Wrath - 4 by Robin Wasserman Page A

me.”
    “Twenty minutes. That’s it.”
    Kaia clicked the phone shut, cutting off his laughter. So, new plan: two guys in one night. She’d double-dipped in the dating pool before, but this time felt different.
    Kaia pul ed out onto the road, turning toward Powel ’s dingy side of town. She refused to let herself slip into some kind of juvenile relationship, imagining that she and Reed were “going steady”—it was a slippery slope and, before you knew it, she’d likely be sucked into a downward spiral of gooey love poems, Valentine’s Day candy, pathetic pop songs, and dithering about whether “he loves me” or “he loves me not.”
    That was unacceptable, and even if she didn’t particularly want to see Powel tonight or suffer through his groping fingers and pompous Brit wit, she would, anyway, just as a reminder that she was free. Kaia had never let herself be obligated to anyone—as far as she was concerned, it was a step away from ownership, and no one owned her. No one ever would.
    “Now that is a fine piece of ass!” The second-string point guard leaped out of his chair and pushed his way to the edge of the stage, waving a wad of dol ar bil s in the air.

    Adam looked around the table searching for a bemused expression to match his own, but saw only naked desire in his teammates’ eyes. So what was wrong with Adam?
    Three half-naked women dancing onstage a few feet away, their perfect bodies gyrating to a hard, driving beat—and al he could do was stare into his glass and wal ow in his own pain?
    “You’re pathetic, man!” one of the guys complained, clapping him hard on the back. “Stop sulking and look where we are.This is heaven .” Heaven, or Mugs ‘n’ Jugs, a triple X strip club on Route 47 that promised Live! Nude! Girls! and failed to card even its most obvious underage patrons. Adam had made the traditional pilgrimage out here for his sixteenth birthday, but hadn’t been back since.
    Now he remembered why. Sure, a few of the girls were hot, parading across the stage in their barely-there costumes, this one a tiger-lady, that one a vampiress, al of them flashing the same fuck me look at their loser clientele. But once you tore your eyes away from al that bare skin, you couldn’t help but notice al the depressing details: the worn-out speaker system, piping the same five songs on a maddening continuous loop; the overpriced drinks and underpaid waitresses; the middle-aged businessmen who’d snuck away from their dreary lives to spend a few hours pretending that the strippers were performing just for them, that their bored come hither expressions were more than just business.
    “Why’d you drag me here?” he complained, shouting to be heard over the loud techno beat. “I thought we were just going to shoot some pool.”
    “What are you complaining about?” the center asked. “Look around you and tel me this isn’t better than pool.” He looked up at the waitress, who’d stopped at their table to clear their drinks, and was leaning so low across Adam that her bare midriff brushed his shoulder. “Hey, baby,” the center leered, and pointed toward the stage. “Why aren’t you up there with the rest of the hotties?”
    Adam cringed, but thankful y, the waitress ignored the idiot. She turned to Adam instead. He cringed again.
    “Hey, sweetie, why so glum?” she asked, stroking her finger across his jawline. “Don’t see anything you like?” Adam took a deep breath, almost choking on the heady mix of smoke and cheap perfume.
    “It’s not that,” he stuttered. “I’m … uh …”
    “Distracted,” the waitress guessed. She slapped a smal glass down on the table and poured him a shot. “It’s a girl, isn’t it?”
    “No, it’s—” How to answer that? He couldn’t get his mind off a girl, yes, but which girl? The one he wanted to kiss, or the one he wanted to throttle?
    “It’s always a girl,” the waitress said knowingly. She poured a second shot, then