I wonder how I fell so far so fast. If someone told me that I’d be doing this a year ago, I would have laughed in their face. Now, nothing is funny. Truth is like that, sharp as a knife and twice as painful.
Miss Black goes over a few other details about the night, and I’m escorted to the front of the suite where Gabe is waiting for me. Gabe walks to the elevator and presses the button. Miss Black and I stand in silence for a moment. The doors slide open and before I can step inside, she clears her throat. I look back.
“Don’t disappoint me, Avery,” Miss Black warns, and turns back without waiting for my reply.
CHAPTER 8
Being an escort is different than being a call girl. This is much less nerve racking. Actually, I feel okay, aside from the resentment that’s floating in my stomach at having to work for free. But, it’s my own fault. I shouldn’t have thrown that money back at Sean. It just made everything worse. I’m not even sure what the point was anyway.
No, that’s a lie. I knew what the point was and I’m so stupid that I’d do it again. I’m good like that. I don’t learn lessons the way I should. My music teacher pointed this out to me when I was in fourth grade. It’s not that I couldn’t learn, it was that I refused to change my way of thinking. I thought Bach was a whiny bastard—I still do—so I played the music that way. I never learned to see that things aren’t always the way I thought they’d be.
I thought Sean would say he loved me. I’m a slow learner.
Maybe it’s more than that. Maybe I just like to root for the underdog. I hoped that Sean could overcome whatever was holding him back—guess I was wrong about that. No, I know I was wrong. The man is hollow. Every last bit of him is heartless. Sex is sex and nothing more. It reflects how severely broken he really is.
Why is it that I feel the need to fix every wounded person I find? Why do I so carelessly lump guys into the poor puppy dog category? I shouldn’t. Some of them like the way they are—and there’s my damnation, my weak link—some of them. It’s like I can’t admit that some people don’t want to be saved, that they like being broken. Or maybe it’s even more malicious than that—maybe they act a certain way on purpose. We all protect our hearts. That part isn’t unusual. Sean just…
I banish the thoughts that are plaguing me. They’re poison. Sean is gone and I’m better without him. I know this, but I don’t feel it inside of me. There’s a certainty in knowing the truth. It locks into your bones and you can feel it. I don’t feel better off without him, not yet—it’s pure cognition that is disconnected from my heart. It’s a thought and nothing else.
I glance out the window of the car. The night air is warmer than usual. People fill the sidewalks and linger outside. It’s a lovely night with bright stars thrown against an inky sky. The moon is delicately perched like a sliver of silver just over the city.
Gabe drives the car and explains that we are picking up Henry Thomas. “Since your services are as an escort, this arrangement allows you both to keep your private lives private. I pick you up at Black’s and then pick him up at the hotel.” Gabe is all brute strength. But, he grips the steering wheel and moves through traffic like a ballerina with grace. There are no jerky lane changes, no blaring horn—not from Gabe. He surprises me.
Smiling, I say, “That and pulling up in my normal car would have freaked him out.”
Gabe laughs unexpectedly. It’s the kind of laugh that sticks in your chest and makes your body heave and cough. He glances at me in the rearview mirror. “You’re a funny kid, you know that?”
“Yeah, I tend to make jokes when there’s nothing left to laugh about.” I smile, but it fades quickly. I suck my bottom lip into my mouth and chew it. The remnants of nervous habits never seem to fade. They poke their heads out at the strangest times.
Gabe stops at a light. He glances up at me in the mirror as he speaks. “Yeah, ain’t that the truth?” Something changes. I don’t know what, but I see that look in his eyes. Gabe turns in his seat and says more candidly, “Listen, I don’t pretend that it’s my place, but the boss is kind of miffed at you. I like you. I’ve liked you since day one, so I gotta say that you need to make sure tonight goes smooth. No hiccups. You owe too much money. Things’ll get dirty if you can’t work it off, and I don’t want that for you. You get what I’m telling you?”
My eyes drift from the mirror. “I get it.”
A somber feeling snakes out of my stomach and into every inch of my body. I can’t imagine how I could mess up tonight. I’m confident that I won’t make a mistake, that tonight will go smoothly.