Tell her

“I’ll be at your place tonight,” you say, taking another bite of pie. You **** as you see the way that her face lights up. “Not like that,” you add quickly. “At the bar. CCL is doing the wet T-shirts for Alex.”

Roxy looks at you, uncomprehending.

“I thought you weren’t making deals with Alex.”

“I am now,” you reply. You groan. “It’s dumb. Wet T-shirts and lap dances. I like to have fun, but this isn’t what I had in mind for this weekend. What a mess.”

She leans closer, lowering her voice. “I had a good time last night.”

You laugh. “I think everybody did.”

Roxy puts her hand on yours. “I would have liked it better if it had been just you and me.”

“You’re sweet.”

“I’m serious. Don’t do this tonight. You obviously don’t want to. Let me take you out instead.”

“What?” You come to your senses and look at her like she’s crazy. She must be crazy. “No, Roxy. First, I don’t break deals, and second… were you not paying attention? We have a serious problem that needs to be solved.”

“But do you have to do something like this?” she pleads.

“Of course. I have to do whatever it takes. My girls come first,” you say, firmly moving her hand off of yours.

She doesn’t reply to that right away. She straightens up, looking hurt.

“OK,” she says.

You sigh tiredly. You did not get enough sleep to be ready for today.

“I better start getting ready,” you say, standing up and paying for your pie. “But hey, at the bar tonight you can brag to everyone that you made it with all the girls in the contest.” You laugh. “That should be good.” You pat her shoulder and leave the diner, already thinking about other things. It’s still pretty early, but you need to gather up your girls and get them ready. There won’t be time for dancing lessons, but you can do the bare minimum to make sure that you don’t bring shame on CCL tonight.

One thing that you have to worry about… because you know the others won’t… is attire.

Every CCL girl has at least a couple of CCL T-shirts. They are not fancy, but they say CCL on them in big, proud letters. Are those what you should wear tonight?

Wear CCL T-shirts to the contest?

Or stop and get some plain, white ones?