
“Looks like we’re Ubering back to my place tonight,” I say to make small talk. “You get the couch.”
“I always get the couch when I stay with you,” she replies.
Which is true. Avril has stayed with me on various occasions, particularly when we worked super late and she didn’t feel like making the trip home. Or sometimes when Jamie was out of town at a seminar and she didn’t want to be alone. I have a one-bedroom condo and even though I always offered her the master bedroom, she’d never take it.
But that’s just Avril. She’s not prissy or demanding. Not an entitled bone in her body. She’s a woman who’s fine sleeping on the couch with just a blanket and a pillow without a need for more.
It’s why I’m still infuriated over what Jamie did to her. She’s putting on a brave face for sure, but if I know Avril—and I do—she’s both hurt and seething mad. I’d even bet that she’s probably more mad than hurt, and I have to assume that’s driving a lot of the reasoning why we’re both standing here tonight, on the verge of entering a sex club.
Avril passes the bottle back to me, and I shake my head. She shrugs and puts the cap on before pushing away from the car. She tosses the mostly empty liquor bottle into the backseat, and then locks her car. Turning to me, she squares her shoulders and says, “Let’s do this.”
“Let’s do this,” I say in agreement, and we start walking to the elevator that will take us up to the forty-sixth floor, which houses The Wicked Horse, Vegas’ premiere private sex club. I can’t believe we’re fucking doing this.
“Wait,” I say as something occurs to me, and I come to a dead halt. Avril stops and turns to face me, her head tilted in question. She’s wearing a very un-Avril like dress of blood red that fits her body like a second glove, and I have to admit it looks fucking fantastic on her. “If one of us decides to hook up with someone, the other can’t watch, okay?”
“Deal,” she says with a grin, and then wrinkles her nose. “Because… ewwww.”
I let out a sigh of relief, and I have to note I’m not sure why this was bothering me. Sure, Avril’s my best friend, but I don’t think of her as a sister. I don’t get grossed out when I think of her naked, and I’d be lying if I said there haven’t been times over the years I may have had a wickedly dirty dream about her.