“Yeah, I know.” Sam signals the waiter. “One black Americano, please. No sugar.” She turns back to Cassie. “But now and then . . . it’s kinda nice to have a pretend boyfriend. You know, the kind you can borrow for a weekend party or some office function or some high school reunion. And return him on Monday to wherever he came from.”
Cassie laughs. “Hell, you’d probably have to pay for that. He’s called an escort. A discreet term for gigolo.”
“Well, sure, and he doesn’t even have to bang me.”
“Girl, sex has gotta be the best part about a hiring a gigolo.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Then what is? The scintillating conversation? The recount of experiences past shared?”
The waiter comes back with the coffee. He’s has a brown mop for hair and dimples. He says, flashing her a grin, “One black Americano, no sugar. Would that be all, Miss?”
Cassie says, “You’re kinda cute. You don’t happen to have anything on this weekend, do you?”
“Excuse me?” The waiter raises a quizzical brow.
“Um, she was just kidding.” Sam shoots her best friend a glare. As the waiter knowingly walks away, she hisses, “Don’t embarrass me.”
“Honey, you’re gonna be plenty embarrassed this weekend when your sister discovers you don’t really have a boyfriend, hot photos downloaded from Fotolia notwithstanding.”
Sam sighs and she grips her coffee mug. “I know.”
2
“Take it,” Brian Morton says to his best friend, Caleb.
“I can’t take your money.”
Brian rolls his eyes. “There’s plenty of it where it came from.”
“Brian, I know your family owns Morton Enterprise Ltd., but this is my Mom we’re talking about. I can’t take your money to pay off her mortgage.”
“If you don’t, the bank is going to foreclose and she’d be out in the streets. You’ll be forced to take her into your apartment and she’s gonna seriously cramp your sex life.”
“Or the lack of it.” Caleb bends over mutinously with his cue to aim a ball into the right hand corner pocket of the pool table. He misses. “Damn.”
Brian looks up to see a redhead at the bar eyeing him. Her eyes roam appreciatively up and down his leather jacket clad body. So what’s new? He gets looks like that from women and quite a few men all the time. With his striking features and six foot two frame, he cuts quite a figure in the smoky barfly crowd.
He blows the top of his cue and strides to the other side of the table.
“Think of it as a loan,” he says. “You can pay me back . . . with interest.”
The white ball strikes a green ball and the latter rolls into the middle pocket.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Cut it out, Brian. I’m not taking your money and that’s final. I don’t need you to bail me out every time I’ve got a problem.”
Brian shoots a yellow ball into a pocket. “I didn’t hear you complaining when I bailed you out from jail when you were caught with that underage hooker.”
“I thought she was nineteen! And I paid you back so that doesn’t count.”
The redhead at the bar is tweezing her hair. She licks her sultry lower lip. Brian grins as he bends over to sink yet another ball. At the doorway is another woman who is clearly making her intentions known to him. She’s a ballsy blonde type who looks like she can give amazing head.
Brian flashes her a predatory smile. Later, babe.
Caleb is too drowned in his own money woes to notice. “I could work overtime. I could get a new job.”
“You could also get a personal bank loan, but why get it when your best friend is willing to lend it to you for a marginal interest rate?”
“I said no.”
Brian sighs. “Stubborn as an ass, as always.”
“That’s why you love me.”
“Speaking about new jobs, why don’t you just come and work for me in Vanguard? I need a helluva a good accounts manager.”
“Brian, I already told you I don’t take favors from friends. We have to separate business from personal life, remember? And I’m not taking that ridiculous salary from you.”
“What? Too low?”
“Are you kidding me? You’re paying me double the market rate for that sort of job!” Caleb spots the blonde. And the redhead. And a couple of brunettes on the other side of the bar. “Oh God, not again.”
“It’ll only take a while.”
“That’s what you said the last time. I had to wait for two hours outside while you finished your blowjob. I was freezing my toes off.”
“That’s because she brought her twin sisters for the ride. And her stepmom was in the car.”
“You never say no. That’s your problem.”
“I say no plenty of times.”
“Yeah, only because there’re only twenty-four hours in a day. If it were up to you, you’d be f**king for as your penis can hold up.”
“My penis can’t help having a raging libido.”
“Your penis can’t help defining the ‘P’ in promiscuity either. You’re gonna catch gonorrhea . . . or something worse.”
“I’m always careful. And you won’t dream of drinking yesterday’s coffee, would you?” Brian puts down his cue as the blonde steps up with a smile. He knows that women of all ages find him irresistible and he’s going to milk it for all it’s worth before he turns thirty. And then, there’s always Botox.
“Hey,” the blonde says.
Brian glances askew at the redhead and the brunettes, who are all glowering now.
“Hey,” he says.
Caleb groans audibly.
“Don’t mind him,” Brian says, “he has gas.”
“You wanna get out of here?” the blonde says.
Brian turns to Caleb. “I’ll only be a while,” he deadpans.
Caleb grimaces.
*
In the stockroom of the bar, piled with crates of empty beer bottles for recycling, Brian pushes the blonde onto an empty crate and lifts up her dress. She is on her belly and her br**sts are spilling out of her top. She isn’t wearing any panties.
“You came prepared, huh?” Brian says, unbuckling his jeans.
“I’ve seen you around. The girls say you’re an incredible f**k.”
“Legendary.”
“Modest as well.”