All Braden Washington wanted was a date for his family reunion. He didn’t want a girlfriend. He didn’t want a relationship. He just wanted a girl with no strings attached, and no drama -- not even sex.
“I want someone beautiful and someone who can function at high society events,” he said as he sat across the table from his best friend, Nick.
“Finding a smart, hot girl who is available to travel on short notice won’t be easy. Why not just hire an escort?” Nick asked him as if the answer was obvious.
“Because my luck I would get a girl who gets drunk and falls down in public or looks like a cheap whore. Let’s just say that I’ve had some bad luck with hookers in the past.” He sighed. “That’s why we are here,” Braden said as his eyes scanned the room of the gentlemen’s club they were currently patronizing.
“Why in the hell are you even going to this thing in the first place? I thought you avoided your family like the plague?”
“I promised my sister I would make more of an effort to be there for her. After she lost Caleb, she hasn’t been the same.”
“That’s been five years now,” Nick noted.
“I know, man. I know. But still she needs me, and I promised I would be there at the reunion, for her.” Braden downed the rest of his drink, before continuing. “So, help me find a fucking date already. I need someone to help run interference with my family.”
Nick raised his hand to flag down the waitress. “Another round please,” he said.
When the waitress returned with their drinks, Braden looked up and seemed to notice her for the first time. She was hot, more so than even the dancers in the club. A leggy brunette with light green eyes and a great rack. Braden couldn’t take his eyes off her.
“How are you doing?” Another female voice asked.
Braden turned to see a girl slip into the chair next to his. She was wearing a platinum wig and about a pound of makeup. The black dress she was wearing was cut low enough to expose her navel. He glanced at her and then turned away without saying so much as a single word to her.
She didn’t let that discourage her though. She looked at him and smiled. “Buy me a drink?”
Nick patted his knee and invited the dancer to sit on his lap. Slowly she stood up and walked over to him, sitting down in the chair next to him. When the next song started, the girl stood up and began a seductive dance for him.
Braden hardly noticed, however. His attention was still on the pretty little brunette waitress that had caught his eye.
“When is your next break?” Braden asked as she came by to check on his table and see if they needed another drink.
“I don’t have another one tonight. Sorry,” she said politely.
Braden took a stack of bills out of his wallet and laid them on the table. “Just want to get to know you a little better.”
“I’m not one of the dancer’s hon; we aren’t allowed to socialize with customers like that.”
Braden wasn’t used to being told no, and he didn’t like it. So when the pretty waitress walked away, Braden went to find the club manager to make a deal. He paid the guy $500 in exchange for letting the waitress spend the rest of the night at his table. He promised the waitress would be well compensated for her time, so the manager agreed.
When Braden got back to his table, he found his buddy Nick still having a good time with the stripper. Soon the hot brunette waitress plopped down in the chair next to him.
“I guess I’m on break now,” the waitress said, not sounding all that happy with being bought out for the night.
“I’m Braden Washington,” he said as he stuck his hand out to shake hers.
She reluctantly took his hand in hers. “I’m Jessica Simpson. No relation,” she was quick to point out.
“And is that your real name or …”
She shook her head and stopped him before he could finish.
“I’m a waitress; we don’t need stage names like the dancers do. And trust me, if I were going to pick a fake name it wouldn’t be Jessica Simpson.”
“I don’t want you to worry about losing tips tonight so let’s get that out of the way.”
Jessica looked uncomfortable when Braden handed her a large stack of $100 bills. “If that isn’t enough let me know. I can get you more.”
“No, please that’s more than enough. More than I’ll probably make all week,” she admitted.
“What I don’t get is, why you want me here with you in the first place? Wouldn’t you rather have a dancer or two here to keep you entertained for the night?”
He glanced over at his friend Nick who seemed to be getting rather intimate with his stripper. “I’m not really here for that,” Braden admitted.
“Then what are you here for?”
“A date.”
Jessica choked back a laugh. “I would think a guy like you wouldn’t have to hard of a time finding one of those. Women probably throw themselves at you on a daily basis.”
“I’m not looking for a normal date.”
“Sounds ominous.”
Braden chuckled. “It’s not as bad as all that.”
“I need someone to go with me to a family reunion. I need a date to be a buffer with my family so they will leave me the fuck alone.”
“If you don’t want to spend time with them, why are you going to your family reunion in the first place?”
“I wished I had a good answer for you, but I don’t. I let my sister con me into it, and now I’m stuck. It’s going to be a week of hell. But hey, at least we’ll be at a five-star resort in Fiji.”
“That won’t exactly suck,” Jessica said good-humoredly.
“You could always go with me.”
Jessica laughed, but Braden wasn’t joking. He liked this girl and thought she would make the perfect traveling companion. However, instead of scaring her off, he decided to slow things down and try to get to know her a bit first.
“Tell me about yourself, Jessica. How long have you been a waitress at Rick’s?”
“About a year now. I was working as a bartender at OTC on Kirby, but they closed down, and this was the only job I could get on short notice where I could make the kind of cash I needed.”
They both glanced across the table at the stripper who was grinding against Nick to the beat of the music.
“Ever consider taking the leap and becoming a dancer?”
Jessica scrunched her nose. “No. No offense to the girls but it’s just not my thing. I make pretty good tips as a waitress, don’t need to take that next step.”
“Do you come here often?” Jessica asked, trying her best to keep the conversation going.
“Not really. We have a friend who lives in these places and when he’s in town Nick, and I typically go with him. But beyond that, I just don’t have the time.”
“What keeps you so busy?”
“A little of this, a little of that.”
Braden Washington wasn’t exactly a celebrity, but he was a billionaire who came from a powerful political family. Being a direct descendant of George Washington tended to get him some media coverage, so most people at least recognized the name, even if they didn’t know his face. Jessica however, didn’t seem to have the slightest clue who he was, and he liked that. For once he got to be just some regular guy, hanging out in a bar with his friend.
“I suppose a beautiful girl like you is married with kids or at the very least has a boyfriend or two?”
“No,” she smiled. “No husband, no kids. I’ve been single for a while now.”
“What do you do in your spare time?”
“Not much spare time. Work keeps me pretty busy. What I like about Rick’s is that they let you do a lot of double shifts.”
“Saving up for something big?”
“Not so much.”
The truth was, she needed the money for her sister. Two years ago she’ been in a car accident that left her in a coma and in need of expensive long-time care that her newly obtained insurance through the Obama care website only paid for a tiny portion of. But Jessica didn’t go around advertising her problems, especially to people she didn’t know. So instead she just smiled as she always did and changed the subject.
“Ready for another round?”
“Sure, that sounds great,” Braden said, and Jessica hurried up to the bar to fill his order.
When Jessica got back to the table, she put the drink tray down and took her seat next to Braden. The song was ending, and Nick sent his dancer friend away. Apparently, he was done with her.
After taking a sip of her wine, the DJ introduced the next dancer to appear on the main stage and the name caught Jessica’s attention, so she turned around to watch.
“Holy fuck. Who’s that?” Nick asked while almost choking on his drink.
“That’s my friend Candy,” Jessica said proudly. “Isn’t she beautiful?”
“I’d say,” Nick answered back absently, unable to take his eyes off the girl dancing erotically on the stage.
“Her real name is Candice, but I call her Candy because of that scene in Dogma where they were handing the girl all their money. Like she mind controlled the men with her beauty, and they couldn’t help themselves. That’s exactly how she is -- Candy gets on stage, and men just fall over themselves to hand her their hard-earned money.”
She giggled and then pointed to Nick. “See? He can’t take his eyes off her. She’s got him trapped in her spell.”
“It seems so,” Braden said with a laugh. “Poor dumb bastard.”
Nick pulled out his wallet and handed Jessica a one-hundred-dollar bill. “Would you mind giving this to her and asking her to come to our table when she’s done on stage?”
“Sure sweetie, but don’t you maybe want to give her something smaller, like $10 or $20, I’m sure that would work just as well?”
He didn’t take his eyes off the stage. “No, its fine,” he said distractedly.
Jessica shrugged and did as Nick asked.
When her two songs were over Candy made her way over to their table and joined them for a drink, taking the free seat next to Nick.
“Candy, this is Braden,” Jessica said as she leaned into him, and then pointing across the table she added, “and this is his good friend Nick.”
While Braden and Jessica fell back into an easy conversation, Nick and Candy did the same. Eventually, a new song started playing, and she asked if he wanted a dance.
Nick pulled some money out of his wallet, and she began.
“Look,” Jessica whispered to Braden. “He’s so taken by her, he doesn’t even realize she’s not touching him.”
Braden glanced at the girl dancing before his friend and chuckled. “You’re right.”
“Most strippers dance so close they are practically grinding on the guy, but not Candy. She doesn’t have to, and the men never even seem to notice. They just throw money at her and beg for more.”
“Your friend is a very pretty girl; I’ll give you that. But still, I couldn’t ever imagine being so caught up in someone like that.”
Jessica shrugged. “I agree. But I see it happen every single day.”
Braden and Jessica continued to watch as Nick filled Candy’s panties with folded bills of various denominations.
After the song was over, she picked her dress off the floor and kissed him on his cheek. “Thanks for the dance. It was nice meeting you.”
She started to walk away, but Nick put his hand on hers. “Please stay.”
She looked over at the empty chair and then back to Nick. “I don’t know. I really need to hustle tonight. I’ve got to make rent. Maybe I’ll come back later and check on you boys,” she said with a smile.
Nick didn’t hesitate to pull out his wallet and lay a pile of bills on the table. “I’ll make you a deal darling. I’ll pay you $20 for every song you stay here and talk to me. You don’t have to dance, just talk.”
“You’ll pay me $20 a song, just to talk?”
Candy looked at her friend Jessica, unsure if the guy was being serious. Jessica smiled and nodded her head, so Candy agreed to Nick’s offer and took her seat next to him.
The drinks flowed freely through the night, and Braden was sure things were going well between him and Jessica, so he finally decided to ask her again about coming with him to his family reunion. Only this time he was going to make her an offer she couldn’t refuse.
“I was serious about what I said earlier.”
“What’s that?” Jessica asked.
“I want you to come with me to Fiji on Friday.”
She sat back in her chair and just stared at him.
“Now don’t turn me down before you hear me out. I realize you can’t just take a week off work so I’ll pay you $100,000 to go with me.”
“Are you serious? You’ll pay me a hundred grand to spend a week with you in paradise?” She turned to Nick. “Is he serious?”
Nick laughed. “It seems so.”
She thought about it for just a moment and then gave him a counter-offer.
“Alright, I’ll go with you … but only if you pay half the money up front, and if Nick and Candy go with us.”
Candy quickly spoke up. “What? Me? No way. I can’t afford to take off that much time from work. You know how much my shoe addiction costs me, and I’m barely making rent this month as it is.”
Jessica shrugged. “Those are my terms. Willing to throw in another twenty thousand for Candy?”
“Deal,” Braden said without giving it so much as a second thought.
“And,” Jessica continued, “you have to take us both shopping on Thursday for clothes to wear on the trip and like you said before, no sex. I’ll be your traveling companion but I’m not a hooker.”
“Deal,” Braden repeated. “You drive a hard bargain, but you are worth it. And no sex, I promise. I don’t want the emotional entanglement that comes with getting intimate. I really do just need you there to help me run interference with my family. I need you there to keep my family from bugging me about settling down and getting serious with someone. They want heirs for Christ sake. Do I look like I have time for kids?”
Jessica looked at her friend Candy who was sitting there with her mouth open. “What do you think?”
Candy glanced over at Nick. “What do you think?”
“Fine, but I’ll pay the $20,000 for your time since you are going to be my date after all.”
Candy giggled and then looked back to her friend.
“Looks like we are going to Fiji.”
