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There is money on top of it.
Two crisp one-hundred-dollar bills.
I’ve never seen a hundred-dollar bill in person.
And now there are two of them right there on the floor, resting on my dress like leaves blown in on a windy day.
They lie there, benign enough as the pieces of paper they are, but dirty and sinful enough to remind me of what I just did.
I didn’t know Max was going to leave me money. But now that I have it, it takes no time at all for my thoughts to round the bend from thinking I’m an awful slut to how I can now pay for another bookkeeping course.
Heck, it will cover the textbook too.
Footsteps in the hallway pass Room 21, gratefully yanking me out of my trance. I grab the money and fold it tightly, tucking it into my sneaker, and pull up my dress. I manage the buttons with one hand while I run around the room, straightening it out with the other.
Max and I didn’t make much of a mess, thank goodness, at least compared to what I was accustomed to seeing, and in moments everything looks as perfect as it did before he arrived. My fantasy land is restored.
Just when I grab my cleaning tote, the door to Room 21 is flung open.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Gwen barks, flying into the room with Izzy—therealIzzy—on her heels.
There was a time when I would wince at Gwen’s coarse language. But I’ve grown used to it. Everyone around me curses, like it’s a normal part of speech. People here at the club, people in my bookkeeping course, people in public. It’s like I’m the only person on the face of the earth who still saysdarnandheck. Well, me and the folks back at home.
“G… Gwen, he just came in. I didn’t know what to do,” I stammer.
While her hostile eyes bore holes into my soul, I consider other places I might find a job on short notice.
The job board at school has been looking a bit sparse lately, so that’s a no-go. Maybe my friend Charleigh knows of something? Her father has a shop, I remember her saying. Although it would be a long drive to get there.
“So, Luci, a top club member comes into the room and you pretend to be Izzy?” Gwen spits.
Izzy looks between the two of us, hands on hips. But her expression doesn’t contain the same anger Gwen’s does. In fact, she seems to be suppressing a little smirk.
She thinks this isfunny?
“I… I didn’t pretend to be Izzy as much as he assumed Iwasher. He just jumped into things. I went along with it,” I say, trying to steady my voice. “I didn’t think I should say no.”
I didn’twantto say no.
It’s hard to know which is more nerve-wracking—Max mistaking me for Izzy, or Gwen getting mad at me for it.
Of course, she’s going to be upset with me. What was I thinking? I had every opportunity to tell him who I really was. And yet, I didn’t. My desires—my terrible, sinful desires—got the better of me.
“Hey, Gwen, I gotta head out,” Izzy says, winking at me when Gwen isn’t looking.
Gwen waves her away, her lips pursed into an angry little line. “Playing out scenes with members is not your job, Luci, in case I need to remind you. What you did was entirely inappropriate—”
“Excuse me, ladies.”
My gaze snaps from Gwen’s angry face to... Max.
What’s he doing back here? Is there an issue? Did he find out I’m an imposter?
Does he have a complaint? And does he want his money back?
I think about the two hundred-dollar bills in my shoe and scrunch my toes, as if that would protect them.
I need that money. Iearnedthat money.
