Escort (A Standalone Romance Novel) (New York City Bad Boy Romance) (53 page)

“You
do, though,” I tell him. “When either of you speak, the whole crew listens. You
know what you’re talking about and you know how to help get the best out of
everyone around you. Maybe it’s harder to see from where you are most of the
time because we’ve been holding onto such a small crew for so long, but I know
I can see it.”

“
That’s
what I’m talking about!” Ian
exclaims, pounding his fist on the table.

The
one downside about Ian is that any idea that even subtly resembles anything
he’s ever said is, in his mind,
his
idea.

“What
do you think?” I ask.

Ian’s
already on board, and I have no doubt it’s not going to be long before he’s
lobbying to have his name included in the company banner. José doesn’t seem so
convinced.

“How
many guys are you talking about taking on?” José asks.

“I
don’t know,” I tell him. “It would vary a bit depending on the size of the
first job like this, but I don’t think it’s unrealistic to have, say, twenty,
thirty guys by the end of the month.”

José
smiles, but I don’t think it’s a sign of agreement.

“We’ve
been running a four-man crew,” he says. “Five when we can keep someone new on
long enough. Do you really think we can change everything about the way we work
in a single job?”

“Let
me ask you this,” I start, “José: If I wasn’t there to do it myself, how
confident would you be that you could run the crew, get the work done well and
make a solid name for the company?”

José
looks away.

While
Ian makes no bones about his ambitions, José’s always been more modest. Even
with that, though, he knows he could take the whole company if it came to that.

José
nods.

“That’s
why you’re my number two, and that’s why I can feel confident leaving you guys
to do your thing when something comes up on the business side that I have to
take care of. All we’d be doing is focusing all of our energies in the areas
where we have the most knowhow and the most experience. I think, if anything,
that can only make us better and make the guys working under us better as a
result. What do you say?” I ask. “Maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t. From where
I’m sitting, though, I think it’s our best shot.”

“I’m
in, boss,” Ian says. He puts his hand over the middle of the table like we’re
in one of those kid’s sports movies that are so depressing.

I
close my eyes and shake my head at him and his hand retreats.

“José?”
I ask.

He
still doesn’t look quite convinced.

When
we’re working, he’s the most confident man on the planet. He knows what he’s
doing and he knows how to get the best out of everyone that’s around him.

Outside
that context, though—I don’t know if it’s because I’ve kept him at number two
in such a small crew for so long or what—he’s a lot less self-assured.

“One
thing I do know,” I tell him, “is that if this thing has any chance of working,
we’re not going to be able to do it without you.”

He’s
smiling. José never smiles.

“All
right,” he says. “I’ll do it.”

From
there, the rest of the business lunch—if that’s what we’re calling it—is all
smiles and handshakes. There’s still one big problem, though.

We’re
still just three guys sitting at a table with absolutely nothing but our
enthusiasm to tell us that anything’s going to really change.

We
need to find a job.

Before
leaving the restaurant, I excuse myself for a moment to call Alec.

I
fill him in on what we’re talking about and he seems pretty thrilled over the
chance to “exercise his world-class charm.” Once I remind him that we’re a
legitimate business, not a mafia operation, he’s a little disappointed, but
he’s still on board.

Nothing
has really changed, at least not yet, but for the first time since we got that
job remodeling Jessica’s store, there’s a glimmer of hope that things are going
to finally turn a corner.

When
I get back to the table, I set up a time for all four of us to get together and
further solidify our new roles in the company and develop a strategy for
landing the bigger jobs that we’re going to need to stay afloat.

We
say our goodbyes and we all have smiles on our faces as we walk out of the
restaurant, but with every step I take away from the restaurant and away from
my guys, the less convinced I am that I’ve done anything more than give my crew
one last thing to smile about before we all end up looking for different jobs.

What
can I say? Faith has never been my strong suit.

By
the time I get back to my building, any vestige of a smile has long since
passed, and I’m feeling a rush of anxiety running through me.

Shaking
up the division of labor is a positive step, but that doesn’t mean it’s going
to be enough to save the company.

That
anxiety only grows as I come to my hallway and find Jessica sitting with her
back against my door.

“Hey,”
she says, looking up at me.

“Hey,
are you all right? I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for days,” I answer and
help her up from the floor.

“I’d
rather not talk about it,” she says. “It’s not fair.”

“What’s
not fair?” I ask.

“Well,
we’re still just starting to get off the ground with whatever this is, and it’s
not fair for you to have to carry everything,” she answers.

“I
really don’t mind,” I start, but I don’t get a chance to finish the thought.

“I’d
really rather not talk about it,” she says. “Are you going to invite me in?”

I
unlock the door and open it, motioning for her to go ahead inside.

“I’m
not drunk today, so that’s a plus,” she says.

I
shut the door. “I’m glad to hear that,” I tell her. “I went into a bottle when
my mom—”

“Yeah,
I’d really rather not talk about it,” she says. “I was thinking maybe we could
do something else.”

“What’d
you have in mind?” I ask.

She
lifts an eyebrow and starts undoing the buttons on her blouse.

“Jessica,”
I start, “as much as I enjoy, you know, I think I’d rather talk to you for a
little bit.”

She
stops unbuttoning her shirt, saying, “Well, this is what I need right now.”

“I
know you want to block it all out with sex and liquor—”

“Ah,
but I’m not drunk today,” she says.

“Still,”
I continue, “it’s just putting off dealing with the situation. I hope things
get better for your mom and fast, but you have to deal with what’s going on
right now.”

“Why
do people always say that?” she asks. “Everyone thinks that confronting your
emotions at all times is the best way to stay healthy, but does anyone ever
consider the fact that sometimes it’s just a little much?”

“I
know it’s not easy, but—”

“I
don’t even like my mother,” she says. “I mean, I love her, but she’s never been
the kind of person that I could really share anything with. Every fucking thing
I did was never good enough, and even now, laying in that stupid hospital bed,
she’s still telling me that I should sell the store and go back to working as a
waitress—something about how it’s more suited to my capabilities. Even with all
that, she’s still my mom and I still love her. I don’t know that I can get
through this unless I have some detachment, so come here,” she says,
unbuttoning another button, “hop on.”

Hop
on?

“Jessica,
I don’t know what our relationship is and I don’t know where it’s going, but I
do know that we’re never going to be on a solid footing unless we can start
talking to each other about things.”

“I’ll
tell you what,” she says. “There’s something from you that I want and there’s
something from me that you want. I’d be willing to give you yours if you’ll
give me mine.”

“What
do you mean?” I ask.

“We
do things my way for a while,” she says, “and when we’re done with that, I’ll
answer any question that you have.”

“Just
one question?” I ask.

“That
wasn’t it, was it?” she returns.

“No,”
I tell her. “But I think I’m looking for a little bit more than that.”

“I
don’t think I’m there,” she says. “Maybe if things wouldn’t have happened with
my mom the way they have, it might be different, but we are what we are and the
facts are the facts.”

“I
don’t think it would be any different,” I tell her.

“What
do you mean?” she asks impatiently, sitting on my couch, the front of her
blouse coming open.

“I
mean that you’ve got this need to control everything, even to the point of
self-destruction,” I tell her. “Right now, you’re trying to control the chaos
in your life by turning it into a giant distraction that’s going to end up
solving nothing, only making you resent me for going along with it, and I’m not
going to stand for that.”

“Oh,
you’re not going to stand for it?” she asks. “That’s some pretty tough talk.”

“I’d
rather have no relationship with you than a relationship where you just use me
until you get sick of me or start resenting me or both,” I tell her.

“Use
you?” she laughs. “You think I’m using you?”

“Yeah,”
I answer. “I think it’s pretty clear that you are. We don’t talk for days and
then when you show up on my doorstep, quite literally, you expect me to just
fold and do what you want me to do, regardless of how I think it’s going to
only end up hurting both of us.”

“You
didn’t seem so principled the other night,” she says.

“Yeah,
well the other night, I thought you were just trying to get through a tough
moment. I didn’t know that you were planning on turning it into a means of
evading the harder facts of your life permanently,” I respond.

“Sweetie,”
she says, “you’re good, but I’d hardly say you’ve got the stamina to help me
‘evade the harder facts of my life permanently.’”

“You
know exactly what I mean,” I tell her. “Now, I would love to sit down and talk
and to be here for you, or if you don’t want to talk, I’d be happy to just sit
here and hold you or just sit here and do nothing at all, but I’m not just
going to let you turn you and I into an escape from reality.”

“And
why not?” she yells. “You know what it’s like, having a parent with cancer!
Your mom died; do you really think life would have been easier if you sat down
and talked endlessly about something that you couldn’t control?”

“No,”
I tell her. “I don’t think anything would have really helped me at that moment.
I don’t think that anything’s going to make it all better for you right now,
either. The situation here is terrible and nothing’s going to change that. All
that we can do, all that anybody
could
do, would be to do our best to get through it.”

“That’s
what I’m doing,” she says, her voice filled with anger. “I’m just trying to get
through it.”

“Then
quit running away from it,” I tell her. “Listen, you don’t have to talk to me
about it if you don’t want to, but I have a feeling you’re not talking to
anyone about it.”

“That’s
not true,” she says. “I talk to my sister about it all the time. It’s all we
ever talk about anymore. It’s the same with my dad. It’s the same with my mom.
I’d just love to have one part of my life that wasn’t about that, but I can’t
even stay at work long enough to get anything done. Every day since Mom went in
for surgery, Cheryl’s ended up taking the store because I don’t know how to
even be there right now.”

“How’s
she working out?” I ask.

Jessica
looks up at me with equal parts confusion and irritation. “She’s doing fine.
That’s not my point. The point is that I would like to have just one fucking
person that I didn’t have to talk to about what’s going on with my mom—someone
I can just have fun with without having to worry about every horrible thing
that’s happening in my life right now.”

“Okay,”
I sigh. “We don’t have to talk about that if you don’t want to, but I want you
to know that I’m here if you change your mind.”

“Does
that mean you’ve changed
your
mind?”
she asks. “I’m pretty pissed, but I have heard some good things about angry
sex.”

I
smile.

She
smiles.

“It’s
not that I don’t want to be with you that way,” I tell her. “I just don’t want
to be part of the problem. I’d much rather be part of the solution.”

“See,
that’s where you lose me,” she says. “You tell me that we don’t have to talk
about what’s going on with my mom or at the store or whatever, but then you
tell me that we can’t have sex because it’s going to somehow make things
worse.”

“I
don’t think it’s the sex itself, but everything that comes with it. Sex is an
emotional thing, especially when you’re going through an emotional time. I just
don’t want you forever equating being with me with everything else that’s going
on,” I answer.

“I
won’t,” she says. “Look, I’m not even in the mood anymore, anyway, but can we
just sit here and
not
talk about
anything?”

“Sure,”
I tell her. “Can I get you something to eat, drink?”

“No,”
she answers.

“All
right,” I say, “what would you like to do?”

“Nothing,”
she says. “I really don’t think there’s anything in the world that’s going to
make me happy right now.”

“I
know,” I tell her. “Is there anything that might make you at least feel less of
what you’re feeling now?”

“Other
than sex?” she asks.

“Yeah,”
I answer.

“Nothing’s
coming to mind,” she says and puts her feet up on the couch.

“All
right,” I tell her. “Why don’t we just sit back and watch a movie? I’ll even
give you a massage.”

“How
romantic,” she says blankly.

“You’d
be surprised the difference that comes with the release of tension,” I respond,
but when I’ve said the words, a glimmer of my own hypocrisy becomes clear and
she picks up on it.

“A
release of tension is kind of what I was hoping for in the first place,” she
says.

“Why
don’t we start with a massage and see where it goes from there?” I ask. “Are
you sure I can’t get you anything to drink or eat? I think I have microwave
popcorn around here somewhere.”

“I’m
fine,” she says. “Would you mind if I take off my shirt? You know, for the
massage.”

At
this point, I’m not entirely sure whether standing my ground is going to be a
helpful or a harmful tactic. Denying her what she came here for seems like a
good idea in theory, but I can’t help thinking back to what it was like when my
mom got sick.

I
would have done just about anything to try to get away with what was going on,
and I
did
do just about everything.

I
was nineteen when it happened, when she was diagnosed anyway. After that,
everything just happened so fast.

She
was diagnosed. She was in the hospital. She was gone. I know there was a lot
more to it than that, but it’s the way that I remember it. There was no time to
adjust, to make peace with the fact that she was sick, only after she died.

Then,
there was nothing left
but
time.

Dad
dove headfirst into the business and I was just left there alone. I’d just
gotten my first apartment not long before, but when the diagnosis came in, I
spent most of my time at either my parents’ house or the hospital.

Even
though I worked for my dad and I was almost always surrounded by my brothers,
none of us ever really talked about it.

Before
long, my brothers started moving away from the city, one by one, until I was
the only one left at the company and, although my dad was always there before I
showed up and he was always there after I left, we never said more than four
words to each other at a time, and it was never about anything but work.

I
don’t like beer anymore because I lived off it for almost a solid year after my
mom died. In the end, though, it didn’t even help anymore.

“That’s
fine,” I tell her. “Just make yourself comfortable.”

She
removes her shirt, but quickly takes the blanket from the back of the couch.

“Could
you turn your heater on?” she asks.

I’ve
gotten so used to having to cut back on utilities that I don’t even notice
anymore how cold it’s gotten in the apartment.

I
walk over to the radiator and turn it up; feeling that permeating warmth that
always makes me feel two times as tired as I was before the heat was on.

“Would
you mind if we wait on the massage until the room heats up?” she asks.

“That’s
fine,” I answer.

I
sit down on the couch and she rests her legs on me. It’s nice having this kind
of closeness, but there’s still some pretty thick tension in the air.

Not
wanting the entire afternoon to be just one big awkward silence, I ask her to
tell me a little bit more about herself.

“What
do you want to know?” she asks. “I’m pretty boring.”

“I
doubt that,” I tell her. “Where did you grow up?”

“Not
far from the city,” she says, “although I never really believed that I’d live
here. You?”

“I
grew up in the Bronx,” I tell her. “I came to Manhattan after I took over the
company.”

“How’d
that happen anyway?” she asks.

“My
dad retired,” I answer. “It was either I take the business or someone else did
or we just close the whole thing down altogether.”

“You
know,” she says, “for giving your whole life to it, it doesn’t really seem like
something you’re all that interested in.”

“I
don’t know about that,” I smile. “I love what I do, or at least it pays the
bills. To tell you the truth, I think I’m just doing it because there’s really
nothing else
for
me to do.”

“I’m
kind of the same way,” she says. “I started Lady Bits because I wanted to make
some kind of statement, but it seems like a lot of other people wanted to make
the same kind of statement around the same time, so I don’t know if I’m a
trailblazer or just someone who jumped on the bandwagon.”

“I
think what you do is important,” I tell her. “Granted, I haven’t seen a lot of
action in the plus department because we were always working through there, but
the racks and shelves you had set up for the interim seemed like they were
filled with stuff you don’t normally see.”

“That
was the goal,” she says. “For some reason, people always think that if you’re a
bit bigger than the average, you’ve got to end up in some frumpy crap or else
it’s muumuus until the end of time. I think one of the reasons that women don’t
feel beautiful is that they’re forced into choosing only one kind of clothing
that’s deemed appropriate for their body style, but you give someone the
freedom to choose the same things that are available to all other types of
women and you just see her eyes light up. It’s a pretty wonderful thing.”

“Having
a purpose is a hell of a thing, isn’t it?” I ask.

“Yeah,”
she says, “I guess. After all that bullshit with Burbank, though, I’m not sure
how much longer I’m going to be able to keep the place open. Once the
construction was done, we started getting a lot of our customers back, but once
they got a look at the new prices, I don’t know. We haven’t bounced back yet.”

“Give
it time,” I tell her. “Things have a way of working out, and until then, I’d
say start looking for other suppliers.”

“I
just don’t have the time for that,” she says. “I’ve made a couple of calls, but
Burbank’s got agreements with a lot of the people in town not to undercut his
prices. He really fucked me there.”

I
rub her leg, saying, “I’m sorry about that. I know I’m partially responsible
for it.”

“No,”
she says. “I wanted to blame you—I
did
blame you for a while, but what it really came down to was the fact that I was
already so on edge that the slightest thing would have sent me over just as
much as you did.”

She
leans toward the coffee table and grabs the remote. Flipping on the television,
she surfs through the channels for a while before turning the TV back off
again.

“You
know what’s funny?” she asks.

“What’s
that?”

“Well,
I have these boxes at my parents’ house, boxes full of all the medals and
certificates and shit that I won over the years. I used to go home almost every
night and think about those boxes at least once. When I was stressed, I used to
go through my apartment and figure out where to put everything,” she says. “I
haven’t done that since the last time I stayed at my mom’s, just after she got
sick.”

“What’s
stopping you from picking the boxes up?” I ask.

“I
don’t know,” she says. “The same thing that’s always stopped me, I guess.”

“And
that would be…?”

“Most
people look at stuff like that from when they were a child or a teenager and
they get all misty-eyed and revel in how proud they are that they accomplished
blah, blah or blah, but every time I try to talk myself into opening up that
closet, I just shut down,” she explains. “I guess I don’t want to be reminded
of all the disappointment each of those trinkets ended up being.”

“Let’s
go get them,” I tell her.

“No,”
she says, shaking her head, “I really think I’d be much more comfortable, you
know,
not
doing that.”

“Why
not?” I ask. “I’ll even help you unpack them and set them up. While we’re doing
that, you can tell me about them.”

“They’re
really not that interesting,” she says. “It would end up being like forcing you
to look through a photo album for hours, and I just really don’t feel like it.”

“Come
on,” I say in an intentionally petulant voice.

“Oh
yeah,” she mocks. “
That’s
sexy.”

“I
just want to know more about you,” I tell her, “and I think it might help you
think of better times.”

“I
don’t know that they were better times,” she says. “They were just a little
less bad.”

“Well,”
I tell her, standing up, “let’s change all that. The best way I’ve found to
feel better is to get up and do something. So, grab your shirt and I’ll help
you load up the car.”

She
sits up, the blanket falling from her breasts.

“Or,
you know, we can just go now and leave the shirt here,” I smile.

Finally,
she laughs.

It’s
soft and it’s short, but the sound is sweet in my ears, her smile invigorating.

“Would
you mind if we stop by the hospital first?” she asks. “I’d kind of like you to
meet my mother. I know that’s the sort of thing that usually happens after the
fifth date or something like that, but you know, I think it would be better if
it happened now when we know that…” she trails off.