I stare at her when I should be putting her at ease, making her feel comfortable enough that she’ll consider my request. The seconds stretch into a minute, longer.
As the pressure to speak builds, I find myself less able to put my request into words, even though I practised at home like an idiot. Talking to myself in the bedroom mirror like I’d never spoken to a girl before.
“Were you waiting outside long?” she asks when I’m completely frozen, and I breathe out a sigh of relief.
“Not too long.” I smile at the memory. “I knocked on the door before, but Lily answered, which was a bit of a shock. We know each other from school.” Not quite the whole truth but good enough.
“No, you don’t,” she immediately retorts like she knows something. I meet her eyes, ready to rebut her claim, then she adds, “Lily goes to the shittiest high school in the city. There’s no way someone who lives in your ginormous mansion goes to the same place.”
My forehead creases. “You’ve met Zach, haven’t you?”
She nods and I pause for a moment, wondering how much of what Zach, Caylon, and I have done with or to Lily has made it through to her ears.
Rosa seems like an easy girl to confide in. She probably knows more about Zach and Lily’s short but tumultuous relationship than I do. “He goes to McKenzie, too.”
At that, she laughs outright. “Sure, but Zach’s a bad boy.” Her voice drops an octave, becomes so husky that shivers rock out from my core, making my neck tingle. “Are you a bad boy, Mr Weybourne?”
In that second, that’s all I want to be. So bad it would go down in the history books, melting their pages when future students tried to read.
I clear my throat, pulling at the neck of my shirt. I wish I’d taken her up on the offer of a drink because something to do with my hands would be great right about now. Instead, I cast around for some inane small talk, landing on, “Have you lived here long?”
“You mean in this flat?” She glances around as though searching for reminders. “I moved in here back in February, when I turned eighteen.”
“I haven’t seen you at school.”
“At your shit school?” When I glance over, she’s wrinkling her nose with amusement. “Got moved ahead a few years and now I’m at uni. I’m sure if I were still at high school, I’d be stuck at McKenzie, too.”
My skin is a size too small, like I spent all day in the sun and it’s shrinking. I need to get out my offer before I overthink everything and the words stay trapped inside my mouth. “Those boys at the party…”
Her eyes crinkle at the corners. “The ones you beat up?”
“I—” he breaks off, shaking his head. “I mean, yeah, but… They said you were a prostitute.”
“How very nineties of them. Do you want to reword that?”
My eyes widen in panic, sensing a trap. “Sex… worker?”
This time the grin escapes before she can rein it in. “Better. What about it?”
“I wanted to… I wondered if…”
“You said you want to hire me?”
“Yes.” I sit back in my chair, relieved at the lack of surprise in her voice. “Are you available?”
She takes a seat opposite me, hitching her feet up on the crossbar so her knees rest above the line of the table. “I don’t think you want to hire me, Trent. But I can give you some names—”
“No.” I frown at the table, scared to make eye contact in case my mouth-brain connection fails again. “It has to be you.”
There’s a pause as she takes another sip from her drink, moving the coaster around on the table in small circles before replacing her cup. “What do you think I do?”
The question sounds like a test and, glancing at her, it seems like an exam I’m doomed to fail. I sidestep. “What are you studying at university?”
It’s obvious to me she’s doing the job for money. The flat screams of poverty in every warped baseboard, threadbare patch of carpet, and peeling floor tile.
I have money. For as long as I stay on the right side of my dad, I have lots of it. Enough to pay her way through university if that’s what she’s after. Enough to cover every client on her books.
All I need is a way in. An angle to work. A way to find the button to press that means I can get what I need.
