“Oh, I’m sure you earn a nickel a night on tour.”
“No, actually I don’t.” he said. “That’s RJ’s thing. Not mine.”
“So you’re saying RJ Contreras is more prolific than you?”
“Uh, yeah. He even has one of those coin counters and little brown paper wraps to bring his nickels into the bank.”
I was starting to get a bit antsy. I needed to know the dollar amount I was working with here. My smile melted as I swept hair off his forehead and demanded full disclosure from moneybags. “How much, Bodhi? Give me a ballpark figure.”
And so began the longest, most drawn out calculation I’d ever encountered in my lifetime. Bodhi tallied under his breath, even employing the assistance of his fingers to come up with an acceptable dollar amount. Finally he met my eyes, appearing confident in his answer.
“Before I give you the total,” he said. “I want to voice my objection to this line of questioning.”
“Duly noted.”
“And I feel like whatever I say will be used against me in a court of law.”
“Bodhi,” I blurted out. “The bottom line?”
“Fine $1.65.”
“Wait, is that per person or per time?”
“Same thing.”
He was right. I was using his admission against him. Even though I didn’t know him well enough to judge, my response was still borderline ‘jealous bitch’. “You’ve slept with thirty-three nickels?!”
He shrugged. “Give or take five cents here or there.”
“Bodhi, Jesus. Did you even have time to reload between nickels?”
“I thought this was a judgment free zone. I’m supposed to be safe in the love shack. That’s what your mom said.”
“Yeah, well, she’s full of shit.”
“See. I told you this wasn’t a good idea, but did you listen to me? Nooo… you kept pushing for my bank account numbers.”
“Because I didn’t realize what a slut you were before we started counting money!”
“You’re looking at this in the wrong way. The point I was making is that none of those nickels were spent on the same woman.”
“And that’s supposed to please me?”
“It should.”
“How do you figure?”
“Because, Breeze, you’re my first dime.”
* * *
I was a dime! A dime.
Bodhi’s admission, however unorthodox, warmed me from the inside out and left me all gooey and starry-eyed.
Okay, sure, maybe it wasn’t the most romantic thing to come out of a manwhore’s mouth, but I was batting off the butterflies anyway. Bodhi Beckett could have whoever he wanted, as many times as he wanted, but I was the one who’d changed his spending habits.
Once we were in bed, I couldn’t even think about sleep. “Bodhi?”
