Page 28

If trouble was a possibility, in fact, he’d be the first one to push me headfirst into it. It was just too much fun for him.

Which was why I found myself sitting in the passenger seat of his truck in the parking lot of a strip club that weekend.

And it was one hundred percent Clayton’s fault.

All I’d done was ask a simple question.

“What’s everyone doing tonight?”

He’d grinned. “It’s Asa’s birthday. Want to go to his birthday party?”

“Why not?” Ask a silly question.

I should have known something was wrong when he volunteered to drive.

The club was a few towns over, almost forty-five minutes from Briar, down a stretch of highway lined with truck stops, fast-food places and businesses that got progressively less wholesome the farther we drove.

Clayton had passed two perfectly good bars on the way.

Then three. I had noticed. I had not asked.

This was on me too, apparently.

Now I stared through the windshield at a low black building with no windows and a neon sign shaped vaguely like a woman reclining across the name of the place. Half of one leg kept flickering out, leaving her looking like she’d suffered a terrible electrical accident.

Pickup trucks and cars crowded the gravel lot. I recognized several of them. That did not improve matters.

I turned slowly toward Clayton.

He was watching me, already smiling.

He had dressed the way he usually did when he wanted to look like he hadn’t tried—dark T-shirt, good jeans and boots, blond hair left to do whatever it wanted.

“You’re an asshole.”

His grin widened. “You haven’t even gone inside yet.”

“You told me we were going to Asa’s birthday party.”

“We are.” He nodded toward the building. “Asa’s in there. It’s his birthday. Both statements were completely accurate.”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

I looked down at myself. I’d dressed for a bar—short black skirt, fitted dark-green crop top, Mom’s chunky black platforms, my hair down in thick brown-and-blond waves. The shoes made an already tall woman taller.

I looked fine. I looked like I was going to a bar.

I did not look like I’d knowingly dressed for amateur night at a strip club.

Which I now knew it was, thanks to a fluorescent poster taped crookedly beside the entrance.

I pointed at it. “Amateur night?”

Clayton looked. “Huh.”

“You didn’t know?”