But now, people actually called the help desk asking for him by name. He’d been at Channel 14 for just over a month, and he already had repeat business. He was actually good at his new job and, wonder of wonders, people liked him. The old training must have some use in his new world, after all.
Heading out to the parking lot in preparation for another manic drive to lunch, he waved at a few newly familiar faces and pulled out his cell phone. His parking spot hadn’t moved up any, but it didn’t seem to take quite so long to make the back end of the lot while waiting for his girl—well, almost his girl—to pick up.
“Jack? Something wrong?”
He grinned. “Nope. Just wanted to see what you were doing.” A calculated risk, as he hadn’t dared to just call her before. “Anything interesting?”
She made surprised noises. “Not really. I’m supposed to meet Phil for lunch in a few minutes, but he said he might be late, so I haven’t even left yet. You?”
Chit-chat. He was making chit-chat with his not-quite-girlfriend. The thought widened his grin. He ought to make a graph of his progress so he could look back later and be proud of himself.
“I’m headed out to meet a friend for lunch, too. She keeps regular business hours, so when I want to talk, I have to conform.”
“So who is this friend who keeps regular business hours? Or is client confidentiality an issue?”
His grin turned to a smirk. “Actually, I used to work for her in a different capacity. She’s the receptionist at the escort service where I started.”
“She’s your pimp?”
Laughing at the half-horrified whisper, he unlocked his Envoy and climbed inside. “Oh, no. I only worked for Briggs’ for about six months before going solo. Back then, I was strictly an on-the-arm escort. But Regina’s been there the whole time, and she had the good tact to only give my number to a select few who came asking for…other favors.”
“So she’s like a madam?”
“Nope. Just a contact. I trusted her to weed out the undesirables. She didn’t make a dime off of me. I was strictly non-establishment.”
Oops. He hoped she didn’t notice the past tense.
“So I wasn’t undesirable?”
Relieved, he chuckled. “Actually, Mike wasn’t undesirable.”
“Damn.”
“Hey, if I’d known what I was getting into when I took that call, I might have run screaming the other way.”
She snorted. “You’re the one who wanted to stay the night. Not my fault you were delusional.”
Twiddling with his keys, he leaned back in his cushy leather seat. “Ah, pulling out the big guns on me now? Are helpless females no longer up to the standards of your rapier tongue?”
“You started it.”
“Ooh, that one hurt.”
“Oh, go to lunch. Tell your lady friend she should ask for a discount if you don’t mow her lawn.”
He grinned softly. “Naw, I only do that for you. It’s part of the royal treatment.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” But she sounded pleased, so he counted the schmarm a success. “Now go eat some lunch already. Phil’s probably wondering if I got hit by a car on the way over.”
“God forbid. Bye, Gabe.”
“See you soon.”
He flipped his phone closed, then dropped down the driver’s side visor to take a look in the mirror on the back. Yup. Big, stupid grin. He couldn’t help it. He’d just taken one more giant step toward a normal relationship with her, and she hadn’t seemed to mind or even notice.
Now, if he could just tell her he’d quit his night job and gotten a day one…
Shaking off the thought, he keyed the engine and debated the best way to get to the deli he’d picked as somewhere about halfway between Briggs’ and Channel 14. He needed to talk to a certain lady friend about a certain pair of leather pants.
For the first time all summer, Gabe had to mow her own lawn. It was her own fault, of course, for keeping Jack away for a few weeks and then only seeing him at her sister’s house. Luckily, she didn’t mind the exercise. It was a nice break from tae bo and a great reason to break out the ol’ iPod again.
The Old Biddy Patrol didn’t so much as peek through their mini blinds, and she wondered if they thought her brief affair with the handsome stranger was over. As she swiped sweat from her forehead with her forearm, she had to admit it was nice to have a handsome stranger around to make just such an impression. She hadn’t realized until that first lawn-mowing session exactly how tired she was of being an object of pity and speculation.
Just her dumb luck that a male prostitute lent her an air of normalcy.
Grinning at the thought, she reached down to back up her music to hear a favorite song again and nearly dropped the whole set-up when something tapped her right between the shoulder blades. She spun around with her forearms up to block, then scowled, lowering her guard to prop her fists on her hips.
“Damn it, Doug. How many times have I told you not to sneak up on me?” She tugged the earbuds out of her ears, still scowling at her grinning friend. “And thanks to you, I killed the mower. If I throw out my shoulder trying to restart—”
He put his hands up in surrender, his grin widening to show teeth. “Not my fault that thing is loud enough to register on the Richter scale. I’ve been hollering from the driveway for like ten minutes.”
Narrowing her eyes, she hoped he passed her blush off as the result of the summer evening heat. “You could have just stepped into my line of vision and waved, you know.”
“And risk getting run over by The Beast?” He gave the mower an uneasy glance. “No thanks. I like my jewels right where they are.”
She snorted. “Everything is about your johnson.”
“Damn right.”
“Plan on getting to the point any time soon?” She tugged at her battered old work gloves. “Some of us have work to do.”
“Why don’t you get your pet gigolo to do it for you?” Her eyes narrowed again, but before she could retort, he hurried on. “Kidding! But he is what I came over to talk to you about.”
“Don’t bother. Phil already told me I’m being an idiot and I should walk away before it’s too late.”
“Don’t you dare.”
She blinked. Doug looked as serious as she’d ever seen him. His handsome, fashionably tanned face fairly twitched with earnestness, his blue eyes direct and concerned for once.
“Don’t look at me like that, Gabe. I saw you at Sullivan’s. You don’t tear into someone like that without good reason. Don’t you dare walk away from someone you care for that much.”
Another blink. “I’m…sorry about Karen—”
“I’m not talking about her. She got what she asked for, and I’m not even taking her calls anymore. I’m talking about you and Jack. I saw your eyes when you stood up for him, and I saw you a couple of weeks ago looking like someone shot your sister while you watched. I’m telling you, you would regret walking away from him for the rest of your life.”
“If this is about him being a male prostitute—”
“Damn it, Gabe! Be serious! Who cares what he does for a living? You’ve seen something in him worth your attention, and anyone who knows you knows how hard that is. You can’t just let that go.”
She stared at him, wondering when he would say something outrageous and burst into his infectious laughter. Then again, hadn’t he already said something outrageous? If so, why wasn’t it even remotely funny?
His eyebrows drew together in a frown. “Look, I know Phil’s already talked to you about this. He picked my brain earlier and I’ll tell you what I told him: you’ve been alone for too long to remember that you’re not supposed to be alone. I don’t know Jack from Adam, but I know what I saw, and it wasn’t a honey pot defending her sex toy.”
The cooling mower ticked softly in the late sun. A trickle of sweat rolled down her spine, followed by another. Strands of hair that had escaped her ponytail tickled her cheeks and the bac
k of her neck. And Doug—crazy, off-the-wall Doug who always had to tell one traveling salesman joke too many—stood on her half-mowed lawn, looking as serious as a doctor telling a cancer patient that there’s nothing he can do.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Doug. What do you want me to say?”
“That you won’t follow Phil’s advice.”
“I won’t.”
“Damn it, I know you look up to him, but sometimes you gotta make up your own mind—”
She laughed. “No, I mean I won’t follow his advice.”
Blinking, he sputtered. “You…but…why?”
“Now, don’t get all excited. I’m not saying I want to date Jack and marry him and have his babies, but I will admit that I do like him as more than a free male prostitute. He’s becoming a good friend, and he means more to me than a good lay. Is that good enough?”
“A friend, huh?”
A wicked grin twisted her lips. “Well, a friend with a few perks.”
“Like that thing he does with his hips?”
“Exactly.”
“What does he do with his hips, anyway?”
Another laugh made her throw her head back. God, it felt good to laugh about the situation. She’d needed this. Sure, she’d needed her talk with Cheryl, but she’d needed to talk to Doug more. He always made her feel better, with or without risqué knock-knock jokes.
“I can’t tell you exactly what, but I can tell you that it feels amazing. If you want the details, you’ll have to get them from him.”
“When will he be back down?”
The hopeful grin on his face made him look more himself, and she made a snap decision. She usually hated snap decisions, but something about this one felt right.
“Actually, he’ll be down next weekend, and I may need your help.”
His eyebrows shot up. “I refuse to have a threesome with my best friend and a male prostitute, no matter how much he could teach me about my hips.”
The laughter bent her over forward this time, and she had to brace her hands on her knees to keep from falling down. He’d burned an indelible image into her brain that would probably horrify her later, but for now she savored every hilarious moment.
“It’s not funny. There’d be weirdness later.”
She couldn’t catch her breath. Every time she got over one bout, she saw Jack pulling away from her and gesturing for Doug to take over and got to laughing again. She’d be traumatized if she kept it up, but oh, she’d go to therapy with a smile.
“Cut it out!”
Finally gathering some semblance of control, she heaved for air and swiped at her eyes with one forearm, the other hand still braced on her knee.
“Oh…oh, Doug…that was priceless…”
“So glad you’re enjoying yourself, pervert.”
She chuckled but reined herself in. “Come on. You know me better than that. I just want your help planning something for Jack’s birthday this weekend. A party or something, but very small. I’m not even sure Phil would want to come, though I suppose I’ll ask him.”
Still obviously piqued, Doug crossed his arms and seemed to consider. “Do you mean like a stay-here-and-barbeque kind of party or a go-out-to-a-movie kind of thing?”
“I don’t know. I just thought of it, but I think he might enjoy having another friend in this neck of the woods.”
He smirked. “You want to do something nice for him.”
Suddenly uncomfortable, she stood straight and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Yeah, so?”
“Nothing.” His smirk softened to a grin. “What does he like to do?”
Lightning struck. She smiled.
“How’s your pirate lingo?”
Throwing off his tie and loosening the top buttons of his dress shirt, Jack settled back into his couch with a tired sigh. He was three hours late getting home, but he’d had to perform a last-minute reformat for the star reporter’s hard drive. A virus had corrupted all the data, including the working copy for the evening’s first story. No matter how many times his department sent out e-mails about not opening unexpected attachments, someone always had to go and open one.
Luckily, he’d done a basic reformat in record time by skipping a few non-critical updates. Thanks to an equally obliging copy editor, the evening news had gone off without a hitch. Even better, he had more good news for his dad and a whole evening in which to enjoy it.
Keying in the old phone number left him feeling a little sad. He didn’t know it by heart anymore and had to read it out of his long-lost address book. Would anyone even answer? His dad would, he knew, but what if his dad wasn’t home? Would his mother so much as jerk her hand toward the receiver if she saw the caller ID?
He tried to hide his sigh of relief at his dad’s nasal “Hello?”
“Hey, Dad. How’s the pacemaker?”
“Jack! Good to hear from you, son. How’s that new job going?”
Closing his eyes and shaking his head, he wondered why he’d bothered worrying about his mother checking the caller ID. If the old man’s pleased surprise was any indication, they didn’t even have the feature.
“Surprisingly well, since you ask. That’s why I’m calling so late. I just got home.”
“Have they promoted you yet?”
He laughed. “Not quite yet. Don’t hold it against them, though. They’re news people. They never see genius when it parades in front of them. They have to dig in people’s garbage for it.”
His father huffed a dry chuckle. “Don’t get me started on the media. I don’t think your phone bill could handle the rant.”
“As much as I’d like to find out, I did call for a reason. I have more good news. Which would you rather hear first, the financial good news or the personal good news?”
A snort. “I’m a Yankee.”
“Right. Financial good news it is.” He twisted to lie back in the couch and get comfortable. “I heard from the financial aid department, and I should be able to get two grants to cover all my tuition. The help desk job will cover books and most of my rent, so I shouldn’t need to borrow any money from you.”
“That is great news, but I’ll be sending you a little here and again, anyway. I don’t want you working yourself to death trying to make the rent. You focus on your schooling and don’t let those reporter types take advantage of your smarts.”
“Isn’t that what all good employers do?”
“Pssh. A lot you’d know, Mr. Freelance.”
A broad smile split his face. His dad was actually joking about his former career. Did wonders never cease?
“That kind of brings me to my next good news. Are you ready for this?”
“Hit me.”
He paused to savor the moment. “I met a girl.”
“I suspect you’ve met a lot of girls, Jack.”
He coughed, feeling a blush heat his cheeks. “Not like that. I mean a girl, not a client. She’s…Dad, she’s amazing.” Smiling up at the ceiling, he put into words what he hadn’t quite dared to think until the last few weeks. “I think she’s the one.”
“Are you playing with me, young man?”
“Nope.”
His father paused just long enough that his delight at his admission began to fade.
Finally: “Hold on a minute.”
He frowned as he heard the unmistakable sound of phone on coarse fabric, then winced his cell away from his ear as his dad bellowed.
“Vivien!”
He sat up straight, nearly falling out of the couch. “Dad, no. Bad idea. Dad!”
“Woman, get downstairs!”
“Dad, I’m begging, really—”
“Just a minute, son. Vivien, you won’t believe it. Guess who I have on the phone.”
He squinted both eyes shut and wished himself stone deaf.
Very faintly in the background, he heard his mother’s voice for the first time in three years. “What on earth, Willard?”
“Your son has found a girl he
wants to marry.”
Silence. Miserable with a cross between mortification and sick anticipation, he waited for the explosion. Or for another three years of ice. Whichever came first.
“Don’t you want to talk to him?”
He waited.
After a long moment, his mother’s faint voice again: “I hope she’s a nice girl. Tell him I said so.”
“Vivien…”
“It’s all right, Dad.”
Actually, it was better than all right. He hadn’t expected her to comment, let alone send him her equivalent to well wishes by proxy.
“No, it isn’t. None of it’s right.” His father huffed a grunt. “That woman can hold a grudge longer than God Himself.”
“I thought God was all about forgiveness.”
A snort. “He’s still holding a single apple against us. He may have forgiven on paper, but He sure hasn’t forgotten the debt.”
He chuckled, still uncomfortable. “And yet Mom takes longer. Go figure.”
“She’ll come around.”
But they both knew better.
“If you say so. Look, I gotta go, but I did want to give you my good news.”
“And it is good news, son. Both sides of it. Maybe you’ll bring your girl for a visit sometime?”
“You don’t know how much I’d love to do just that.” And he would. Someday. Maybe. “See you soon?”
“Count on it.”
He flipped his cell closed and put it on the coffee table, caught between a grin and a sigh. He probably shouldn’t get his hopes up just because he’d met her family and called her for no good reason once. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t much. But he measured things differently when it came to Gabe, and those small things seemed like a huge leap forward.
The grin took over, and he shot his cell phone a measuring glance. Did he dare push his luck and call her for no good reason again? He wanted to just talk to her. Maybe tell her a little about his day, though he couldn’t really tell her how hard such a quick reformat was or describe the look of stricken gratitude on the poor reporter’s face when Jack plugged the corrupted hard drive into a remote port and produced an earlier draft of the lead story.
My Gigolo: The Care and Feeding of a Male Prostitute Page 18