My Taboo Harem! - Chapter 521: Phei’s Generals: The Amateur
Chapter 521: Phei’s Generals: The Amateur
She came closer.
Close enough that their thighs brushed warm and deliberate under the table — hers pressing right up against his through the thin fabric of whatever tight little number she was wearing, her elbow sliding onto the counter, chin resting on her palm as she angled her entire body toward him like personal space was a cute suggestion she’d officially canceled.
“So who’s the girl?” she asked, voice low and smoky, the kind of tone that usually made men forget their own names.
Phei looked at her, one eyebrow raised.
“What do you mean, who’s the girl?”
She gestured lazily toward the empty seat where her previous date had been sitting like a discarded accessory. “Usually men in clubs are checking me out. Ogling my body. Trying to figure out exactly how to get in my panties.”
She said it without ego — just pure, unfiltered fact, the way a woman who’d been turning heads since puberty stated the obvious.
And damn, she had the body to back it up: full, dangerous curves poured into a dress that clung like it was personally in love with every inch of her, long legs crossed under the table, lips painted the kind of red that promised trouble.
She was the definition of fuckable — the kind of woman who could ruin a man’s night in the best possible way. “The only exceptions are your kind.”
“My kind.”
“Men who have someone. Or had someone. Got their heart broken and are now scared to get involved with women again.” She studied him, eyes narrowing like she was reading his soul.
“You have that look.”
Phei chuckled, low and easy, the sound cutting through the heavy bass pulsing around them. “Well. You couldn’t be more wrong.”
“No?”
“I don’t have a girl.” He paused, took a slow sip of water. “I have many.”
She blinked.
Her eyebrows shot up. She looked at him again — really looked — reassessing, recalculating, running the new data through whatever mental algorithm she used to sort men into neat little categories.
Cold. A bit arrogant. Self-aware in a way that bordered on dangerously hot.
And apparently not heartbroken at all — just completely, effortlesslydisinterested in her.
Which somehow made it worse.
Phei watched her the whole time.
She was beautiful, objectively. The kind of woman who turned heads the second she walked into any room and had built her entire personality around knowing it.
But she wasn’t his kind of woman. He could tell in that instinctive, bone-deep way that came from feeling her thigh against his and getting… nothing. She was fine. Comfortable. but also a woman who’d been sitting with a man perfectly willing to give her what she wanted and had ditched him the second something shinier walked in.
He wasn’t judging.
He just wasn’t interested. At all.
Before she could fire back —
“PHEI! Brother!”
Two voices. Behind him. Loud enough to slice straight through the bass, the lounge chatter, and the careful atmosphere of their conversation like a pair of cheerful sledgehammers smashing through glass.
They both turned.
Landon and Brian were crossing the lounge — weaving between tables, grinning like idiots, dressed like they’d actually put in effort tonight. Landon in a fitted shirt he’d clearly ironed for the first time in his life. Brian in something darker and sharper, carrying the quiet confidence of a man who already had a woman waiting at home and was just here for the sport.
Phei waved them over with a lazy grin.
“There they are.” He turned back to her. “Seems like our time together is over.”
She chuckled — soft, a little disappointed, the laugh of a woman who’d been mid-hunt and just had her prey called away by louder, rowdier friends. “It was… interesting.”
“That’s generous.”
“I’m a generous person.”
Landon reached them first — dapping Phei with a quick, solid fist bump, knuckles connecting and separating in one smooth beat. Brian followed with a firm, brief handshake — the clean, efficient physicality of guys who respected each other enough not to turn it into a hug fest.
She noticed.
Filed it away as arrogance. As him being too stuck-up for affection. She was wrong, but she’d never know that, and Phei didn’t care enough to correct her.
She said her goodbyes — a small wave, one last lingering look at Phei that he didn’t return — and slid off the booth, disappearing into the lounge crowd with her whiskey and her brand-new theories about the mysterious boy who drank water in nightclubs.
Landon and Brian dropped into the seats on either side of him like they owned the place.
Phei pulled out a thick stack of bills and set them on the table with a smirk.
“First round’s on me. Confidence drinks before the hunt.”
Brian laughed, loud and easy. “Landon needs it more. He’s the amateur here.”
“Fuck off.”
“He’s right though,” Phei said, already flagging the waiter. “We’re basically his training wheels tonight.”
“I don’t need training wheels.”
“Landon.” Brian leaned forward, elbows on the table, wearing the patient expression of a man about to drop life-changing wisdom. “Last time you tried to talk to a girl at a bar, you opened with ’do you come here often’ and then apologised for asking.”
“I was being polite!”
“You apologised for your own pickup line. While she was still standing there. She hadn’t even reacted yet and you were already backpedalling.”
Phei was already grinning, shoulders shaking.
“That’s not — I was nervous. It was loud. She was —”
“Hot?” Brian offered helpfully.
“Intimidating.”
“She was five-foot-two, Landon.”
“Height has nothing to do with intimidation!”
“She was holding a cocktail with an umbrella in it.”
“Those umbrellas are aggressive!”
Phei put his face in his hands. His shoulders were shaking with silent laughter.
“Okay,” Brian said, straightening up like a professor giving a lecture, “here’s the plan. Phei and I are going to walk you through this. Step by step. Like a tutorial. Like we’re teaching you to ride a bike except the bike is a woman and you’re not allowed to fall off.”
“I hate both of you.”
“Step one,” Phei said, recovering and wiping his eyes, “don’t apologise.”
“Step two,” Brian added, “don’t mention that you play basketball until at least ten minutes in.”
“Why not?”
“Because you lead with it every time and then you have nothing left.”
“It’s my best quality!”
“Your best quality is a sport?”
“It’s a really good sport!”
“Step three,” Phei continued, still grinning, “if she asks what you do, say something vague and interesting. Not ’I play basketball at Ashford Elite and my teammate Brian and Phei.’ You did that last time. To two different women. On the same night. Brian told me.”
Landon’s face went bright red. “They asked!”
“They asked what you do. Not for my résumé.”
Brian was crying — actually tearing up, one hand pressed over his mouth, shoulders shaking with the silent, devastated laughter of a man who loved his friend and found his suffering the funniest thing on the planet.
“Step four,” Brian managed, voice cracking, “don’t — don’t stare at her chest.”
“I don’t stare!”
“You stare.”
“I glance.”
“You glance like a man reading the newspaper, Landon. With focus. With intent. Like you’re checking the headlines.”
Phei lost it completely — full, open, head-back laughter that drew curious looks from three tables over.
Brian joined in, both of them wheezing and gasping while Landon sat between them with his arms crossed, jaw set, wearing the exact expression of a man who was seriously reconsidering every friendship he’d ever made.
“You know what,” Landon said, voice dripping with determination, “I’m going to find a girl tonight. A beautiful one. And I’m going to be so smooth you’ll both choke on it.”
“That’s the spirit,” Phei said, still chuckling.
“The confidence drinks haven’t even arrived and he’s already delusional,” Brian added.
“I will literally fight both of you.”
“Step five,” Phei said, grinning wider, “don’t fight anyone.”
The waiter arrived right on cue with three glasses of something amber and expensive.
Phei raised his water bottle like a king.
Brian raised his glass.
Landon — still fuming, still red, still swearing under his breath — raised his glass last.
“To Landon,” Phei said.
“To the amateur,” Brian corrected with a wicked smirk.
“To both of you shutting the fuck up,” Landon finished.
They drank.
The night was just getting started — and the club lights were already promising chaos.
