Chapter One
The Last of the Unplucked Jems
“There’s alwaysstripping,” Tori offered from her back on Jem’s ugly carpet.
Sprawled on his sofa—legs over the back, head hanging down to the floor—Jem turned to look at her. “I’m flattered,” he said flatly. “Except for how everything about that sounds terrible.”
The hours, first of all. Jem taught kindergarten; he needed to be in bed at a decent time to keep up with the little gremlins. Then there was the waxing… unless chest hair was in vogue again, which, maybe? Fashion was one thing, but who could keep up with body-hair trends? Who would want to? And Jem could dance well enough, but the idea of anonymous strangers pawing at him had lost its appeal in his junior year of college.
“Well, you’ve got to do something.”
Unfortunately, Tori had a point. Jem’s beloved-but-ancient Prius needed, like, a heart transplant. It was hanging in there for now, held together with duct tape and a prayer, but it wouldn’t last indefinitely, and Jem had depleted his emergency savings four months ago when he broke his foot walking down his apartment stairs in his Crocs and had to take three weeks off work.
“Maybe I could sell a kidney,” he mused.
Tori thwacked him with a pillow. “Be serious.”
“I am.”
“Youonly have one kidney left, Jem. You need it.”
Sighing, Jem let himself roll off the couch entirely. He mostly didn’t land on Tori. “Well, what else am I going to do? Call up my father and extort him for the money to go back to school and become an investment banker?” Jem’s father had traded the right to speak to his illegitimate child for the aforementioned kidney, which hisrealson needed. Considering Jem hadn’t even known who his father was until he was seventeen, he didn’t think the relationship was much of a loss.
Tori barked with laughter. “God, that’s the most depressing thing I’ve ever heard you say. Imagine you in a suit and tie every day, debating, like, stock futures or whatever.”
“Is that what investment bankers do?”
“I don’t know, Jem, I’m a music teacher.”
Maybe Jem should’ve been a music teacher. The subject specialty meant Tori got paid more. “I’m not going back to waiting tables during the schoolyear.” He could handle it during the summer, but, well. Sleep. Jem liked it. And it was only January. “Ugh. I guess I could coach volleyball next year.” That paid extra, and Jem was athletic enough to pass as a coach for preteens.
“Yeah, but you need moneythisyear.”
“Thanks, I’m aware.”
She turned to look at him, her hair fanning out across the floor.
“How doyoumanage it?” he asked.
“I married well.”
Tori’s wife, Ivy, was a lawyer specializing in some kind of software IP. “Right,” Jem said. He paused. “Hey, is Ivy’s brother still bi?”
Tori thwacked him with her arm instead of a pillow this time. “Yes, and he’s still an asshole you hate.”
Oh yeah. That was a deal-breaker. Jem didn’t actually hate Mike. His podcast was funny. The documentary film he and his work partners had doneaboutthe creation of their podcast was hilarious. But spending more than five minutes in a room with Mike made Jem want to swan-dive off the nearest balcony. His kids would miss him.
Tori tapped her fingers against the floor. “You know, while the specifics are all wrong, the concept’s not bad.”
Something in her tone made Jem sit up. “What do you mean?”
Tori sat up too. “I mean, not marrying for money, but like, a sugar-baby situation.”
Jem balked. “You want me to be anescort?”
“No! I mean we should find you a rich sugar parent to line your bank account.”
For a moment Jem let himself process what she’d said. “No, sorry, I am going to need you to explain the difference.”
