Tease (Tease 1)

My last serious relationship had been in college. We’d married at eighteen and divorced at twenty. Relationships are hard work, and you don’t really understand that when you’re eighteen. You think so long as there’s love, everything else will fall into place. Things are never that simple though. The pressure of studying, working, and trying to maintain a marriage had proven too much for us. It got to the point where we were arguing more than we were talking.

Walking in on her and my best friend, Max, had sent me into one of the darkest times of my life. How do you move past that? When the person you love most in this world betrays you in the most intimate way, how do you deal and move on?

Apparently, twenty-year-old Coop thought copious amounts of alcohol and women were the answer. They didn’t really do much for me, apart from offering a temporary dull from the pain. It always came back stronger and worse than before, requiring more women and more alcohol.

My ex-wife, Kara, had ended up transferring out of state. With her out of my life, it made things easier. Just the fact that I could grab a coffee or walk around campus and know I wasn’t going to run into her made things much easier. I cut down on the partying and focused on my grades, and pretty soon after that, my life changed.

It’s amazing how quickly your life can change, for the better or worse. That was the thing about life: you never knew what was waiting for you around the corner. Everyone faces obstacles, and it’s how you deal with them that makes you the person you are. I treat everything that has happened to me thus far in life as a challenge that is there to help me be a better person.

Then again, I’m a male escort, living alone, lying to my family. Maybe my life isn’t as perfect as I pretend it is.

Chapter Two

I left the hotel just after eight.

While walking to my car, I checked my messages. There was one from my sister, Nic, asking me to come by after work. She lived just around the corner with her husband and two kids.

Nic and I had a very close relationship. Losing Dad at such a young age, I’ve always felt like I needed to step up and protect Mom and Nic and be the man of the family. Ten-year-old Coop had taken on a paper route so he could help out with the bills. Getting up at three every Sunday morning had been hell, but it had made me feel like I was doing something positive for the family—even if it was only bringing in an extra twenty dollars a week.

That need was even stronger now, especially with Mom the way she was. There was a big reason why I pushed myself to work so hard, and it had everything to do with that need to provide for my family. Like everyone, I’d had the “what the hell am I doing with my life” moments where I think to myself I’m better than this. The guilt I feel when I think about how my mother raised me and what I’d become gets to me and the worst part of that is that I do what I do for my family.

Pulling up outside their house, I got out of the car and walked up to the front door. I rang the bell and listened to the sound of footsteps—too heavy to be either of my nieces—hurrying up the hall. The door swung open and Nic smiled at me.

“Hey you,” she said, kissing my cheek. “The kids are in bed, finally! If you wake them, they’re going home with you,” she joked. “You want some dinner?”

“Sure,” I replied, kicking off my shoes.

I followed her down to the kitchen, passing through the living room on the way. I loved their house. Granted, it was pretty small, especially for a family of four, but it had such a nice feel about it. Toys were scattered everywhere, and every step was a potential deathtrap, but I loved that. It wasn’t about having the newest furniture, or the having the nicest garden; it was all about having a comfortable home where the kids were free to play.

“How are you guys? How’s Jake?”

As if on cue, Jake walked in. He grinned. “Hey, Coop.” He slapped me on the back. “Beer?” He grabbed two of them out of the fridge. I didn’t need to answer. I never turned down a beer and he knew it.

“What’ve you been up to? How’s work?’ he asked, tossing me a can.

I shrugged as I cracked it open. “Not much. The usual: work. More work.” I grinned. “I just knocked off now, actually.”

“Ah, insurance. I don’t know how you do it. Damn boring.” He shook his head and I managed a small smile. “You’re working late for a Monday.”

Yeah. My family thought I sold insurance.

When your sister is as nosy as mine is, you have to cover all bases if you are going to convincingly lie about what you do. I’d taken my ‘insurance’ career pretty far, all things considered. I had business cards, a registered business name, two separate phones—one for personal use and the other for work. I worked hard to keep everything separate. Emails, laptops, filing—it was all kept well away from my personal life. I worked hard to ensure the two would never overlap.

I had a post office box where all my work-related mail was sent. Legally, I was registered as an escort. Legally, I did everything by the book, from declaring my income to paying my taxes, but when it came to my family, they’d never know what I did for a living.

Even after six years, I’d never gotten around to having the “Hey, I’m an escort!” discussion. Not that I thought Nic and Jake would judge me. It was more that I loved Mom too much to have her think I was in some sort of situation that I wasn’t happy with, and that’s exactly what she would think—not that it would be a far stretch from the truth. If mom wasn’t sick would I still be doing this? Probably not.

I craved her happiness and would do anything to make her proud of me, even if that meant lying about my job. And she was proud of the man I’d become.

On the days she could actually remember who I was, anyway.

Mom was only fifty-three, and suffering from advanced stage Alzheimer’s. It had begun very early, at age forty-three, with her forgetting little things, like appointments and dinners. Ten years later it had quickly progressed to significant memory loss, to the point where she needed twenty-four-hour care in a specialized facility.

Losing Dad to cancer, then Mom being diagnosed with this were big factors in my decision to study medicine. At sixteen, I’d thought if I could stop even one from family going through the pain we had been through, it would make all those years of study worth it. When I’d realized how much money escorting could make me, I realized my time could be better spent raising the money to get her the care she needed.

Looking at her, she was still my mom, but to not see that little spark of recognition in her eyes when I walked in the room was heartbreaking. Regardless, I had to remain strong for both Mom and for Nic.

I also had to ensure enough money was coming in that she could remain at one of the best facilities in New York, and to keep her in the clinical trial she was enrolled in. Without my job, there was no way in hell I could afford that trial or her accommodation. Not even close. There was no guarantee it would help her at all, but if there was a chance it could reverse or slow the effects of her disease, then I was as sure as fuck going to take it.