The man who’d seduced me so thoroughly hadn’t revealed that seduction was one of his jobs. The man I’d been intimate with had not told me he had a job where he essentially faked intimacy. So what had Orion been doing with me? Was I to believe I was special? He wanted me to believe that, I was sure of it. He claimed just last night that I was his only endgame. But was I?
“Hey, Kurt!”
I looked up to see Mort and Kathy Lord smiling at me. They were a rich couple in their sixties I’d become friends with after I helped design and build their new home, a ‘mini mansion’ as Mort kept calling it, overlooking the sea not far from here. Avid tennis players, they were fit and tanned, Mort balding with a horseshoe of black hair, Kathy with a blond mid-length cut. Mort was in Bermuda shorts and a polo shirt, Kathy in a flowy sundress that showed off her toned arms. “Oh, hey you guys.”
“What’s the matter?” Mort’s teeth looked very white against his tanned face. “You look sick, Varley. We were gonna invite you to the house but I don’t want you puking on my new furniture.”
I picked up my glass of water and took a sip. “I’m fine, just a little hot. How’s the house?”
“We still love it,” Kathy said. “Oh Paul, I know we can count on you to come over tonight.”
Paul chuckled. “You know you can. I’ll see if I can talk this guy into it.”
Leaning over, Mort winked at Paul. “We invited that dancing girl you like, and she’s definitely coming by.”
“Leta? She’s going?”
Kathy broke into giggles. “Look at his face! Oh Paul, for heaven’s sake, just ask the woman out.”
“I’ll think about it. Don’t say anything to her in the meantime, blabbermouth.”
Kathy laughed, slapping Paul’s hand. “Hope to see you both there.”
The Lords moved off, and I looked at Paul, who was chomping down pretzels like it was his job. “What was that about?”
“Mort and Kathy always have a late night gathering at their place on Thursdays,” he said. “Everybody goes, pretty much. Nice place on the water. You been there?”
“Um, yeah. I built it.”
His brows shot up. “No shit?”
“No shit.”
“You wanna go?” Paul’s eyes were pleading. I knew he wanted to see Leta. “If not, no big deal. I can drive you home.”
“No need, I can get a lift home. Not really up for it, but you should go. Have fun.” There was no way I could go to a party right now. I could barely think straight, my brain simmering in anxiety over whether my entire relationship with Orion had been a lie—even the friendship that started it.
I thought about that. It would seem Orion and I came together organically, because of our strife over Jasper. But then, it was Orion who’d originally reached out to me. He’d left that scathing voicemail. He had to know it would make me angry, and I’d have to call him back. That was where the hook was set, and I’d swallowed it right down.
Stop. You don’t know this. Stop being so paranoid. “I um…I gotta hit the bathroom, Paul. I’ll be right back.”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll hold down the fort.”
I kept my head down on my trek through the deck crowd, not wanting to run into anyone else I knew. Beelining straight to the bathroom, I splashed water on my face. I didn’t feel sick anymore, so figured that acid had been less about a bad clam and more about Orion-is-a-sex-worker. I studied myself in the mirror. I looked better than I felt. But at the same time, my reflection made me wince. Stud muffin. Yeah right.
The care I’d taken in choosing this dark blue shirt because it brought out my eyes and complimented my sun-lightened hair. The way I’d added just a little hair gel so it would stay in place if the sea breeze got crazy. The shiny gold wristwatch. The cologne. It was all for him. All for Orion. Wanting to please him. Wanting him to like me. Wanting him to want me.
My confused, insecure brain began spinning once again. Orion already did want me. Or did he? Was I just a plaything, someone to flex his powers of seduction on? I hadn’t exactly been brimming with confidence before I heard Orion was a sex worker. Now I was in a self-possessed tailspin.
I imagined Kora and Chapel laughing with Orion behind closed doors. “I told him he was just my type,” Orion would say, and Kora would respond, “Aw, he’s adorable. He actually thought you were into him.”
I tried to assure myself I was being stupid. It wasn’t that farfetched, him being so into me—so suddenly and overwhelmingly into me. I assessed myself objectively. I was all right looking. People tended to like me more often than not. I didn’t have any enemies. I could be funny at times. I could be grumpy sometimes too, but I tried to keep a lid on that. I tried to be kind and generous. I was a caretaker by nature. Orion knew about good deeds I’d done in the past. He’d commented on them when we first met.
I determined the entire package of Kurt Varley, flaws included, to be a solid ‘not bad’. And yet recently, through Orion’s eyes, I’d allowed myself to believe maybe I was a grade above that. But was I? Was there really anything particularly special about me? Special enough to prompt Orion to take such a powerful interest in this divorced father of two?
Because that’s what he’d been leading me to believe—that I was special to him. I felt confident I hadn’t misinterpreted that. He’d all but said so with his ‘I didn’t expect to like you like this. To like anyone like this.’ If none of that was actually true, then why would he bother with me? Why put in so much effort, and why the whirlwind romance and flattery? Why the sex, if—as I firmly believed—he could get it anywhere, from anyone? What the fuck was so damn interesting about me that I would rise to the top and become the shining star in his eyes?
You have money.
“No,” I whispered, pleased the other men in the bathroom were too engaged in drunken conversation to notice the weird guy at the sink talking to himself. I repeated the refusal silently in my mind. No. I refused to believe that. It wasn’t about my money. He’d made clear he was uneasy taking the guest house rent-free. And then there was that whole to-do last night about him wanting to reciprocate everything I’d ever given him. That he didn’t want people to think he ‘was trying to get nothing from me’ and so on. That he wasn’t seeking favors. It was the entire focus of his surprise visit last night—to convince me his interest in me was true.
Convenient, that. Makes him seem trustworthy, eh? I heard the words in Jasper’s voice, and tried to reject them. But my own thoughts chimed in, agreeing. He knew about your two other rental properties. He knows Violet’s brother bought out your half of the business. He knows you have money.
“No,” I said, this time loud enough to draw the eye of a man pissing nearby, so I quickly left the restroom.
I made my way back through the crowd, spotting Orion near the bar, talking to Mayor Spooner again. Orion had washed his makeup off. Well, the skeleton makeup anyway. He’d applied some eyeliner, and what looked like gold glitter along his cheekbones, clearly visible with his hair slicked back. He now wore loose cotton pants and a matching baggy black top with gold embroidery along the V-neck, two strands of bronze beads around his neck. He looked so beautiful I ached inside.