My Gigolo (22 page)

Her cell phone rang, the familiar tune bringing a genuine smile to her face. She loved the song, no matter how many times Phil dogged it.

Cheryl rolled her eyes. “Why do you never remember to turn that thing off?”

“Because the world needs more kung fu fighting. Now, get outta here so I can answer.”

“Is it him?”

She plucked the phone out of her purse and grinned at the number. “Yup.”

“Does he usually call you out of the blue like this?”

“Only when he wants to come down for the weekend.”

“Ah. Booty call time.” She stood and brushed a wrinkle out of her skirt. “I still think you should tell him.”

She waved her friend away and pressed receive. “Hello?”

“Am I interrupting?”

Giving Cheryl a pointed glare, she sighed dramatically. “Only my attempts to get rid of a friend.”

“I’m going.”

“Come again?”

Cheryl closed the door behind her after sticking out her tongue, and Gabe leaned back in her office chair with a soft grin.

“Long story. What’s up?”

“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for showing up at Mike’s. I didn’t think about it at the time, but it might have seemed encroaching after what happened with Phil and Doug.”

She blinked. “You don’t have to apologize. I didn’t see it that way at all.”

“Good.” He sounded honestly relieved. “I wanted to give you a while to stew on it before saying anything. When Mike invited me, I was too intrigued at the possibility of meeting her in the flesh, so to speak, to really give it the proper thought.”

Her grin widened. “I forget you actually talked to her first. How funny is that?”

He cleared his throat. “Weird is more like it, but whatever makes you happy.”

“Are you coming down this weekend?”

He paused, and she groaned internally. Hadn’t she just insisted to Cheryl that knowing how she felt wouldn’t change anything?

“I’d love to, Gabe, but I can’t.”

She wouldn’t ask why. She didn’t need to know. It was no more her business now than it had been before her revelation.

“Oh.” There was a brilliant response. “No problem. I think Phil wanted to drag me to a movie, anyway.”

“Good. I was actually thinking of not coming down until my birthday, the weekend after next.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I kinda have something planned.”

Her grin returned, overshadowing her disappointment. “For your own birthday? Aren’t I supposed to do the planning?”

She winced again, wanting to kick herself. Why should she assume she was the only important person in his life? Maybe his friends—though she didn’t really remember him mentioning any, or any family, for that matter—had something planned for him.

“Would you?” To her infinite relief, he sounded genuinely pleased rather than annoyed. “Or are you already?”

“Well…” She hadn’t really thought of it. How had she lost control of this conversation?

“Never mind. Wouldn’t want to spoil a surprise, if there is one. But would next weekend be okay instead of this weekend?”

“Absolutely. See you then?”

“I’ll be there. Thanks, Gabe.”

“Jack?”

“Yeah?”

She couldn’t think of anything to say beyond what trembled on the end of her tongue. Not a good idea to let those words loose.

“Um…thanks for not laughing at the clown get-up.”

Whew.

He chuckled. “I should have long since stopped being surprised by you. I’ve resigned myself to not having a clue what you’ll do next.”

Oh, she had a whopper of a surprise to drop into his lap. Too bad she couldn’t.

“Just trying to keep you on your toes.”

“And you’re succeeding. Look, I gotta go, but I’ll see you soon.”

“Okay. Bye, Jack.”

She terminated the call and sat staring down at her phone. Finally, she whispered the words she’d never thought she’d want to say again.

“Love you.”

In all those years spent escorting, he’d had no idea how hard it was to keep regular business hours. Paying his bills had become a game of beat-the-clock as he tried to drop off payments during his lunch hour. Even just getting food during that hour was a trick, what with clogged traffic and long lines at take-out counters.

On the plus side, time fairly flew with at least nine hours of every day filled with computer problems and quick fixes. He’d had a bad time at first because he immediately recognized two of his old clients, but after a few coy smiles to which he didn’t respond, the receptionist simply went back to her telephone and the other woman moved on to the computer problem with which she’d called the help desk. He counted himself lucky. Dealing with another Karen might have cost him the job he’d interviewed so hard to get.

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?”

Chitchat. He was making chitchat 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 back 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.