I scoffed. “I wish. I grew up in this city, but almost everyone from high school moved on, and we didn’t keep in touch.”
“What have you been doing since high school? You’re what? Nineteen? Twenty?”
“Twenty, although I might invent a birthday soon, so Sully will let me enjoy a drink without harassing me about it.”
He slowed down at a stoplight and glanced at me. “Do you work, or does your sugar daddy take care of you?”
“Shut up! Sully’s not my sugar daddy.”
“You work, then?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. I work for him.”
He grinned. “I think you mean you work under him.”
I burst out laughing, liking him even more in person than when we’d played together and texted on the phone.
“Seriously, I work for the guy.”
“Doing what?”
“You can think of me as an escort.” It was the only way I could think of describing what I did for Sully without giving our work away.
“I wouldn’t mind being an escort for a guy like that. Where did you find him?”
“If I told you, you probably wouldn’t want to be friends anymore.”
“Seriously? Dude, you’ll think differently when you get to know me more. I shake my ass on stage for money.”
“That’s nothing. He picked me up one night when I was still working the streets as a prostitute.”
“You? Wow.”
Shit, maybe I shouldn’t have told him that.
“Wasn’t it weird?” he asked. “Sleeping with so many guys in one night?”
“At first, but you get used to it. If you’re great at it, you can charge more and sleep with fewer guys.”
“And of course, you charged more. I hope you don’t mind talking about it. If I make you uncomfortable, please tell me. I have a penchant for asking too many questions, and before you know it, you’re telling me about the most unexpected thing you encountered.”
Tack seemed okay with what I used to do. He didn’t make it awkward by pretending I hadn’t told him, but he did have an inquisitive mind and asked me so many questions that dredged up memories I could laugh at now but hadn’t found funny then. By the time he parked at the mall, I was laughing so hard my insides hurt. I could see him becoming one of my favorite people.
We climbed out of the car, and it was only fair to ask him about his job as a stripper. It turned out that wasn’t all he did. He studied forensic science at the university.
“Wow, you don’t look like any of the science geeks I knew back in high school.” I looked him up and down as we walked through the automatic doors of the mall.
“I was shy in high school.” He shrugged. “But I made myself a promise that when I graduated, I wouldn’t live the rest of my life letting people define who I was. So I love science, I love being a kitty, dancing on stage and the attention it gets me, and I love me a good hard pounding, though there’s been less of that lately.”
He winked, and I laughed at his antics. He was a great guy, and I couldn’t wait to invite him over to hang out with Sully and me.
“How do you feel about blind dates?” I asked him.
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“His size.”