“Still a shocker, but also not really. I shoulda seen it coming and warned you.”
“I didn’t need a warning, girl. Just a heads-up.”
“Hon, I’m gay, you know what I meant.”
“Anyway…” Eden stared at the soup in her spoon. “I obviously haven’t talked to them about it yet. Not unless I’m kinda sure I wanna do it again, but it would depend onsomany things. Even Ben, I think, would encourage me to do it just to make the money. But that man has definitely never dated a sex worker before. Which apparently I am now.”
“You were a few weeks ago, too.”
“Yeah, but like…you’rea full-time sex worker. You stream, entertain, and do all sorts of sexy stuff in front of strangers every weekend. If anything, the island was a vacation from that!”
“Um, do you know how much dick I saw? Way too many people got frisky right in front of my bar despite there being big signs sayingno fucking in the food and drink areas.Animals, I swear.”
Eden chuckled. “Imagine how much I saw.”
“At least you like it.”
Indeed. “What do you think I should do?”
Blair put down her phone and looked at her salad and minestrone. “Well, there’s whatmygirlfriend would tell you to do, which is get paid to get laid. But we’re talking about a lesbian who has male clients.”
“That’s gotta be a mindfuck.”
“That woman compartmentalizes for money like you would never believe. She’s fucking corrupted me.”
Eden took that flippant comment to heart.Should I be chasing money when I’m seeing two guys?From an outsider’s point of view, it was probably a no-brainer – one way or another. Either Eden was stupid fornotprioritizing her financial future, or she was stupid for risking her relationship with either Liam or Benson.Or both!She didn’t know how long it would go with both of them, but why wouldn’t she try to push for as long as feasibly possible?
“I’ve got a lot to think about,” she muttered.
Blair glanced at the bags by their feet. “Says the woman who bought a Butterfly fit.”
Eden didn’t defend herself. Besides, not everything was what it seemed.
“She’ll get over it,” Benson said, sitting on Eden’s loveseat on Wednesday evening. He had come straight from work with takeout dangling from his hand. It was their first time seeing each other since she dropped by his place Sunday.Which was the first time since Liam invited him over for all of us to have sex, apparently.Eden occasionally thought about it while cuddled up to her boyfriend, their takeout boxes scattered around her small kitchen. “Drew is at that stage where she is both a mature adult and a total teenager with poor emotional regulation. Surely, you remember. Because I do.”
“To be fair, I was also worried that our age gap could cause problems.”
“Well, it hasn’t. My firm knows about it and hasn’t said anything. Honestly, they were more upset about…”
Eden bit her lip. “Liam?”
He sighed.I know he doesn’t like talking about it, but…The more Benson opened up, the easier it became tobringit up. “You have to understand, my partners aren’t necessarily homophobic. But our industry can be, and so are many of our clients. I hate it. I hate that even my getting divorced lost me a few people long-term, but even Perkins has been divorced. As far as I’m concerned, my business is my own. My clients’ business istheirown. But they make our personal business their business. When I told them I was engaged to another man, and we were gonna move in together… well, I won’t say my partners were unhappy, but they were worried.”
“That’s so messed up.”
“So, no matter which one of you I’m openly dating, someone’s pissed off. That’s life. I can pick between work and personal, and I’ve long decided that personal matters more to me.”
Eden put her hand on his arm. “Which means…”
“Which means my business is mine. Doesn’t matter if I’m with a man or a younger woman.”
She cuddled up to him. “I think that’s quite noble.”
“Well, it’s easy for me to say. My daughter’s grown, I’ve been divorced, and I have been making great money for almost twenty years. I’ve learned lessons the hard way. I’ve also been smart with my investments. An ongoing income is preferable, but I’ll be fine if I lose my job.”
“But aren’t you a partner?”
“There are ways of pushing me out if they deem it necessary to keep the firm going. Granted, they’d have to buy me out, and that’s worth tens of millions right there…”
