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“I’mnotdoing this,” I tell her, my cheeks flushing.
“He’s there to show you a good time,” Jenny says, crossing her arms and giving me that mile-long stare that ensures she’s gotten her way again.
“What the hell, Jenny, this is so not okay,” I grumble.
“You tell me all of the time how you want adventure. This is your birthday present. You’re sure to have an adventure,” she insists. We stare each other down. I realize I’m losing this battle. My little sister might look like a Barbie doll, but she’s stubbornand determined and incredibly brilliant. We basically tied on our SAT’s. She likes people to think she’s all beauty and no brains. It allows her to surprise them.
I look over at Rich and he shrugs again. “I spoke to the agency. They’re legitimate and do extensive background checks on all of their men. There’s never been an issue. You absolutely don’t have to have sex. Youshouldn’thave sex. But you can have a super amazing date. The package that Jenny bought ensures it’s spectacular. Then you can go home.”
“I’m really worried about you, Cor. You never have fun anymore. We used to have so much fun together. Please do this for me,” she says, switching from stubborn to pleading with a sheen of tears in her eyes. It might be part of the manipulation, but I’ve never been good at upsetting my baby sister. She might be fierce, but she also has a really delicate side to her.
“You do talk about wanting adventure,” Rich says. He’s still not fully on board, but he worries about me too. I hate that I worry my siblings.
“This is insane,” I say, but I’m backing down.
Jenny claps, her smile returning and her eyes sparkling with joy. She scoots next to me and holds up her camera. “Smile,” she says. I do so as she clicks a picture. As much as she might drive me crazy at times, I love her beyond measure.
“I’ll think about it,” I concede.
“Yea! Now, let’s eat, and we can plan our next sibling retreat,” Jenny says.
“We don’t have sibling retreats.”
“That’s going to change. You have all summer off and I want our brother to whisk us away to some exotic place where we have fling after fling.”
Rich again chokes as he glares at Jenny. “Number one: I’m not taking you anywhere men are going to be pawing all over you. And number two: you aren’t exactly broke.”
“I’m not broke because I have people take me on trips,” she says as she bats her eyes at him, making him laugh. I join in.
“You both make life a lot more interesting,” Rich says before stuffing his mouth with a large bite of his Italian Panini.
After lunch we part at the bus stop and I make my way back to the school. There’s no way I’m doing this. I said I’d think about it to appease Jenny, but I’m not going off with some random stranger who works at an escort service. That’s simply foolish. That’s how people end up buried eight feet down.
I make my way into my dull office with the weight of the world on my shoulders. This is crazy. I need to stop thinking about it. Then there’s a knock on my door.
Chapter Four
Courtney
Expecting a student in my doorway, I’m taken aback when a man looks in on me, a smile of disbelief on his face, his shoulders so wide he nearly fills out the entire doorway. Sparkling green eyes gaze at me as if I’m beneath a microscope, and full lips tilt up the slightest bit. My heart stalls.
Number one: I can’t believe my siblings were serious. Number two: what in the actual hell? Iknowthis man, and can’t believe he’s a male escort. Okay, well, maybe a part of me can believe he’s an escort, but still...
Standing in the doorway is a man I never thought I’d see again, a man who’d once shattered my heart so badly I’m still not the same person I’d been back then — a man who left me long ago. When my heart begins beating again, it’s at such a fast pace, I wonder if it’s visible to him.
“Cori?” The word comes out in a hushed whisper as he looks at me in wonder. He’s analyzing me, searching my eyes as he makes the connection. It’s been ten years since I’ve seen Blaze, and that still isn’t enough time. He was my fantasy when I was a young adult. I didn’t think I was good enough for him — I was right — he left.
He looks back at me and waits. I open my mouth to speak and find my voice gone. I’m a professor for goodness sake — speaking is how I make a living. I’m not going to let this man turn me into that sparkly-eyed little girl I’d once been.
Clearing my throat, I nod. “I’m professor Courtney Blaire,” I correct him, deciding to leave off “the third.” I actually hate it. When I was younger, I’d thought it was sort of cool, but then as I aged, kids looked at me like I was an alien when I said it. Some thought I was a snob, others just thought I was a geek. Either way, I don’t appreciate my parents adding it to my birth certificate.
Blaze stands in the doorway looking at me, analyzing me, assessing me. I’m used to this. Though I’m a respectable twenty-eight-year-old, I was blessed with fair skin that makes me look more like eighteen — the age I was when I met Blaze.
My mother swears I’ll appreciate this in another ten years. But when I’m teaching eighteen-and nineteen-year-old students, I’d really like to appear at least a few years older than they are. Most of my students assume I’m the T.A. It usually takes me a while to convince them I’m not — even with the glasses and severe hairdo I’m still mistaken for a student by other faculty members as well. I’ve been asked to leave the teachers’ lounge several times, forcing me to keep my college ID handy.
And when it comes to Blaze, he only knew me as Cori. Our summer together, the year I graduated from high school, was pure magic and I didn’t want to ruin it by being myself. I was only Cori that summer — a free-spirited, happy young woman on the verge of becoming an adult. He was the one to take me there again and again. Then we parted ways.
I try to get my bearings as I gaze at him in my doorway. He shakes his head as if he’s trying to clear it. I see his confusion as I feel it myself.
