Escort (A Standalone Romance Novel) (New York City Bad Boy Romance) (84 page)

“It’s a little more than
that,” she says. “You’ll see when we get there. First, though, we’re going to
need to stop by my place to pick up my briefcase.”

“Your briefcase?” I ask.

“Just trust me,” she
says.

We pull up to her
building and I wait in the car while she runs up. She’s back a few minutes
later, briefcase in hand.

“All right,” she tells
the cabbie as she’s getting in, then she gives an address that I’m completely
unfamiliar with.

“Where are we going?” I
ask.

“I told you to trust me,”
she says.

We eventually pull up to
a building downtown. It’s late, so the building is mostly dark, but there are
security guards in the lobby.

“Okay, so what are we
doing here?” I ask. “I don’t think this is the pool.”

“Oh,” she says, “they
have one. Just let me do all the talking.”

“All right,” I tell her.

“And chew one of these,”
she says, pulling a tin of mints from her pocket. “We’re not going to get very
far if they know we’ve been drinking.”

I take a mint and we walk
through the front door.

“Good evening, Mrs.
Bliley,” the guards say in near unison, standing.

I’m not entirely sure I
want to know how they know her this well.

“Hey guys,” Wrigley says.
“This is Tom Durant, he’s my new assistant, and I’m showing him what it’s like
to work late. Is Phil in?”

“He’s out for the night,”
one of the guards answers.

“That’s a shame,” she
says. “Oh well, I guess it’s just the two of us, then. They haven’t locked up
already, have they?”

“Nope, the floor’s open.”

“Great. You guys have a
good night,” she says.

“You too, Miss Bliley,”
the guards say and we walk to the elevators.

Barely moving her mouth,
Wrigley whispers, “Not a word until we’re on the elevator. Until we get where
we’re going, you and I are simply professionals acting professionally, got it?”

I nod.

The elevator door opens
and we get on. She presses the button for the thirty-sixth floor, and we stand
quietly as we wait.

The doors open again and
we get out. I trail half a step behind her because I haven’t the slightest clue
where the hell we’re going.

We pass a man in a suit,
standing outside one of the bathrooms and I try to figure out whether I’m
walking “professionally” enough.

In a voice so soft I can
barely hear it, she says, “Some companies like to keep exercise rooms and that
sort of thing in the building so their employees spend more time in the office.
I don’t know if it actually works or not, but that really doesn’t matter.”

“Do you work here?” I
ask.

“No.” What?

“Then why do they know
your name?” I ask.

“You know, it’s kind of
disconcerting that even after knowing each other a couple of months, you still
don’t know my last name.”

“You don’t know my last
name, either.”

“Dane Paulson,” she says.
“It helps if you pay attention. Quiet. We’re almost there.”

We pass another man, but
he doesn’t give us a second look.

We turn a corner and
there’s a glass door at the end of the hall. The lights are on, and I can see a
few ripples in the water.

“I think someone’s in
there,” I tell her.

“I
know
someone is,” she says. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Why not?” I ask. “Didn’t
you say something about how we could get arrested?”

“We’re good,” she says.

“How do you know that?”

We stop at the door and
she looks up at me. “Because Phil’s gone home for the night.”

She opens the door, and
the sound of people laughing and splashing fills the hallway.

“Come in,” she says. “I’d
like to introduce you to some people.”

This just got weird.

I walk through the door
and, while I’ve known Wrigley long enough to expect this sort of thing, I am
wholly unprepared for what I see in front of me.

“Welcome to skinny
swimming night,” she says and sets her briefcase on a table. She opens it up
and pulls out the bottle. “Don’t worry,” she says, “there’s always plenty to go
around.”

“Hey there, Bliley!” a
naked man in his fifties, but easily in better shape than me says. “We didn’t
think you were coming.”

“You know me,” she
answers as we walk over to a table holding about twenty different bottles,
“swimming naked with you degenerates reminds me not to take life too
seriously.”

I’m not quite sure what
she means, but I’m far too absorbed with the whole scene to ask about it.

“Don’t stare,” she says.
“That’ll get you kicked out.”

“What happens if someone
walks in here?” I ask.

“It’s the middle of the
night,” she says, placing our bottle on the table and immediately picking up a
different one. “That, and we’ve got a couple of guys on watch.”

“You don’t mean—”

“Yeah, the guys in the
suits: They actually
do
work here. We
struck a deal with them—well, one of us did. I think it was Robinson. She’s the
one over there with the pixie cut—”

“The guys in the suits,”
I interrupt, trying to get her back on track.

“Right,” she says. “They
let us come here once a week and, in exchange, they get to join us in rotating
shifts. The hard part was getting the security guards in the front to buy that
we all work in the building and that it’s not weird they only see any of us
once a week and always after midnight.”

There are about twenty
people in the pool. There are men and women, almost in equal distribution.

“Don’t get the wrong
idea, though,” she says. “It’s not a sex club or anything weird like that. It’s
just a bunch of people who like swimming naked, but don’t want to swim in
polluted shit. Take your clothes off.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I said take your clothes
off,” she repeats. “You’re not getting in the pool dressed like that.”

I take off my shirt, but
before I can get to the pants, Wrigley stops me.

“A few rules first,” she
says. “First, don’t stare at people. When you’re talking, look them in the eyes
like you would at any other time. Otherwise, it’s just disrespectful and, let’s
be honest, pretty fucking creepy.”

“Got it.”

“Rule two,” she says.
“Everyone showers before they get in the pool. It’s a hygiene thing. Yeah, it’s
not really different than if you were wearing a bathing suit, but it’s just
best to be clean. Oh, and with that, if you have to pee, get out of the pool
and go to the restroom. It’s possible that no one would notice if they didn’t put
a chemical in the pool that changes color in the presence of urea.”

“That’s an urban legend,”
I tell her. “There’s actually not a chemical that detects urine in swimming
pools. That one’s been around since the fifties.”

She just raises an
eyebrow and glares at me.

“Not that I’m going to
pee in the pool, though,” I tell her.

“Rule three,” she says,
still giving me that look, “is that while you’re here, you don’t get completely
wasted and belligerence will not be tolerated.”

“That’s simple enough.”

“Finally,” she says,
“keep your hands to yourself. Any kind of touch that you wouldn’t perform in a
business meeting is off-limits. Handshakes are fine, so are high fives and the
occasional pat on the shoulder, so long as there’s context and you don’t overdo
it. Other than that, no touching anyone, got it?”

“I got it,” I tell her.

“Okay,” she says, “now
you can drop your pants.”

“Oh, one more thing,” she
says.

I scoff. “You know, for
such a free-thinking group, you’ve got a lot of rules.”

“They’re rules to ensure mutual
respect between everyone,” she says. “Which leads me to this: the occasional
erection is just going to happen. However, in the event of an erection, your
hands are to stay at or above the surface of the water, you’re not to draw any
attention to it, and you’re certainly not to stand closer than two feet away
from anyone while you’re facing them with a boner. When possible, you are to
stay in the water until the situation has resolved itself.”

Of all the things I
thought I’d be doing tonight, this is absolutely beyond and outside what I
could have imagined.

“All right,” I tell her.
“Where is the bathroom?”

She points to a door on
the other side of the pool.

“The showers are in
there, too,” she says. “After you’re done peeing, don’t forget to at least give
yourself a good rinse. You can drop your pants now.”

I laugh and do as I’m
told.

The air is pretty warm in
here, so I don’t make a bad showing. I can only hope that the shower water
isn’t too cold.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Butterfly

Leila

It’s been a week since I
left, and I’ve just been trying to keep my mind on my job.

While I was an intern, I
figured that I was learning enough on top of my college education to just be
able to walk onto any broker job without any adjustment period.

I was wrong.

My first day, I’m pretty
sure I almost got fired when I gave a bad tip to a client. That may sound like
a silly thing to get fired for, especially on one’s first day, and it would be
silly if the tip didn’t lose my client about $350,000 in twenty minutes.

That was a tough
explanation to my boss.

I think I’m starting to
get acclimated to everything, but it’s a stressful job.

It’s not helping that I
can’t stop thinking about Dane and the way I left things.

I wonder what he’s doing
tonight.

Oh well. Tonight, I’m going
out with Annabeth.

I’m a little nervous
that, in preparation for our night out, she bought me a white cotton shirt and
told me to sleep in it for three nights then put in in a sealable sandwich bag.
While I’m not sleeping in it, she told me, I have to keep it in such a bag and
store it in the freezer.

I really don’t know why I
go along with these things.

The knock lands on my
door around eight o’clock, and I invite her inside to see the apartment.

“Nice place,” she says
dismissively. “Have you been wearing the shirt?” she asks.

“Yeah, but I don’t know
why—”

“Is it in the freezer?”
she asks.

“Yeah,” I tell her.

“All right, then grab it
and let’s go,” she says. “We’re running late.”

“Before we go anywhere, I
want to know why I’ve been stuffing a shirt in a freezer bag and then wearing
it while I’m sleeping.”

“Just be cool, baby.”

I shudder. “You know it
weirds me out when you call me that.”

“Whatever,” she says.
“Just grab it and let’s go. I’ll tell you on the way.”

We’re in the car and
she’s about two sentences into the explanation, and I’m ready to go home and
call the night a bust.

Apparently, we’re going
to something called a Pheromone Party. The object of the shirt is to capture
one’s scent for the inspection of others. If someone likes the way your shirt
smells, apparently, they have their picture taken with the shirt which bears a
number only you know. If you find the person attractive, you approach them and
let them know the shirt they had a picture taken with was yours.

It’s farfetched enough
that I’m clinging to some hope that she’s making the whole thing up, but this
is exactly the sort of thing Annabeth would be into, so I’m not putting money
on it.

“Where’s yours?” I ask.

“On the floor of the
backseat,” she says. “Why?”

“No reason.”

The reason is that I’m
getting the sneaking suspicion that this is all a ruse and I’m about to walk
into some extremely humiliating situation. That is also the exact sort of thing
Annabeth would do.

Sure enough, though, we
pull up to a building in Trenton and there, on a fluorescent sign by the front
door, are the words: “Pheromone Party Tonight!”

I sigh.

This is going to be
uncomfortable.

The reason, I guess that
I’m not telling Annabeth to take me home right now is that I really need to get
my mind off of Dane. This isn’t how I wanted to do it, but I’m pretty sure this
whole scenario is going to crowd out any other thoughts in my head. For that, I
guess, I should be grateful.

I start feeling a little
less grateful as we walk into the door and I see dozens of people smelling
shirts out of plastic bags.

“This is too weird,” I
tell Annabeth.

“It’s not that weird at
all,” she says. “Before cologne, perfumes and, you know, running water,
someone’s scent was a huge part of the mating dance.”

“You know, it sounds even
worse when you describe it like that.”

“Don’t worry,” she says,
trying to reassure me, “these are normal people just like you and I. You’ve
done speed dating. I don’t see how it’s that much different.”

“Oh, it’s different.”

Still, I play along.

My number is 560.

“There aren’t that many
people here,” I whisper to Annabeth as the woman with the clipboard writes down
my name and number.

“They just do that to
keep it more random, I guess,” she says. “Ooh, check this out.”

She pulls out her phone
and pulls up the internet.

“What are you doing?”

“I’ve got a
gematria
calculator,” she says. “We’re going to find out
what your number means.”

I roll my eyes.

“560,” she says. “It
means a few different things, but the one I like most is butterfly.”

“Butterfly?” I ask. “How
does the number 560 mean butterfly?”

“In Hebrew, every letter
is also a number. I guess the Hebrew word for butterfly
adds
up to 560.”

“Yeah, whatever,” I tell
her. “How long do we have to stay?”

“Oh, we just got here,”
she says. “Let’s get a drink and keep an eye on that wall.”

As we walk over, I watch
the wall. Picture after picture of men and women, holding up bagged shirts with
numbers flash across it, and I don’t know if there’s enough alcohol in this
place to make that not seem a little creepy to me.

I guess we’re going to
find out.

“So,” Annabeth says,
“it’s not as bad as you thought it would be, is it?”

I’m not listening.

“Lei-Lei?”

I’m watching an older
gentleman burying his face in the bag marked 560, and there’s a weird dichotomy
going through my head at the moment.

One part of me feels kind
of violated having a stranger sniff my very-worn,
very
unwashed shirt. The other part of me hopes he goes over and takes his picture
with it. I know it sounds weird, but I really don’t want to have to go through
that kind of rejection.

I smell good, damn it.

The man puts my shirt
back on the table where he got it, and I’m about ready to walk over there and
ask him just what’s so unattractive about the way I smell when Annabeth puts a
hand on my shoulder.

“You all right?”

“Yeah,” I say. “He didn’t
get his picture taken.”

She giggles.

“I told you you’d have a
fun time,” she says. “Freak.”

“Why wouldn’t he want to
get his picture taken with my shirt?” I ask. “I’ve got a good smell.”

“Don’t take it
personally,” she says. “Different people look for different things. Sometimes,
it’s just an instinct thing. What are you drinking?”

“Tequila,” I tell her.

“Yeah,” she says to the
bartender, “can I get a tequila sunrise—
”

“No sunrise,” I tell her,
“just the tequila.”

If I’m going to make it
through this night and all the weird rejection issues it’s bringing up, I’m
going to want to get pretty buzzed.

“What number were you?” I
ask after she finishes ordering our drinks.

“68,” she says. “Don’t
even ask me what that one means.”

“That guy’s holding up
your bag,” I tell her and point at the wall.

She cringes.

“What’s wrong with him?”
I ask.

“He’s got the stalker
eyes,” she says. “Notice how his eyelids are a little too open and he’s just
got that blank expression on his face? Yeah, I’m not going through that shit
again.”

“Again?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she says. “Not
really something I want to talk about right now, though. Hey, look at that,”
she says, nudging me. “560! Go up and introduce yourself.”

I look at the wall, and
there’s a tall guy with long blond hair holding my bag and giving the camera a
thumbs-up.

“He’s way too excited
about my dirty laundry,” I tell her.

She shrugs.

Our drinks arrive and,
before the bartender can walk away, I order another one.

“You ready to go sniff
out some
hotties
?”

“I’m nowhere near drunk
enough to even handle that idea,” I tell her.

“Come on,” she says,
“it’ll be fun. Let’s find someone who smokes weed and see if there’s a party to
go to.”

“I didn’t know you’re a
pothead,” I tell her.

“I’m not,” she says. “Stoners
just seem to like the best music. Come on.”

I laugh and drink my
second shot.

“Hold on,” I tell her.
“I’ve got one more coming, then we can go.”

She waits—I can’t say
patiently—while the bartender hands me my shot and I drink it down. When she’s
not looking, I ask for one more and drink that down before I’m ready to go
partake in something that I can’t claim to understand.

“How much B.O. should I
be expecting here?” I ask. “On a scale from one to vomiting, what are we
looking at here?”

“Well,” she says, “I’ve
only been to one of these before, but most guys seem to take pretty good care
of themselves hygiene-wise. You
will
get the occasional stink bag, but they’re not as common as you’d think. But
hey, some chicks go for that.”

“Some women go for guys
that smell bad?” I ask.

“It’s an evolutionary
thing,” she says. “I don’t know. You’re supposed to be able to tell whether a
prospective mate is healthy by the way they smell.”

“Well, thanks for
bringing me to the Discovery Channel,” I titter.

“Just be cool, will you?”

We get to the table and
Annabeth tosses me a bag with a blue number card on it.

“What am I supposed to do
here?” I ask.

“It’s not brain surgery,”
she says. “Open the bag and take a whiff. If you like what you smell, go up
there and get your picture taken with it. If not, move on to something else.”

“This is too weird,” I
tell her.

“It’s really not that
bad,” she says. “Did you know that in Japan, they have vending machines that
dispense used women’s underwear?”

“Actually, most places
don’t do that anymore,” I tell her.

It’s a mistake.

“How would
you
know that?” she asks as she opens a
new bag and gives it a deep inhale. “Ooh, this one’s nice.”

She hands it over to me
and, before I even think about what I’m doing, I give it a sniff.

It’s heavy on the
drakkar
noir, but it’s mellowing out the lingering taste of
the tequila, so I keep it there for a couple extra seconds.

“Not bad, right?” she
asks.

“Meh.”

“What does yours smell
like?” she asks.

I hand her back the one
dripping with cologne and open the bag I’ve been holding. Yeah, this is still
pretty weird, but it’s not nearly as creepy as I thought it would—“Okay,” I
tell her. “This is one of the bad ones.”

I hand it to her,
thinking she’s going to just put it back on the table, but even with my warning,
she opens the bag back up.

“Shit, you weren’t
joking.”

“I have no idea why you
would think I was,” I tell her. “All right, this isn’t as bad as I thought it
would be, but the novelty’s starting to wear off. How much longer are we going
to stay here and smell people’s clothes?”

“As long as it takes,”
she says. “We are not going home alone tonight.”

“Is that what this is
about?” I ask.

“What?” she asks, looking
for another blue-tagged shirt to
smell.
She grabs one
and hands it to me.

“Dane,” I say.

“Of course it’s about
Dane,” she says. “You haven’t talked about anything else since you left.”

“I’m fine,” I tell her.

“That’s good then,” she
says. “So you should be open to meeting someone tonight.”

“Yeah,” I snicker. “Kids,
did I ever tell you the story about how I met your dad? Well, I was at this
shirt-smelling party and your dad’s sweat just got me right between the legs.
It was love at first scent.”

“Hey, you never know,”
she says. “People meet in some pretty strange ways sometimes.”

“You’re actually serious
about getting me to hook up with someone here, aren’t you?”

She opens a bag.

“This one smells like
beer and corn chips,” she says, putting it back on the table.

“You’re not answering my
question.”

“Yeah,” she says. “I’m
not saying you’re going to meet Mr. Right by smelling his sweaty shirt, but you
might just find someone who can take you for a nice tumble and remind you that
there are other fish to fuck.”