Page 1 of Games We Play
Part 1: Games We Play
Chapter 1
“Happy birthday!”
Leah could barely hear her friends over the roar of club music and the sloshing of alcohol and ice in her glass.The first drink of my thirties!This was better than turning twenty-one, because she knew her limits and didn’t worry about puking her guts out at midnight or suffering from the hangover of the century.
Besides, how often did she get to party withfriendsthese days? How many women could say that their thirtieth birthday fell on a Saturday? Leah had to work at the bakery that day, but she got off early enough to rush home, change, and head out to the nearest nightclub with three of her besties in tow. The bass was cranked and the bodies moving on the illuminated floor.
“It’s my birthday!” Leah hopped up and down where she stood outside of the VIP booth. Her frilly pink dress swished with her movements as Melissa crowned her with a rhinestone tiara that saidBirthday Girl.
“Congrats on joining the thirty-something club.” Melissa clinked their drinks together before downing hers and motioning to the dance floor. “Now let’s get crazy!”
Leah had been ready for this night for the past fewmonths,let alone the agonizing week leading up to this moment. She never got to do something fun for her birthdays. She always had to work, look after her baby sister (who wasstilla teenager,) or didn’t have enough money to make her birthday dreams come true. Hell, all she wanted was some validation that she could party too. Now she was thirty. What better excuse to finally cut loose with her best friends?
Even if she still lived at home with her parents and sister. Even if she had a mediocre job at a bakery instead of decorating wedding and birthday cakes for a living, like she always dreamed. Even if she had been single for years and didn’t see that changing anytime soon.
Life was still good, right?
“A toast!” a sweaty Melissa said, with her drink high in the air. “To our very own Leah, who has made it thirty years through life coming out stronger the other… the other si… side?”
Melissa tipped over where she stood. Leah and another friend lunged forward to catch her before she fell into a fit of giggles in their VIP booth.
There had been more than one surprise that night. The club and VIP booth had been a surprise. The presents – which included kitschy vibrators – were totallyher. Melissa had colluded with a mutual friend to get a strippergram that morning.They remembered my type!Curvy, brunette, and cheeky, like Leah.
God only knew what would happen once they were tipsy. Or in Melissa’s case, on her ass drunk.
She spent more time dancing than drinking, though. Leah had enough pent up energy to knock her teeth out. Most of that energy was accumulated during the latter half of her twenties. Working six days a week? No relationship to help her release her sexual frustrations? Taking care of her little sister whenever their parents decided Karlie wasn’t mature enough to take care of herself? Leah went out on that dancefloor with the assumption she wouldn’t get another night like this for a few more years.
I can’t believe I’m thirty now.She waved her arms in the air, feet stomping to the heavy dance beat as her hair swished against her exposed back.I’m acting like I’m twenty!Wouldn’t it be great if she were twenty again? If she could redo the whole decade?
“Leah…” Friend and co-worker Gina spun Leah off the dancefloor and nodded to the edge of the VIP area. “You see that guy over there? He’s been eyeing you all night.”
Leah did a double-take at the large, muscular man surveying the dancefloor through a pair of dark sunglasses.Too cool to take them off in the club, huh?What a total joke. Didn’t see many of those types in Portland. “What about him?”
“He’s seriously checking you out. Want me to tell him to fuck off and that you don’t do dudes?”
“In that order?”
“Sure!”
Gina rolled her eyes and spun Leah in a tight circle. She giggled every time Leah’s skirt billowed out like a ruffled tent.
The man kept his eyes on Leah and her party for fifteen more minutes. He occasionally checked something on his phone before looking back up again. Did Leah remind him of someone? An old girlfriend, perhaps?Too bad for you, bro, ‘cause I am a ladies only woman myself.That was the only good thing to happen in her twenties, not that she had much chance to explore her sexuality.
“He’s kinda hot,” Melissa muttered at their table. “Oh, shit, I think he’s coming over here.”
He was.
“Excuse me.” That voice was a little too easy to hear over the boom of the music. “I believe you’re needed in the back room, Miss.”
Everyone, including Leah, whistled in awe. “Needed,huh?” Leah flung her sweaty hair behind her shoulders. “I ain’t into men, pal.” Her friends laughed behind her.
“It’s not me you’re seeing. The guest of honor gets what she wants.”
Leah gasped in elated disbelief. “Who did this?” She turned to her friends. “Which one of you hired me another stripper?”
Melissa raised her hand. “It may have been me. But if it’s a dude, it was a mistake.”
