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“How are things with your mum?” Zoe asks, securing her dark, wavy hair back away from her face with a glittery clip.
“Awful,” I groan, throwing myself back down on the bed. “I can’t wait to move out, but I’m struggling as it is to keep up with my classes, and that’s without the added pressure of a job.”
My strained relationship with Mum is nothing new. When she’s sober, we can almost have a normal mother-daughter relationship, but drunk-every-night Melanie becomes a clingy, insecure, selfish, dependant whore who puts any ounce of male attention ahead of everything else, including her own daughter.
It’s been worse than usual lately, with the divorce proceedings dragging on longer than expected. I shift, ignoring the pang in my chest, thinking about Logan. God, I can’t believe it’s been a whole year since I last spoke with him. He was the closest thing I’d ever had to a father, so I was upset when Mum ruined everything by cheating on him. I follow his career in the media and while I have thought about reaching out to him more than once, I always talk myself out of it.
Things just feel awkward between us now, especially after the lies Mum spread about his relationship with me. He never acted inappropriate toward me, no matter how much I might have wanted him to. I doubt he even thought about me like that.
“You can stay here as often as you like, you know.”
I smile, grateful for my friend, but we both know her tiny apartment is barely big enough for her, let alone a roommate. An occasional sleepover is fine, but it’s hardly a long-term solution.
“Thanks, but I’ll figure something out. What I need is a job that will pay me ridiculous amounts of cash for doing practically nothing,” I hint, hoping she’ll spill the tea. “What’s with the sexy, ridiculously expensive dress, anyway? Hot date?”
“Uh, not exactly…” Her gaze falls as she avoids eye contact, a true telltale sign that she’s keeping something from me.
“Okay, Zo.” My blue eyes narrow. “What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?”
“Come on, Zo.” I wave my arms over the mound of dresses on her bed. “All these new clothes and the cash you’ve been waving around. Something is up. Are you a secret spy?” I tease as colour fills her cheeks. “Out with it, Double-oh Zoe. We’re besties, right?” I plead. “You tell me everything.” I reach for her hand, sensing that she’s breaking.
“Fine, I’ll spill, but only if you stop looking at me like that.” She groans, giving in. “But you have to promise not to tell anyone.”
“Who am I going to tell?” I snort.
Zoe sits down on the bed next to me and presses her lips together. I’ve never seen her so nervous, like what she’s about to tell me is even bigger than the theories I’ve got running around in my head.
“Okay, so I have this job at a club—”
“What kind of club?” I interrupt.
“Stop cutting me off and I’ll tell you.” She rolls her eyes, pushing a rouge strand of hair back behind her ear. “It’s basically a club offering sexual services to people who want to remain completely anonymous because of their very high-profile jobs.”
I blink at her. “You mean like celebrities and politicians and stuff?”
She shrugs. “I couldn’t tell you.”
“You couldn’t tell me?” I repeat with a laugh. “Or youwon’t?”
“Honestly, I couldn’t, even if I did want to. I never see who I’m with. It’s the whole point of the club,” she explains. “I’m blindfolded before I go into the room, and I’m not allowed to take it off until after the client has left.”
“You never get tempted to peek?” I tease her.
“Sure I do, but I don’t.”
“What stops you?” I prod, sure if it were me, I’d have that blindfold off so fast the guy wouldn’t know what hit him. What’s he going to do, sue me for the twenty dollars in my bank account?
“The fact that I’d get my ass sued if I did. The NDA they make you sign is serious. Like pages and pages long kind of serious. Not only that, I like my job and it pays really well. I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize it.”
“So, what kind of things do you do?” I ask, wide-eyed. I have never known anyone who has been paid for sex before, and I have to admit, I am curious. “Is it just sex and blow jobs and stuff?”
Her eyes shine. “Mostly it’s pretty basic, but there are a couple of clients who like to push the limits. Even though you can’t see them, after a while, you get to know their kinks well enough that it’s easy to figure out if you’re with a particular client.”
“Wow,” I shake my head, shocked to learn this about my friend. “How did you get the job?”
“My cousin works there. She put a good word in for me.”
