Callboys

by SororityProblem

  This chastened her, and she cleaned up the broken glass with her tail between her legs. Finally she decided to relax with the help of the full bar in the corner of the room, and as the clock ticked closer and closer to meet-up time she became almost excited. Nate seemed perfect: hotter than July in Atlanta but still sort of sweet and friendly looking, soft-spoken but confident, and clean-cut enough to bring him around a crowd like the Four Seasons one. He’d fit everything she’d been looking for in a real boyfriend, in fact, the only problem being that he was only destined to be a fake one. She had absolutely no idea how to act around him, or if he would like her, or if he would even talk to her once she opened the door and showed herself in all of her unattractive glory. But hey, wine was cheap and Xanax was free with good insurance.

  Fast-forward to Marissa opening her door and finding what looked like the star of a teen soap opera standing in front of her, making every hair on her body stand on end. Apparently he was just about to walk away- he probably thought he had the wrong room, since Marissa took so long to answer the door- but suddenly he stops and looks over at her, surprise on his face. He had short, wavy golden hair, clear eyes the color of wet sand, and was wearing a sharp suit with a thin red tie. He was a little nervous, and there was something endearing about it. Marissa thought vaguely that she had seen him somewhere before, but the idea soon slipped pout of her mind just like every other coherent thought she was trying to form.

  She angles herself away before her senses get the best of her. After all, being too open was part of why she was in this position in the first place. Letting people in had always ended badly, and when they left they had always taken pieces of her with them. Why not protect what she had left before it was all gone?

  “Um, hi. I’m Marissa,” she says to the doorknob.

  “Hi. I’m Nate. Nice to meet you,” he mutters.

  “You too.”

  They stand awkwardly in the foyer staring off into space for a moment. Suddenly it occurs to her that in the midst of all the angst and worry she had forgotten to ask herself: what do you say to greet the guy you’re paying to be your fake boyfriend for the night?

  Finally Nate clears his throat and says his first full sentence. “So…I hear I have a ball to escort you to?”

  Oh. His voice is deep and silky. Marissa could get used to hearing that voice. She looks up and meets his eyes for the first time, and she can’t explain it, but suddenly she feels a weird giddiness in every corner of her body, a warm bubbliness that borders on panic.

  “Yeah.” She tries to laugh but it sounds like a dying bird, and she quickly looks away again. “It’s like a business thing, sort of. Thanks for coming, by the way.”

  He nods awkwardly. “My pleasure.” He chews on his bottom lip, and it looks far more enticing than he seems to realize. “So, how much time do we have?”

  “Like, twenty minutes, I think?”

  “Cool. Want to sit and talk for a minute?”

  “Yeah, sure. There’s a bar over here, follow me.”

  Nate follows Marissa into the expansive living room, the view of metro Atlanta through the windows looking like someone had flung a bag of marbles on a rug and then shined a spotlight onto them.

  “Can I make you a drink?” Nate asks as she sinks onto a plush couch.

  “Sure.”

  “What’s your drink?” he asks as he heads behind the bar.

  “Whiskey sour, please.”

  “Coming right up. I’m not gonna drink just yet, I have a big quiz in one of my classes in a few days, but I’d love to make you something.”

  As Nate starts messing around in the cabinets, Marissa looks from side to side and bites her tongue, desperately trying to come up with something to fill the silence with.

  “So, a quiz, huh? Is it like, a pop quiz, or a regular one?”

  Nate gives her a strange look. “Um, well, you know, since I already know about it beforehand, I don’t think it could be qualified as a ‘pop’ quiz.”

  Marissa digs a claw into her palm. If she had been flexible enough to kick herself in the face, she would have. Why do I have to be such a socially challenged idiot? Suddenly she wonders if she was a total moron for thinking that downloading an app was going to fix her problems with human interaction. No matter if you started corresponding with someone via phone or tablet or freaking smoke signal, you were still going to end up having to endure good old person-to-person communication with them, an area in which her skills were sorely lacking. And in fact, wasn’t she making herself even more awkward by delaying the inevitable and missing out on perfectly good practice time? Ugh.

  “It’s okay,” Nate says, probably noticing the flush on Marissa’s face. “I’m nervous, too, you know. No biggie.” He knocks over a crystal decanter and watches as vodka spills all over the marble floor. “As you can see,” he says through gritted teeth as he grabs some paper towels. “Sorry, let me clean that up.”

  Marissa stares at him all the while. It had never occurred to her that the male hooker she’d hired to be her boyfriend for the night would be cleaning up her floors, but then again, she was more than used to being surprised by people- just not usually in a good way.

  “Here you go,” he says after he cleans up and hands her a drink, which tastes surprisingly good. Marissa takes a long sip, wishing desperately that the warmth from the liquor would spread through her and fix whatever flaw she had that made her so different from other humans.

  Suddenly she feels another form of heat, this time on her shoulder, and looks over at Nate. And there’s no mistaking it: for some reason he’s staring at her like a dog stares up at a plate of food from under a table. But why?

  “What is it?” she asks, the liquor in her stomach and the look in his eyes making her feel bolder than usual.

  “Nothing,” he says quietly. “You’re just not what I expected, that’s all.”

  “…Is that good?”

  “It’s splendid.”

  “Okay then,” she says. “And can I ask you something else?”

  “Sure.”

  “I know we’re not supposed to talk about this, but what made you sign up for ManCard? Like, in the beginning?”

  He looks away, almost ashamed. “This is the beginning.”

  “What?”

  “This is my first time doing this.”

  Marissa stares down at the plush Persian rug, her brain a confused mess. “Oh. Wow. I guess that explains a lot.”

  “Yeah, and, well, I don’t know. I did it because the pay’s good, basically. I have some…family stuff to take care of,” he says as something dark comes over his face. He clicks the home button on his phone, making a screen saver photo of a beautiful little girl light up the darkness. He smiles sadly and looks over at Marissa. “And trust me, drinking whiskey in a fine hotel room with a beautiful girl like yourself is not a bad deal at all.”

  She laughs and looks away, figuring that lying was part of the bargain.

  “I don’t mean to pry,” he says after a beat, motioning at the room, “but do you mind if I ask how a girl my age can afford all this?”

  “Death in the family,” Marissa says frankly. She was okay talking about her father, because although it was unquestionably terrible that he had died, he was gone and nothing would ever change that. Sitting around destroying herself with grief over it would end two lives instead of one, and Obamacare didn’t cover heartbreak- that’s what alcohol was for. “That’s sort of what the party has to do with, in a weird way.”

  “Oh. Sorry about that.”

  “Thanks, it’s fine,” she says. “I mean, it’s not fine, but…whatever. You know what I mean.”

  “Yeah.”

  They look away from each other again as the air fills with some strange electricity. Ugh. Why did Marissa have to be so damn awkward?

  Maybe because she was about to sleep with an outrageously gorgeous male prostitute?

  She steals a glance over at Nate as he sips some water. The strange thing w
as, he looked…classy. Almost upscale. If she took him to her country club, nobody would bat an eyelash….except at the huge gap in their attractiveness levels. She hadn’t expected some biker dude to show up, but then again she also hadn’t expected some prep-school looking guy to walk through her door, either. And why was he looking at her like that again?

  “Why are you looking at me so weird?” she asks before she can stop herself.

  “Oh, sorry. Like I said, I just didn’t expect you to be so young. And beautiful.”

  “Come on,” she laughs. “They aren’t paying you to lie to me.”

  “I didn’t lie,” he says earnestly. “Although there is something I would like to do that wasn’t exactly paid for.”

  Oh. She turns darker than the red drapes framing the windows and looks away, her knees wobbling even though she’s sitting. Please stop being so attractive so I can concentrate for a minute.

  “And it’s funny,” he says, “you also look like someone I used to know.”

  “Who?”

  He bites his lip. “Doesn’t matter,” he tells her after a moment. “But you don’t happen to have any cousins around here, do you? Female cousins, around my age?

  “No, why?”

  “No reason. Anyway, how about we go down and start mingling?”

  She looks down and plays with her dress. “Um…”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” she sighs. “I’ve never done this. What are we going to say to people?”

  Nate thinks back to his impromptu training session earlier in the day. “Easy. I’ll just say that I met you recently at Starbucks, and you were kind enough to invite me to the event. That way it explains why I’m here without giving them an expectation to ever meet me again. Short and sweet.”

  A sudden sadness hits Marissa like a stack of bricks.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks, and she turns away, unaware that the emotion had reached her face.

  “Nothing, I’m just sort of cold. And you’re right- that works great. Short and sweet, like you said. Let’s go.”

  “Hold on,” he says as he holds out his muscled arm. “We need to keep up appearances, so I’m going to touch you a few times, flirt with you, do anything I’d do with any girl I was out with. Is that cool?”

  Marissa smiles, the directness of his question sparking something to life deep within her belly.

  “Yeah. That’s fine. If I do the same, don’t freak out.”

  “Oh, I will,” he says, his eyes twinkling. “Just not in the way you’re expecting.”

  “Oh,” Marissa says, beyond flustered. “And wait, before I forget- I have to tell you some stuff, too. We’re gonna have to deal with my mom, and sorry, she’s a total nightmare. And then my dad’s old coworkers will probably be annoying, and…”

  “Marissa,” Nate interrupts. “You’re fine. Take a breath. Stop apologizing. I’m here to do whatever you want me to do. I don’t care if your mom has the charm of a cactus- I can deal with her, and it’s fine.”

  Oh, she thinks yet again. That’s right. I’m paying him to be here. I could get used to this.

  Marissa gets up from the couch, standing tall. “And one more question,” she says. “What did you mean, freak out?”

  He inches forward, deliciously close now. “I’m going to give you a preview of later tonight. Is that okay?”

  “Sure,” she gulps. Suddenly he grabs both of her hands, forces them behind her back, and keeps them there with one arm while he brings the other up to her face and grabs her mouth. She whimpers as he slams her against the wall with her arms pinned behind her and kisses her, his tongue expertly dancing around her mouth. Next his tongue meanders up her jaw, licking and kissing her jawline, until he reaches her ear. He gently bites her earlobe, making her take a quick breath as her whole body goes tense, then licks her earlobe up and down.

  “You are so sexy, Marissa, and I can’t wait to fuck you. Hard.”

  Marissa shivers as he kisses her flushed neck, his tongue tracing circles on her skin. And then just as quickly as it started, he pulls away and backs against the wall, and he’s right back to the calm, clipped manner as before.

  “We’re back to date mode now,” he says as Marissa reels. “Don’t say a word about that down there. Got it?”

  Marissa’s knees weaken with the realization that she may have signed up for way more than she had bargained for…and it couldn’t have made her any happier.

  “Got it. Let’s go.”

  After a long, tense elevator ride, Marissa and Nate arrive on the mezzanine floor and sift into the cocktail hour of the event in the Four Seasons lounge. Marissa leads them over to the bar immediately and downs another glass of champagne, and she doesn’t even notice that Nate has ordered a drink until a bartender hands him one.

  “So what’d you get?”

  “Makers and Coke,” he says, and Marissa finds herself smiling.

  “What’s funny?” he asks.

  “Nothing, it’s just that Makers and Coke was my dad’s drink, too. Weird. You struck me more as a beer guy.”

  “Nope,” he says awkwardly, and Marissa feels like throwing herself out the window for putting her foot in her mouth so quickly.

  “Oh, I didn’t mean it like that, I just...”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he laughs. “I know I look pretty rough and tumble compared to these people, and it’s fine. Anyway, where’s your dad tonight?”

  “He, um…passed away recently,” Marissa says softly.

  “Damn. I’m sorry to hear that, Marissa,” Nate tells her, a strange look coming over his face. “I know how loss feels, too. It sucks.”

  Suddenly Marissa realizes it: he’d just lost someone, too.

  “Can I ask who you lost?” she asks, and then she watches as his face goes off to some far-off place.

  “My brother,” Nate says wistfully. “He died in a accident a while back. He was my idol, and I think about him every day. But I see him in my dreams, and that’s enough. For now.”

  “Oh,” Marissa says, as something in her seems to break all over again. Or is it coming together? “Yeah, it sucks. Sorry.”

  Slowly Nate comes back from wherever he was. “You can say that again. Hey, should we go mingle or something?”

  “Surely,” Marissa says, and with a deep breath she wades into the action with Nate. They immediately get swarmed by a small crowd of Marissa’s father’s coworkers, but her nerves are quickly soothed- Nate more than keeps up with them, smiling as they give Marissa well wishes, and exchanging required small talk when necessary. Inheriting her father’s stock in the company had basically made Marissa the boss of everyone, but thankfully most of them were being respectful and abstaining from kissing her ass. This was a huge relief, as Marissa loved compliments but had no idea how to take them- basically, she was the shyest attention whore in history. Since they were mostly men, nobody really cared enough to ask much about Nate, or of how Marissa knew him. One of the female board members did get a little flirty, but Nate politely deflected her and immediately refocused his attention on Marissa, which, she had to admit, made her feel more than a little special.

  They talk and flirt a little between business conversations, and before long Marissa learns that Nate liked working out, riding his motorcycle, reading, and lying on his couch watching History Channel. Soon she notices that he was the best listener she had ever encountered. She was so used to guys being absorbed by their glowing phone screens all the time that she had forgotten what it was like to have someone hold eye contact and nod their head while she spoke to them. And even though he was being paid to be her date, she found herself worrying about all the same things she worried about around a normal guy, asking herself the same questions she asked around anyone she liked: does he like me, too? Does he think I’m stupid? Am I making a fool of myself? Where exactly is this going? And why am I such a psychopath?

  Near the end of the cocktail hour a tall man with white-blonde hair approac
hes them and holds out his hand.

  “I just wanted to introduce myself. My name’s Burke.”

  Marissa simply stares at him, having absolutely no idea who he was.

  “I was just wondering where you two met,” he says quietly, strangely. And the way he smirks over at Nate makes a dagger of terror sink into Marissa like a sword. She stands rooted to the spot, her vision blurring, unable to think of anything at all except this:

  Oh my God. He’s an undercover cop. He has to be.

  A panic rises in her throat, scratching at her like a sandstorm. She’d been caught.

  “Do I know you?” Nate asks, catching onto the weirdness. “Do you work at the Frost Company?”

  “No,” the man says. “But I’d like to know you.”

  As Nate’s face goes white, the man leans into Marissa’s ear. “Your guy,” he whispers. “He’s impeccable. Tell me, is he gay, or is he with you?”

  Relief floods over her like an incoming tide: he was simply a random party guest trying to hit on Nate. She wasn’t in trouble after all.

  “Yeah, he’s with me, sorry,” she nods faintly, and the man gives them a polite smile and floats off towards the lobby. Marissa and Nate exchange a nervous, wary look.

  “I thought…” she trails off.

  “I was sure he was an undercover…” Nate says. And suddenly he smiles, a golden, dazzling, swinging-for-the-fences thing that starts in his amber eyes and explodes onto the rest of his face like lights in the sky on a summer night. It was devastating.

  “You know what, I hate this song,” he says as he finishes laughing, as Marissa fills with a longing that comes out of nowhere. “Let’s go get another drink.”

  Marissa follows Nate the bar as Blurred Lines echoes from the speakers. This made the strange aching feeling fade a little, because although she didn’t know Nate very well, she figured that hating the same things was a great place to start.

  But soon realizes she had bigger things to worry about, once again. Her mother, who had been throwing curious glances at Marissa and Nate all night, finally pounces when her husband excuses himself to talk to a business associate. She glides over with a typically imperious expression on her face, her raven hair in an elegant chignon and her chocolate eyes sharp and appraising.