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The way her clumsy fingers speared through my hair, the tentative way her lips caressed mine back. Who knew innocence was so fucking intoxicating?
I didn’t know how long we stood there beside the sink, kissing like horny teenagers, but I knew I wasn’t ready for it to end. Not anytime soon, at least.
But as always, the universe didn’t give a fuck about what I wanted. She just did what she wanted and at that moment, it meant interrupting the hottest kiss I’d had in way too damn long. My phone buzzed in my pocket, startling Bonnie so she jumped nearly a foot away from me, smacking her arm against the counter in the process. “Ouch!”
I tried to hide my smile but it didn’t work. “Careful. It’s just my phone.”
“Something important?”
I took the opportunity to glance at my phone. An alert I’d set when more information became available on Jack Beck. “Sort of, but it can wait.”
She shook her head. “Work is important,” she said, her tone serious. “I’ll make you a plate and take mine upstairs. The hunt for work never ends.” She turned away, effectively ending the conversation, and I heaved a sigh.
Disappointed, but I understood. Bonnie was scared. Her life was a shit show, and she was in no place to explore whatever this was between us. Not now anyway.
There was still time, at least that was what I told myself as I ate the meatball lasagna and dug into the lives of Jack and Addison Beck.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Bonnie
“Listen sugar, hooking ain’t like it is in the movies. The johns out here aren’t Richard Gere in Pretty Woman. They’re closer to Green River. You can have your limits, sure, but every day you’ll find a man who wants to push ’em.”
Brandee took a long pull of her cigarette as if recounting the details of her day was too stressful. “All I’m sayin’ is that this ain’t no walk in the park. You gonna get fucked in your pussy, your ass and your face all at the same time. You said you have a degree?” I nodded and Brandee shook her head. “Do something with that. Whatever you can.”
I looked around the twenty-four-hour taco shop from the wooden picnic table Brandee and I occupied, thinking about men paying me to have sex.
A sea of faces surrounded us from domestic workers to the abundance of hotel shift workers, all-night partiers and early lunchers, all lined up for gourmet tacos.
“You don’t think I’d be good at it?” I was inexperienced. I knew that, but I thought it might be a selling point.
“Getting fucked in the ass? That’s not what I’m getting at girl. It don’t matter if you’re good at it or not. You wanna be good at fuckin’, get into porn. Hookin’ will chew you up until you’re nothing but little bits of trash. Then, when you reach a certain age,” she motioned to herself, “it’ll spit you out and then where will you be?”
I sighed and sat back before remembering there was no back to support me. “Searching, again, for the unattainable.”
“Exactly,” she smiled and pointed her cigarette at me. “Avoid this path at all costs. You’re beautiful. Get a sugar daddy or a rich boyfriend. It’s a lot easier.”
That wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but I supposed that was why it was so important that I did hear it. And from someone like Brandee.
She was candid about her path, which—like most of the women I talked to this morning—was full of sex and drugs. It was a universal story, and even as the little baggie I managed to score early this morning was burning a hole in my pocket, I listened to their stories.
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
“Maybe,” she shrugged. “Less cruelty, at least in my experience. Let him fuck you when he wants and then go out and spend his money. You’ll always have a nice warm bed to go home to.”
Her words made me think of Calvin and the generous offer he’d made, the one I agreed to even though I woke up when it was still dark and left the house to search for something to stop the shakes. The sweats. The nausea. “Thank you for your candid words, Brandee.”
A slow smile spread across her face; deep lines seemed more profound from her dark desert tan as she shook thick blonde hair that was a little too dry from over processing.
“Candid words, that kinda talk right there is how I know you ain’t cut out for this shit. You talk like a college girl. Put that paper to work, girl.”
“I guess I’ll have to.” And that meant I had no choice but to leave Glitz. This was my home, the town where I grew up. The town where my family’s influence had grown and the town where my name and reputation meant absolutely nothing.
