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Chapter One
Red
Shovingmykeyinmy apartment door, I open it with a feeling of despair. I try to tell myself that I didn’t want that job at the diner, anyway. The smell of grease and fried food gets into my clothes and lingers for weeks. But I was counting on the tips to pay my electric bill. I’m sixty dollars short and those tips would have been the difference between a hot shower and reading by candlelight.
Flopping on my couch, I think about the evening and where it went wrong. It wasn’t my fault I tripped over a bag that was in the middle of the fucking floor and fell with a tray full of orders. Okay, it’s my fault that I cursed the man out and almost beat his ass for getting in my face, but Gary should have seen that I was in the right before that.
Gary, the uptight manager who thought he ran a five-star restaurant and not a shitty dive bar, comped the guy’s meal—which I think was a kiss-ass thing to do since it was his fault in the first place—and told me to get my shit and go. Real fucking nice way to stand up for his employees.
I only made about fifteen dollars in tips for the three hours I was there, and that’s not nearly enough to make the payment. At least my rent isn’t due and I have somewhere to lay my head—the only silver lining about not having a job right now.
Being out of a job when I need it the most is not high on my priority list. It’s actually pretty fucking low. Grabbing my phone, I pull up the contacts for my best friend and free therapist, Cara, hoping she can make me feel better about the shitty turn of events. If there’s one thing Cara can do, it’s help me put everything in perspective and make me feel like I can tackle the world. She’s good like that.
Her phone only rings once before she’s crooning beautifully in my ear. “Hey, babe! I was just thinking about you. What’s wrong?”
She’s eerie when she does that. Sometimes when shit goes down in my life, Cara will call and ask what’s wrong. Even if we talk almost every day, she knows when I’m having a shitty time of it.
Sighing, I tuck my knee under me and flop my head back on the sofa. “Lost my job today.”
“Aww babe.” I hear rustling over on her end of the phone before she says more. “What happened? Were you late or …” she cuts herself off, then curses. “Someone started shit, didn’t they?”
Fucking. Scary. “Yeah. Some douche had his bag in the middle of the aisle and I dropped an order for a six top. Food fucking spilled everywhere and when I said something about it, he tried to get in my face. It wasn’t pretty.” I cringe, thinking about how I acted today. I wasn’t in the wrong, but I didn’t have to try to attack the guy because he was an ass.
Cara spews a few swear words, then says, “You need money? I can help you with rent or with—”
I cut her off with a groan. “No. I can’t take money from you and you know it. We’ve been down this road.” Cara has been trying to get me to move away from the crappy apartment I live in and into her neighborhood, saying she’ll pay my rent until I get on my feet, but she knows I hate handouts. Something that’s really fucking backwards, because if I get desperate enough and if it’s easy, I will lift a wallet in a heartbeat.
I’m a really smart guy, apparently.
“I know, Red.” She sighs and gets quiet for a beat, and I’m about to let her go so I can wallow when she gasps. “You can work for it!”
“Uh, I don’t think Gary will let me back to work after he just fired me. Not like I’m the best server he’s ever met.”
She giggles, and I hear more shuffling in the background. “No, you can work for me tonight. You’re the only person I know that’s a boy for real, not someone doing it just for pay. You can take this client I just got a request from. He’s looking for a boy that’s a natural. No fake shit.”
Barking a laugh, I shake my head. “His request said, ‘no fake shit’?”
“Of course not,” Cara says. “He said, and I quote, ‘No one that is playing at a kink. I can tell.’ Basically ‘no fake shit’ in more words.”
Even though it’s not much to go on, I’m intrigued. Cara runs a very lucrative escort service, employing someone for any kink there is, as long as everyone involved is of legal, consenting age and no animals are involved. Her website is advertised for modeling services, but everyone knows what she offers. She’s the best—making sure her models are safe and well cared for, paying them well, and giving clients what they ask for. I’ve worked with her a few times before.
“Send me his photo and I’ll tell you if I want to do it or not.” This is why Cara won’t put me on her roster. I am shallow. She knows it, I know it. No amount of money will have me sleeping with someone I’m not attracted to. Attraction varies for me. I don’t have a type, but they have to have kind eyes. If I don’t think their eyes are kind or feel something gentle in their expressions—even if they’re scowling—I will turn down the job. Cara’s models have to be ready to do whatever the client asks of them, no matter if they’re attracted to them or not.
“Already sent, babe.”
Pulling my phone from my ear, the screen illuminates and I see a text from Cara. I suck in a dramatic breath when I open the message and see the handsome man staring back at me. It’s a simple face pic, probably taken in a hurry for Cara’s records. No smile, no expression, but fuck, he is gorgeous. His dark eyes are serious, but they aren’t unkind. His dark brown skin is flawless, a nice goatee framing the most succulent pair of lips I’ve ever seen. He has long dreadlocks that are lightened at the ends, brushing his chest delicately.
In short, I’m looking at a god and I would be an idiot to turn down being his boy for the night.
“Yes, yes, and fuck yes! Set this up, please.” I wonder why he needs a service to find a boy. “Fuck, he’s … fuck.”
“I know, right? If my men didn’t make me very, very happy, I would have taken him up on the offer myself.”
“He asked for a boy, Cara,” I tell her unnecessarily.
“I know,” she says with a sigh. “A girl can dream. He says he’s only in town for the night, so I’ll have to let him know soon if you want to take the job. No one else will do, since no one else is in the life like you.”
Cara has known me since I was in college and she tried to recruit me when she came into one of the many diners I worked at. Although I didn’t take her up on the job offer, we formed a quick bond and over time, I confided in her what I was looking for. She knows I’ve wanted a Daddy for years, only getting lucky once. It was a college professor, and we had a good thing going for about five months until I graduated. I think the taboo nature of our relationship got him off more than the relationship did, so when I was no longer a student, he ended things. At least we ended on good terms. I would have hated for our relationship to have been marred by a shitty break up.
