Helenhad started taking an occasional escort client again. The legend herself had come out of retirement.
Why?
Maia obviously didn’t need the money. It wasn’t like she’d struggle to find a date either. So why would she bring her escort alter ego out of retirement?
It felt like she was taunting me, but it was a giant leap to imagine that her escorting again had anything to do with me.
But I couldn’t stop asking myself the question.
No sooner had the thought hit me than the room started to sway. For a split second, I wondered how much I’d had to drink the night before, but the light fixtures were rattling.
An earthquake.
I threw the covers back and sprinted for the doorframe, losing my balance along the way, but made it to the door between the bathroom and the bedroom.
But then I remembered that wasn’t what you were supposed to do anymore. Something about getting under a sturdy piece of furniture.
I carefully wove my way across the hall, practically crawling as the whole house swayed, but I made it into the office and got under my desk just as the rolling motion stopped.
It didn’t matter how long I lived in LA or how many earthquakes I felt, something about the ground literally shifting always messed me up. The swaying, rolling motion that defied the laws of physics was a reminder that I wasn’t in control of any of this, not really.
It was what being on tour felt like, caught in the momentum of something bigger than myself, having to surrender to the wave or get crushed by it.
Great. Now I’m hiding under a desk having a fucking existential crisis.
#thisisthirty
I was a mess and couldn’t afford to spiral the way I did towards the end of our last tour and the dark months that came after that. As hard as it was to be in constant motion, it was the stillness that ate me alive.
I slumped back against the desk, returning to the thought I’d been trying to escape. Maia was escorting again. Would she take me as a client? Even if it was just to talk to her. I had to know what that had been about at my brother’s house.
I’d broken down and asked my brother for her number, but she didn’t pick up, as if she knew it was me. Showing up at her work felt extreme…and there was the whole part about me being recognizable and it being fucked up to put her on the spot where people would be watching and taking pictures.
But if she would entertain taking me as a real client?
I needed to get her out of my system once and for all, to recognize that I’d had her on a pedestal for all these years and she didn’t belong there. One night was all I needed to prove the memory couldn’t live up to reality. Or maybe it could…but it was just sex. Could it be as good as it was now that I didn’t care about her anymore?
I remembered the way she’d glared at me when she left my brother’s house. No chance in hell she’d agree to a date.
Before I knew what I was doing, my phone was in my hand calling my lifeline, my batshit lifeline Ophelia, who most of the time was one of my entertainment attorneys, but she had the power to make this happen.
She answered on the second ring despite the late hour. “My favorite Rock Daddy. How may I serve you?”
She’d probably see through my bullshit, but I didn’t want to let her know how badly I wanted Maia.
“I need a…date.”
“I thought you’d never ask. Pick me up at eight?”
“You know that’s not what I mean, Ophelia.” Sometimes I genuinely wondered whether fucking with people was what she got off on.
She sighed dramatically. “Looking for anything in particular?”
“An experienced pro. And it needs to be tonight.” We were flying out to start the tour, so I had one shot at this.
Ophelia said, “What about Reaper? The Sex God himself. Doesn’t get more experienced than that.”
“I’m well acquainted with Reaper. A sex god he may be, but there’s something off about that guy. I swear he’s a vampire or something.” I’d hooked up with him once at a party and it was a weird experience. He was amazing in bed, but like a psychological black hole that left me emotionally strung out.
