Escorting the Player (The Escort Collection 3)

I thought of Jess, watching Avery and Lila, her arms crossed against her chest.

"I know," I said.

* * *

AVERY

I was headed to the kitchen when I heard Chase yelling out back. I went toward the door and then froze. "Remember? Your little pep talk?" he barked into his phone. "When you talked me into this in the first place?"

I opened my mouth and then closed it, listening to the rest of the conversation even though I knew it was wrong.

She asked Avery for money.

She doesn't work…sponges off Avery…doesn't care that her baby sister's turning tricks…

And the clincher. This was a bad idea.

He was talking about me. And Lila. And he didn't sound happy about any of it. In fact, he sounded positively furious.

I looked out the window and saw his face, which was normally open and happy. It was now pinched and angry.

I fled for the relative sanctuary of my room. A jumble of emotions fought for dominant position inside me as I paced, wringing my hands together.

Lila was ruining everything. But what else was new?

What was I really upset about?

I needed the money from this assignment. If I didn't get it, I would have to keep hooking. There was no other way I was going to make ends meet. I didn't have anyone to take me in, Lila didn't seem interested in earning a paycheck, and my landlord certainly wouldn't do us any favors.

But even though the money was the reason I was here, it wasn't the thing I cared about. That's not why I was in my room, pacing, on the verge of tears.

It was Chase. It was his tone, discussing me as if I were a stranger. An inconvenient problem to be solved.

The hired help.

I thought I'd felt something real between us over the last few days. It was the way he'd looked at me, held me, called me babe. Was that all an act? So he could get laid?

A star NFL quarterback, a gorgeous one, didn't need to manipulate their way into lady parts. Or pay to get in there, for that matter. But was that what Chase was doing? Even though he'd bought my services, did he feel like it was necessary to charm me first? To assuage his guilt?

Mr. Golden Boy couldn't deal with fucking a hooker, so he made it seem like he was winning me over… Was that true? Is that what had happened between us?

I stopped pacing and looked at myself in the mirror. That wasn't what had happened to me. It was something much worse.

It was real feelings.

* * *

I went to practice with Chase every day. I hadn't told him about the conversation I'd overheard because I didn't know what to say. Pax was gone, traded to Tennessee. Jess had gone with him and was posting their every carefully choreographed and filtered move to social media.

We settled into a routine, but I felt unsettled. Chase was right next to me, but I didn't know what he was thinking. I also didn't know how long our arrangement would continue to last, or how I was going to deal with it ending.

Real feelings were a real pain in the ass.

I made dinner every night. Chase and I were back to binge-watching Game of Thrones. The characters were being treated egregiously, in my opinion. I'd started watching with the covers pulled up to my nose. Bad things kept happening. But still, I couldn't turn away.

I was in too deep now. I cared too much.

We were back to having sex, too. But it was different. Now every time I came, I felt like I was going to cry. Emotions were a seriously messed up thing. As far as I was concerned, mine could go fly a kite.