Taking into consideration Jayce's requests for his bachelor party—time with his friends and no naked women—we settled on the idea of treating him to a night on the town. Miles had told me about several of the bars and clubs he'd been to before in Raleigh, many of which catered to everyone, no matter their sexual preference.
Of course, no bachelor party would be complete without a few embarrassing items the groom must use during his night out. And that was how I found myself sitting in front of Ace's Wild, a small adult toy store located in Vintage Ridge.
"Have you been here before?"
"No, but I've always wanted to check it out. I hear they have some very interesting things in there." He waggled his eyebrows at me which made me laugh.
The night before had really helped clear the air between us. Now that I knew what had really caused him to act the way he did when we were younger, I was able to relax around him, and I found myself actually enjoying his company.
I wasn't sure if picking out a green shirt that matched my eyes was intentional or not, but I liked the way he looked at me when he saw it. I still couldn't believe that Miles Butler thought I was sexy, but I was certainly enjoying the hell out of it. The fact that a man who looked like he did would even glance twice at me, much less find me sexy, was a definite ego boost.
"Okay, I guess we better get in there and pick out some fake boobs for my brother." I ran a hand over my face. "Dear God, did I really just say that?"
Miles threw his head back with a laugh. "I'm afraid you did."
We were still laughing as we walked to the front door and stepped inside, and the two men who were working at the front counter turned to look at us. "Uh oh, babe, it looks like these two are up to no good. We better keep an eye on them," one of them teased.
The two of them were as different as night and day, physically. One was a large, muscled black man with long dreads that hung down past his shoulders. He was dressed in a bright yellow shirt that stretched over his broad chest like a second skin. The other, was much smaller, with creamy white skin, neatly trimmed blond hair, and glasses. He was dressed in a preppy fashion, wearing tan slacks and a light-blue button-down shirt underneath his darker blue sweater vest. The larger man slid his arm around the preppy one, and I found myself smiling in response.
"Are you the owners?" Miles asked.
"Ace and Wilder, at your service," the black man said, pointing out the fact that he was Ace and the other was Wilder. "What can we do for you?"
"My brother is getting married soon, and we're throwing his bachelor party. We thought maybe we'd look around and see if there's anything we could use for that night," I explained.
"Oh, yeah. We have a whole area full of all kinds of party favors for bachelor and bachelorette parties." Wilder pointed toward the back wall.
"You guys have fun looking around, and don't be afraid to ask us if you have any questions. We've tried pretty much everything in here at one point or another," Ace added.
Wilder swatted at his partner's chest. "Okay, big guy. That's enough. I'm sure they don't want to know everything we get up to."
"Thanks. We’re just going to look around a while," Miles told them.
My pulse raced as he took my hand and pulled me behind him to the back of the store. I struggled to keep my face neutral so he wouldn't see how much that simple touch was affecting me. He let go as he reached out to pull an item off a hook, and I immediately missed the feel of his work-calloused hand.
"Think Jayce would like this?" He held up a set of fake glasses that looked like a pair of boobs.
I laughed, immediately getting into the idea. "Only if he has this as well." I showed him the t-shirt on the rack directly behind him that looked like a woman's torso dressed in a bikini, the breasts spilling out of the flimsy, pink, polka-dotted top.
Miles joined in the laughter, and soon we were showing each other the craziest things while constantly trying to one-up each other. By the time we'd finished in that area, we had everything we needed for the bachelor party, including a penis shaped hat, a sippy cup shaped like a butt plug and silly straws with tiny plastic women attached to them that you could slide up and down making it look like they were on a stripper pole. I had no doubt Jayce was going to love it.
We wandered around separately for a bit, seeing if there was anything else we wanted to get. At one point, Miles and I both held up identical butt plugs with rainbow tails coming out of the end of them. This of course, made us both crack up as we realized we had the same idea.
As I came to the end of one long aisle, my footsteps slowed, and my heartbeat sped up. I glanced over my shoulder to see where Miles was, and found him deep in conversation with the two storeowners. I turned back to the display of Fleshlights in front of me. I'd seen them used in some of the porn I'd watched and had always been curious about them, but I had no idea there was such a variety of them, white, black, pink, large and small. Some were shaped like vaginas while others were shaped like asses or mouths with big puffy lips surrounding the tiny hole.
I shivered at the thought of having one of those, and before I could talk myself out of it, I grabbed one off the rack and slipped it into the basket of party favors I was carrying.
I quickly looked and saw that Ace had taken Miles down another aisle and was busy showing him a row of handcuffs and blindfolds. My brain nearly short-circuited at the thought that he was interested in that kind of thing, but I didn't have time for that. I'd never bought a toy for myself before, and my heart was nearly pounding out of my chest as I hurried to the front of the store to pay for my purchases before Miles could see what I'd bought.
Wilder made polite conversation as he rang up my order on the cash register, his hands slowing when he got to the Fleshlight. He looked up at me then glanced over my shoulder before speaking quietly. "Would you like me to bag this separately for you?"
My shoulders sagged, thankful he’d thought of it. "Yes, please."
He had just finished putting everything into bags when Miles walked up. "I would've been happy to get those or even split it with you."
I waved him off with a flick of my hand. "It's no big deal, really."
Miles shook his head like he was frustrated, but he grinned at me all the same. "Fine. Then I'll just have to buy you a late lunch." I smiled back at him, suddenly excited to have an excuse to spend more time with him.Who would've thought?
