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Meanwhile the idea of even taking a step outside her front door was enough to have her heart racing.
What the hell was she doing with her life? She was twenty-four now. When she was younger, she told herself that the panic attacks were something she’d eventually learn to manage, that it was just a bad period.
But then a year would pass, and then another and another.
Once she’d figured out how to make a living while working from home and the threat of losing the house went away, she’d started to wonder… would she ever change?
She’d even stopped meeting with Dr. Noah last year because there didn’t seem any point in continuing to spend money on therapy when deep down, she knew she wasn’t committed to it. She had a thousand excuses: she’d never find a higher paying job anywhere else. She didn’t have any other skills. And it wasn’t like she knew how to make friends, even when she’d been younger and ‘normal.’ She couldn’t even imagine how much more awkward it would be now that she was an adult. Besides, what did the outside world really have that was all that great?
Then her eyes fell on Nicholas.
She set the turntable on the counter, placed a white board on it, then upended the first cake round. She spread a layer of frosting and added the second layer of cake.
“Do you still go to museums?” she asked.
He looked surprised and looked down, shaking his head. “No, actually, not for a long time.”
“Why not?”
“Got busy with work, I guess.” He frowned.
“So what do you do for fun?” she asked, wondering what real people did out in the real world. She read books or watched Netflix. Which, thinking about it, meant she spent her days entirely in fantasy lands, either the one she was providing for clients, or the stories she was visiting in books or TV.
“Watch a game, usually.” He shrugged. “Meet up at a club my friend owns. But I’m not that great in social situations.”
She scoffed. “I doubt it.”
He shook his head. “You’re just easy to talk to.”
“I’ve been told that before.” She laughed a little and inclined her head.
“I can’t remember the last time I talked this much about myself. I wanna hear about you. What’s a day in your life like?”
Shit. She should have been expecting this. Why hadn’t she prepared something?
Obviously the Florida co-ed backstory was a no go here. It was just that any time she thought about Nicholas actually coming over today, she’d started freaking out about all the things that could go wrong. She’d half convinced herself she’d imagined ever meeting him, much less inviting him over in the first place. She’d buried herself in work and kept the voyeur cam on almost all the time. Performing usually kept her brain too busy to obsess.
But yeah, she should have faced her fears at least long enough to come up with a believable backstory.
“Just work.” She waved a hand. “Like I said. Boring customer service job. But I’m lucky, you know. To be able to work from home.”
“So you spend all day on the phone or something?”
She nodded, biting her lip while she tried to think fast. She didn’t want to lie to him. “Yep. I handle all kinds of complaints and take different requests for help. Really it’s mostly about being a good listener. People just want someone to hear them, you know?”
Nicholas nodded. “Not a lot of people can do that. Really listen. That’s a gift.”
Sloane felt her chest warm at his words. She put a large dollop of frosting on the top of the cake and then spun the turntable to smooth it out evenly with her spatula.
Of course, if he actually knew what she really did he’d be hightailing it as fast as he could toward the door.
“Yeah, well. It pays the bills.”
“Wow, you’re really good at that.”
He took several steps closer to watch her as she used her scraper to even out the frosting all around the cake.
She smiled at him. “I think I like having you around. You’re easily impressed. It’s good for my ego.”
The lines around his eyes crinkled as he smiled back. He watched as she switched out the cake board with another and stacked and frosted the last layer of cake.
“What’s all this for anyway? You having a party?”
Oh. Shit. Um. It was for a party. A sploshing party she had scheduled on cam later tonight. But explaining that strangers paid her to get naked and sit on cakes… yeah, maybe not.
“Something like that.”
He was still smiling but his eyebrows drew together. “You’re a woman of mystery, huh?” He held up his hands. “I get it, I get it, a lady has to have her secrets.”
Would he still be calling her a lady if he knew how some of her patrons reallllly loved it when she smeared frosting all over her ass cheeks after sitting on the cake?
