I hadn’t bargained on her updating our entire arrangement, but what can I say? Maybe my fingers are magic. I’m sure her mouth and her hands are magic, too. I certainly intend to find out.
Currently I’m sitting in traffic with a hard-on that won’t quit and the image of her smile burned into my mind.
Friends with benefits, I think to myself. I like the sound of it.
Except the friends part. I don’t want her as a friend; I want her all to myself. I’m possessive, and having her part time just isn’t going to work for me.
So, I have between now and the wedding to find a way to prove it to her.
I’ll start with tonight.
Andi can’t come to the party because she has a show; well, I’ll bring the party to her.
“Lawrence,” I speak into Lilia’s bluetooth—she let me borrow her car today since mine’s still dented and damaged, but I won’t tell Andi that. “How do you feel about kicking off the festivities at a comedy club tonight?”
“What?” he asks.
“Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.”
CHAPTER 25
Andi
I’m standing backstage and my nerves are shot.
I can hear people out there. Real, live people.
Something is wrong. There are never people at my shows.
“What the hell is happening out there?” I ask Lisa, who’s primping next to me backstage. “Did a group of tourists get lost and end up in here?”
Bartender Rick calls backstage. “Andi, are you almost ready to go on? You’ve got a full house tonight.”
“Why, Rick?” I turn to him, throwing my hands up in the air. “Why do we have a full house tonight? I didn’t bring anyone. You didn’t either, did you, Lisa?”
“No,” she says, crinkling her eyebrows. “Why are you so nervous? You want an audience. That means you’re successful. Who knows? Maybe some agent heard about you and is coming to see what the fuss is all about.”
“Maybe that’s it!” I shriek with understanding. “It’s your fault. You did so well at the Laugh House the other night that everyone is coming to see you. It’s free, and maybe they wanted another show. God, Lisa! Why are you so good? I can’t handle this sort of pressure.”
“Sure you can,” she says. “I’ve heard your material before. How many times have I told you it’s a great set? All you need is to catch the right person’s attention, and it’ll blow up. I guarantee it.”
“I’m not doing my usual set!” I whimper. “I couldn’t sleep last night, so I wrote all new material. It’s not tested at all. I haven’t even tried it on Angela.”
She winces. “Can’t you revert to your old stuff?”
“I think the new stuff might be good,” I say. “Or it will be. It’s just a little rough right now, and I usually prefer to try it on Angela first because she always laughs and then tells me what’s stupid. She’s very blunt.”
“Get out there, Andi,” Rick says. “I’m serious. This is the most customers I’ve seen in this bar since we opened our doors. If you bomb and send them all running, you’re never doing a show here again.”
I crumple onto the couch. “I can’t. I give up.”
Lisa sits down next to me and then hits my thigh with enough force to leave a mark. “Get out there. He’s just kidding, aren’t you, Rick?”
There’s no answer, but he’s only two feet away; he definitely heard.
“Rick, you asshole, tell Andi you’re kidding,” Lisa says. “Or we’ll never bring our business here again.”
“I give you free drinks,” he grumbles. “I’m kidding, Andi. You know you always have a place here. Just go out there and do a great job like you always do.”
I burst into tears. I can’t help it. I clasp big, burly Rick into a hug. “Thank you, buddy.”
Rick peels me off of him; neither of us are much for touchy-feely-ness, but these last few weeks have been an emotional rollercoaster. What with my morning sex confrontation with Ryan, the news that he is leaving tomorrow, and my desire for more of him, my poor hormones are a mess—a mess that came out all over Rick’s shirt in an unusual display of emotional tears.
“Can you…fix her?” Rick asks Lisa. “Please.”
“I’ll go first,” Lisa says, handing me a towel and a tube of mascara. “But I swear, woman, if you’re not back here when I get off stage, I will hunt you down. Understand?”
I smile, wipe my tears away, and wave the tube. “I’m fine. I just needed to explode in a crying mess on Rick, I guess. I feel better already. Go get ’em, tiger.”
Lisa gives me a half-sympathetic, half-threatening look before she takes the stage. As I apply my makeup and clean my face, I hear her killing it out there. It makes my insides war with themselves; as much as I’m happy she’s a hit, it adds extra pressure—if I go out there and suck up the stage, it’ll be made doubly worse by following Lisa’s winning set.
Lisa’s ten minutes go all too fast.
The thing to understand though, is that onstage, three minutes takes a year. A ten-minute set is like winning the lottery in showbiz; it is a big deal—maybe not such a big deal at a tiny bar like Rick’s, but at some of the bigger stages, anything over five minutes means the comic has made it.
So when Lisa passes the mic off to me, I drag my feet on stage, paste a smile on my face, and try not to stare directly into the lights. I fail, and it gives me an instant headache, but I blink a few times and introduce myself. “Hey guys, I’m Andi Peretti, and—”
I stop speaking because the hoots and hollers are too loud. Even with my microphone, their whistles are drowning me out. It’s even louder than the rambunctious applause Lisa received at the end of her bit.
I frown, still blinded, trying to make out the shapes of people sitting in the audience. “Wow, I haven’t even done anything yet. You guys are a great crowd.”
I smile to more whistling and screaming. The only explanation is that they’re drunk—out of their minds drunk. That’s when I catch sight of a lick of white fabric draped over someone’s head, the end dusting along the gross floor—a veil. It’s a bachelorette party.
Crooked chairs line sticky tables, and Rick moves between them. He’s not used to having to maneuver around customers, so he knocks more than one person in the head with his tray. Even as I watch him clumsily dish out the drinks, I don’t put everything together until I hear his voice.
Ryan’s voice. “We love you, Andi!”
In that moment, everything goes clear. The darkness adjusts and suddenly those dark forms resemble bodies…bodies I recognize. Lilia’s in the veil, obviously. Lawrence is on one side of her, fingers in his mouth as he lets out an ear-splitting whistle. Ryan’s next to his brother, and beside him are a few guys with tattoos on their arms and the beat-up look of professional hockey players. One of them is missing a tooth.
“Holy shit,” I breathe.
“Go,” Lisa says behind me. “I don’t care if it’s the Queen of England, do your bit!”
I take a deep breath as Lisa’s words echoing in my head. Then I lock eyes with Ryan and nod to him as my heart beats in a suspicious way, as if it’s happy…happy to see him. He probably brought the party here as a joke, a gag for everyone to get a kick out of, but it means something to me—even if he’s here in hopes of sex. This thought gives me the strength to go on, to do the best I can.
The best I have is pretty decent, as it turns out. I don’t perform at my absolute best since I’m too busy weaving together new material with the old, but it’s certainly not the worst. By the time the red light flashes in the back of the room signaling the end of my time, I wrap the last joke with a bow and blow it into the audience with a kiss.
“I’m Andi Peretti. Thanks for coming out tonight.” I raise my microphone. “And congratulations to Lilia and Lawrence. Round of drinks on me!”