“Glad you joined us tonight, Dante. You ready for another drink?”
His words slurred slightly. I glanced down at his hand and, privately, I sighed to myself. “I’m fine, thanks.”
Then… the move. I suppose I’d seen it coming, but I’d been a little off my game tonight. His hand slid down my back, stopping in the dip before my arse. But only just.
“You’re a man of the world, Dante, aren’t you? I’ve seen you arriving at work each morning. Noticed you. And I like what I’ve seen.”
Oh yeah?
“Don’t you like it here? We could go somewhere else.” He leaned in closer, breathing out fumes of beer and a kebab he must have eaten earlier. “Just us.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’m at the end of my budget for the night.”
He was cute, in a very city-slicker type way. Probably a little younger than me, and his clothes were expensive, especially his shoes. I doubted he even knew what the word budget meant, unless it was a client telling him he couldn’t spend any more of theirs.
He shrugged, eyes not quite focussing. “No problem. I’ve got money.” A couple of fingers teased at the back seam of my jeans, and his hand slipped casually—or not so much—to cup my left arse cheek. “I can pay for it all.”
For a brief moment, my need flared inside me, strong and almost painful. This guy was good-looking, he wasn’t too aggressive about it, and this reminded me of the many trade-offs I’d had, ever since I was sexually active. Then it had been in pub car parks and service roads behind the local shops. And this, now? How was it any different from the transactions at the Haven? He had the money, I had the commodity, and we both knew the score. He probably had a nice flat nearby or, at the least, a high-end saloon car. I knew instinctively he was a guy who’d be no problem to fuck, bring to a quick climax, and leave. Christ, I needed to be touched.
But something was missing tonight. Attention. Equality. Care.
Someone.
Blake fucking Marshall.
I wasn’t a hypocrite. I was happy enough being an escort. But emotions had been stirred up inside me. Blake had given me something as well as sex. Something other than sex. Even if I couldn’t put a name to it right now.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” I said, and carefully but firmly lifted his hand off me.
I made my way quickly back to the bar, towards the exit. City Boy had looked disappointed, but as the door to the street closed behind me, I saw him leaning over the bar and flirting with the bartender. I was forgotten already.
I sat on the Tube, which was mercifully not too crowded, huddling my cold body into my too-thin coat, and nursing my even colder thoughts. My worries. My needs. Then, a couple of stops away from my flat, probably too drunk and too maudlin to think sensibly, I called Arne at the Haven.
“Hey. It’s Dante.”
“You sound kinda odd. Are you drunk?” he asked bluntly, stifling a yawn. Was he already in bed?
“Not drunk enough,” I said.
There was a brief pause.
“Come in tomorrow for some lunch,” he said. I could hear Pyotr’s voice in the background, sleepy, grumbling, with that wheedling tone I knew meant he was horny. Arne tricked the same as the rest of us, but when he and Pyotr were in each other’s good books, they were more or less exclusive. Now Arne shushed Pyotr, and there was a muffled, sniggering laugh.
“Dante?” Arne was back on the line. “Did you hear me? We want to see you, man.”
I found myself smiling. “Yes, I heard you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Maybe things didn’t seem quite as cold as before.
EIGHT
I was spending most evenings at the Haven now, but not tricking. No, I couldn’t make sense of that either. But my friends were there, and when my contract ended and I took on some online proofing work, I justified it could be done wherever my laptop was plugged in. If that was in the kitchen with Arne, or on Reception, where we all took a turn to help Rick run the business, it felt more comfortable than in my increasingly bleak flat. I wasn’t really entitled to use the hotel rooms unless I had a client, and paid for my time. However, Rick was too damn soft for his own good, and he let me drop in whenever I needed.
In return, I helped him with the hotel accounts. We’d fumbled through the information the bank needed to get the loan confirmed, and I knew they’d want regular cashflow updates, at least in the early months. Rick was a clever, perceptive, loyal man—but no accountant.
I’d tried to explain to him, only two nights ago, when we met to go over the current accounts. However we shifted the figures, I said, whatever combination of income and expenses we tried, the final result was always sliding into the red. “It’s not sustainable. Not with all the work you need to get done on the building.”
Rick had just nodded slowly. I’d been telling him his business plan was crap, why was he being so bloody decent?
“Blake was wrong to say I could help you,” I protested.
Rick had shaken his head. “You definitely are helping. I wouldn’t have got this far without you, Dante.”
Fuck my life. He was such a good, steady man. He cared so much about this ramshackle old place. About his aunt’s legacy. And, damn him—when he smiled encouragingly, I’d found myself agreeing to run the figures again, see what I could suggest to ease the financial burden.
“Ideally, you should increase the room rate—” I’d started to say.
“Not yet.” Rick’s voice had been quiet but firm.
Maybe he wasn’t as much of a soft touch as I’d thought. I’d certainly got the message.
Tonight, I clattered away on my laptop for a while longer. There was a mysterious shadow in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen, and two of the keys were loose, but there was no way I could afford new kit at the moment.
“Dante!” Arne’s voice suddenly popped up, way too close to my ear, and the shock left a line of recurring 456s across the sheet I was working on. I cursed and started deleting them.
“You moping for him still?”
“Who?” I said harshly.
Arne rolled his eyes.
“It was only one night, Arne. He was just a client.”
“Huh. Right.”
It wasn’t worth the argument. Because I did miss Blake. I badly wanted to see him again. The sex had been some of the best I’d ever had, but it wasn’t just the sex. It was something about him, the way he looked at me, the way his eyes followed me as I crossed the room, even with my clothes on. The way his nosiness about my life seemed to be offered with genuine interest and compassion. The way his words, his actions, had such a strong, underlying current of decency.
I’d never had such a visceral reaction to anyone after only a couple of meetings. Yeah, I wanted to see him. I opened my mouth to tell Arne to mind his own damn business—
Then the scream drowned everything out.
It was from Micah, Tom’s friend. He wasn’t as dramatic as Tom—not sure who the hell would be—and he’d always seemed very easy-going to me. But the scream wasn’t easy-going in the slightest. It was a bloody good thing we rarely had clients in the afternoon, or it would have cleared the rooms better than a fire drill. I quickly closed the document and ran out into the lobby. Arne was on his way up the stairs, and Pyotr and I followed.