“—and plan on spending time out here with all of you rather than holed up back in the office. There’s a lot of work to be done, and I know that we’re all working toward the same goal of educating ourselves and others. If you ever have any questions, my door is always open. If I’m not here, Marina has my phone number and email, so you can reach me that way. Any time of day. If you need help—even just a ride to get you to a safe place—you can call me. Or Marina. Or Corey here.”
Well, sure. Except I didn’t have a car. I supposed I could show up on my bike.
“We’re here to help you,” Jeremy said. “And to make sure that this is a great summer for all of us.”
Kai opened their mouth, but Jeremy beat them to the punch. “And I’m thirty-six, bisexual, and single.” He grinned at them, waggling his eyebrows. “But that last part isn’t anything you should concern yourself with since this isn’t a dating profile.”
Half the people in the room looked as if they already had a crush on him. He tended to have that effect on people.
“So!” he said, clapping his hands. “Tell me what’s on your minds?”
Chapter 5: How to Be Creepy With Fruit—A Tragedy by Corey Ellis
“NEED A ride?”
I looked up from the text thread on my phone (Ty, ever the drama queen: I know, but they could have at least told me they were trying to get pregnant!) to see a bright yellow Jeep stop next to the curb in front of the bus stop. The top was off, and Jeremy sat in the driver’s seat, wearing mirror shades and looking like an all-around douchebag.
“Sorry,” I said evenly, my heart stumbling in my chest. “I don’t accept rides in vehicles that look like they’re owned by a sorority girl who got it from her daddy because he doesn’t understand love and affection and buys expensive things instead.”
He looked moderately offended. “I bought it used. And the color is called sunshine, thank you very much.”
I waved dismissively. “That doesn’t help like you think it does. No, I don’t want to go to your rager, Vanessa. Stop asking.”
He looked over his sunglasses at me, brow furrowed. “But all the boys are going to be there.”
I laughed. “It’s not a big deal. The bus is going to be here—”
“Get in,” the woman who sat next to me at the bus stop said. She hadn’t uttered a word while we’d been waiting. I wished she’d kept that up. “He looks loaded and like he’d treat you right. Back in my day when a man stopped and offered something, we took it.” She paused, considering. “After coming to an agreement on prices and making sure our pimp was okay with it.”
I turned to stare at her slowly. “I’m not a sex worker.”
She squinted at me. “Are you sure?”
“What the—yes!”
She shrugged. “You’ve got the body for it. I’ve never thought about pimping before, but maybe I could start now. Lord knows working at Walgreens isn’t as exciting as it used to be. What do you think? You want to be my first?”
I stood abruptly, shouldering my backpack as I walked toward the Jeep. Jeremy was laughing as I pointed a finger at him. “The only reason I’m getting in this vehicle is because I think I was about to be conscripted into a job I didn’t want.”
“Sure,” he said. “Of course.”
“I get seventy percent!” the woman yelled after me. “And bring him back in two hou
rs or I’ll have to come after you. Hold on a second so I can write down your license plate in case you’re a murderer and I have to go to the police.”
“You hear that?” I asked mildly as Jeremy started to look panicked. “You can’t murder me.”
He gunned the engine (what an asshole) and pulled away from the curb.
IN AGREEING to accept a ride from Jeremy in his ridiculous car to get away from potentially becoming a sex worker to a pimp who worked at Walgreens, I wasn’t necessarily thinking about the fact that I’d be trapped in a car with him. And even if I had, I didn’t live that far away from Phoenix House. The trip should have taken ten or fifteen minutes at the most.
Except it was just after five, which meant rush hour. And to make things worse, Tucson seemed to be perpetually stuck in a state of everything is under construction at all times everywhere.
Meaning that only a few short moments after we left the bus stop, we came to backed-up traffic that barely moved.
In June.
In Arizona.