“Do I?” Recently, I’d noticed that pain had a tendency to rally around one spot at a time, making all the other injuries pale in comparison. I gently touched the area around my eye and winced when I found the offending spot. “Isitbad?”
He laughed, glancing back over at the women still staring in my direction. “Apparentlynot.”
“Great. I’ll use it to slay the ladies thisweekend.”
“Yeah, about that,” my roommate said, visiblysquirming.
“What? You better not be flaking on me.” I glared at Richie, knowing that whatever was about to come out of his mouth would notbenefitme.
“Remember when I said that I had something up mysleeve?”
“You mean from one minute ago? Yeah, Iremember.”
“I gotajob.”
“No way! Really? You got the cable networkpilot?”
“Notexactly.”
“Thenwhat?”
“I got booked for the weekend to escort a rich divorcée to some out of townwedding.”
The words he spoke took time to filter though my brain, but when they finally made their glorious appearance, my eyes bugged out of their sockets. “YOU’RE A MALEESCORT?”
I must have said it louder than I’d intended, as both women’s heads turned away from me and settled squarely on Richie. All of the sudden he was the most interesting train wreck in the room, and they were sufficiently awestruck. After all, it’s not everyday you got to see a well-dressed, articulatestreetwalker.
“Would you keep it down?” he whispered, glancing around at the other patrons. “Jesus.”
“This is awesome, Richie,” I said, grinning from ear-to-ear. “I always knew you had itinyou.”
“Shut up. It’s not what youthink.”
“Well, that’s a relief, because you really don’t want to know what I was thinking. What exactly are you expected to dowithher?”
“Whatever she wants. Within limits, ofcourse.”
“I… wow…. how much does your pimpgetpaid?”
“Haha. Veryfunny.”
I hadn’t been joking. Did Richie fully grasp what he’d committed himself to? He obviously caught my skepticalexpression.
“It’s an agency. Totally legit. You really should try it. Easymoney.”
“Uh-huh. I think I’ll stick to bridge jumping. It seems less dangerous. Are you sure you’ve thought this through? I mean, once you do this, you can’t takeitback.”
“I’m not aprostitute,Finn.”
“Actually, if you have sex with her, you sortofare.”
“I get paid for my time, not sex, but if she’s hot and wants it, I say why not? I’ll throw it in as afreebie.”
“And if she’snothot?”
“I’ll probably still throw it in. My standards aren’trealhigh.”
Thinking back to his crack whore crush, I had to agree. “It sounds like you have it all figured out. But what the hell I am supposed to do about the weekend? I can’t go bymyself.”
