“What competition?” she asked with feigned innocence. “You don’t seem to actually have a job.”
A couple hundred potential rebuttals went through my brain, but I knew when I was being baited. I also knew when a situation was likely to escalate quickly, and silence was the best way to combat it. We watched each other for a full two minutes before she sighed and put her head down on my shoulder.
“What am I going to do?” she asked again. “Even that apartment is in Melvin’s name.”
“I got some money for you,” I said. I hadn’t actually taken any cash from Melvin, but she didn’t have to know that. I had twenty or thirty grand lying around in the back of my closet. “You already earned it.”
“I’m not taking your money,” she said.
I took her chin in my hand.
“First off, you will take the fucking money because it’s yours, not mine. It’s the money from those fucking bastards who hurt you. Secondly, if I decide to give you fucking money, you’re going to fucking take it.”
“Fucking am I?”
I tried to scowl, but she grinned at me.
“You can earn that money, too,” I said. “As soon as you’re up for it. You don’t even have to have any other clients.”
She gave me a strange look, like she wondered what the hell I was suggesting. I wondered myself until I heard it come out of my mouth.
“Just stay here,” I said.
So much for keeping it only about the sex.
Immediately, the atmosphere between us changed, electrified, and heated the air. Bridgett’s tongue darted over her cut lip as she processed what I had said.
“You want me to…what?” she asked. “Stay here and be your personal whore?”
I paused, thought about it, and decided that yes – that was exactly what I was suggesting. It made sense, in a way. She was here often enough before, and she wouldn’t have to worry about bills and food – just fucking me. That way, it was still just about the sex.
More than anything, I’d sleep better if she was here every night, and I couldn’t help but see that as a positive thing.
I looked in her eyes.
“Stay here,” I said again. “No bills, no pimp, no worries.”
“You’re asking me to move in with you.”
I hadn’t quite thought of it like that.
“I’m saying, instead of me picking you up on some other street corner, you just stay here, and I can fuck you whenever.”
“You can’t be serious.”
I watched her look at me and saw the last thing I wanted to see – the desperate need for it to be true. She wanted it. She wanted to stay here – to live with me – not because it was convenient, but just because she wanted to.
“It doesn’t change anything,” I told her. “This is still what it is.”
“You don’t even try for anything else,” she said quietly.
She was right, of course. I didn’t.
I wouldn’t, and I won’t – ever.
My fingers moved a strand of her hair away from the bruise around her eye.
“I don’t have anything else to give you, Bridgett,” I told her. “This is all there is.”