“Speak for yourself. I’d get down with a millionaire.”
“You’re a disgrace to our guild.”
“Whatever, Camilo. You always need to take everything to the extreme.” She pursed her lips then, clearly not done telling me about myself. “You’re too judgy sometimes, babe. Just because he’s rich doesn’t mean he’s an asshole.”
I didn’t have the energy to get into an argument with Ayako about my bitchiness or anything else, so I just nodded and took another sip of my water. The thing with Thomas had gone from something impulsive and fun I did at a party, to incredibly intense and I was feeling out of sorts.
I’d expected him to be this uptight, shy, or hesitant rich dude, but instead he just rolled with it. He was such a filthy fucker, too. Just thinking of how he ran his mouth while he grabbed my hair and rammed his cock down my throat was making me a littleshort of breath. But what really messed with my head was how tender and sweet he’d been afterwards.
Thatkiss.
Thomas was not at all what I’d expected. I’d wanted more the second we were done and that’s why I had to get out of there fast. A man like him just didn’t fit in my life.
Ayako sighed at whatever face I was making.
“Okay.” She raised her hands as if calling a truce. “We might want to call this night, babe. The champagne is making me verbally abrasive and you’ve already gotten off. I think it’s safe to say we’ve peaked.”
Ayako’s superpowerwasdiffusing my moodiness. I put my arm around her shoulder and nodded. “I think you’re onto something, Ms. Russell. Let’s make a move before we turn into pumpkins.”
We stood up together and quickly made our way to the coat check after saying goodbye to the others at our table. I tried not to give any weight to the fact that at the very last second, I turned around to see Thomas watching me walk out of the room.
chapter three
camilo
“There’s my favorite gala buddy!”
I grinned in response to Ayako’s enthusiastic hello as I walked into the office Monday morning.
When I got to my desk, I noticed a sticky note stuck to one of my desktop monitors. It was from our boss Melissa asking me to come see her as soon as I got in.
Not sure what the unusual request was about, I stopped back at Ayako’s in case she knew. “Hey, Melissa left me a note to go see her as soon as I got in. Do you know what it’s about?”
She smiled big and then lifted a shoulder.
“I don’t know exactly, but she did say it was potentially very good news.”
I perked up at that; I could use some good news first thing Monday morning. “Okay let me go see what’s up.”
I went to the floor above ours to Melissa’s office, and popped my head in. She waved me in as soon as she saw me.
“Hey, Camilo! I’ve got some great news for you. You better sit down though, because this ishuge.”
I sat down bemused. “Wow I’ve never seen you this happy, not even when Rita called to tell you she was pregnant.”
She giggled like I’d said something hilarious. “I was too terrified about impending parenthood to be outwardly giddy. This, on the other hand, is literally a miracle.”
“Okay, now you’re just teasing. Tell me.” I said, dying to know what had Melissa so damn happy.
She was smiling so hard I could see her molars. “So, I got a call late Friday afternoon from a private donor who wants to give two million dollars over the next two years to the agency. They want most of it to go to our residential program.”
The room tilted a little and I shook my head, because surely I’d heard wrong. I wasn’t even sure if I could come up with everything we could get done with that amount of money. We could renovate the Harlem shelter fully, and possibly do some updating on the other two safe houses.
I grabbed the edge of her desk and leaned in. “Don’t play with me, Melissa. I haven’t even had coffee yet.”
She giggled again, which made it the second time I’d seen her do it in the five years I’d been at the agency.
“I’m dead serious. The donor is coming today to meet with us. He said he chose us because we’re a smaller grassroots agency, and we work in areas where there are predominantly immigrants and people of color. Which is the population he’d like to see benefit from the money.” I bobbed my head up and down as she talked, so excited I could barely make words. “He also asked if we worked with LGBT clients. I told him absolutelyandthat part of our mission was to have the demographics of the clients we worked with well represented within our staff at all levels of the agency. He really loved that.”
