So I just kept my eye on the prize.
Tomorrow night, I’d meet Luca.
And maybe this off season would get off to a less depressing start.
Chapter 2
Luca
I pulled up in front of the apartment building in the University District and messaged the passenger that I’d arrived. She texted me that she’d be down in a few minutes.
While I waited with my hazards blinking, I checked my messages on the Emerald City app. Naturally, I didn’t have any. I hadn’t in a while. What made me think that would suddenly change? I wasn’t even showing as available tonight since I had a final tomorrow and wanted to do at least a little bit of studying and maybe even get some sleep.
It probably wouldn’t have mattered. My calendar on the website could have said please hire me! in giant red letters, and I still wouldn’t have gotten any messages.
Sighing, I put my phone aside and stared out the windshield. I should’ve known this would happen. And maybe I did. Hadn’t getting less escort work sort of been the point of jacking up my prices?
Last semester, I’d taken a marketing class and I’d latched on to the scarcity principle and the concept of prices implying value. Like how slapping a hundred dollar price tag on a T-shirt just because it had a certain brand-name logo created its own demand, because if it’s that expensive, then clearly there’s a reason for it. At the time, I’d felt so conflicted about working as an escort, so freaked out at the prospect of my family somehow finding out what I was doing, that I’d convinced myself all I had to do was jack up my prices to create the illusion that I was in high demand. Then I could make more money while seeing fewer men. (As if the number of guys who’d paid me for “companionship” would make a difference in how my folks would react should my job ever land on their radar.) Plus, maybe I would finally make enough money to get my head above water.
Anita, the owner of Emerald City, had cautioned me against my stupid plan. If I priced myself too high, she’d warned, then I wouldn’t get many clients at all, but that had just encouraged me. I’d insisted that was the point. Sure, I’d get fewer hits, but I’d still make more money because the clients I did pull would be paying more. A lot more. And then maybe I’d be able to sleep better at night because, if the worst happened, my parents might only find out I’d had sex with twenty-odd guys for money instead of a few hundred.
Yeah, that was working out. It totally explained why I was the most expensive Gentleman on the site, but instead of playing Luca the escort, I spent most of my time as an Uber and Lyft driver with a growing mountain of bills. Some of the other guys at Emerald City made enough to rent decent apartments in downtown Seattle. Meanwhile my overpriced ass was renting a room in a split-level house in Mountlake Terrace with five roommates. Does that sound like the life of a high-dollar manwhore to you? Yeah, me neither.
Leaning my head back against the seat, I sighed. Whatever. At the end of the day, my bookings had dried up before I could get ahead (or even catch up) financially. I was broke, and the lack of clients was depressing as hell. Maybe it was time to bail on the whole escort thing. My conscience couldn’t handle it when I was getting regular work, and my wallet couldn’t handle it when I wasn’t. At least if I quit, then I could ease up a little at the gym and actually eat a decent meal once in a while instead of killing myself for this physique that no one wanted to pay for anyway. If I could ever afford a decent meal, that is.
The backseat door opened, startling me, and a twenty-something Black women slid into the back. “Sorry to keep you waiting!”
“Oh. Uh.” I smiled as I tossed my phone aside and glanced at her in the rearview. “No problem. You’re Sarah, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” I pulled away from the curb and headed downtown. Sarah was nice, as most of my passengers were, and we chatted on the way through Seattle. I dropped her off outside the restaurant where she was meeting friends. After she got out, I did a quick check to make sure she hadn’t left anything in the car. Every once in a while, someone left a purse or dropped a wallet or phone, and I’d learned early on that it was a lot easier to check now than to get all the way home and realize I needed to come back.
Sarah had taken all of her things, so I pulled away from the curb and rejoined the thickening traffic. Was there a game tonight? Baseball had started, and the Mariners were having a good season, so that usually meant traffic. At least it wasn’t football season. The exodus after a Seahawks game was a nightmare.
Hockey was over too, wasn’t it? I thought I’d heard someone say the Breakers had lost in the playoffs this week. Not that I really followed hockey, though I did cringe a little now that the season was over. There was a player on that team who liked me. A lot. The feeling was not mutual in the slightest, but my bank account said I wouldn’t be turning him down if he pinged me. I wasn’t looking forward to that. The payout, yes. The company? Ugh.
Once I was out of the worst traffic, I pulled over. I was technically in a parking space, but I didn’t see any cops around, so I figured I could check my messages super-fast before “changing my mind” about parking and pulling back out.
As I picked up my phone, the push notification on the screen nearly made me shout. I had a message on Emerald City? Holy shit.
I quickly opened it, fumbling my passcode on both the phone and the app before I finally got to the message screen.
You have received a booking! Please confirm your acceptance.
My heart sped up. I could already feel the preemptive relief of that sweet, sweet money landing in my bank account just in time to pay bills.
Still, I cringed a little. It was Scott, wasn’t it? That asshole hockey player? The season was over, so he was probably back in town. And he was rich enough that he probably wouldn’t blink at my prices being higher than the last time he’d booked me. In fact, I’d just be a lot more available for him since no one else wanted to pay that much. Ugh. I did not think this through.
Ah, well. He needed sex and I needed money. Fine.
I opened the booking email, but the profile didn’t belong to Scott. In fact, this was a new user. His card had gone through, which was promising. Some of these guys had eyes bigger than their credit limits. The background check was still pending, but it was pretty rare for those to get kicked back. I didn’t know the specifics of what Anita had access to, but I’d heard more than once that felons and sex offenders flagged pretty fast, so if he hadn’t been rejected yet, he’d probably be all right. At worst, I might get a “this guy did some time for non-violent drug offenses—is that cool?” message tomorrow. That happened every once in a while. Or, well, it had back when I’d gotten bookings more often than Halley’s Comet passed the earth.
So I was eager to accept the booking, but since he was new to me and to the site, I wanted to look at his profile first.
I tapped his profile. It was fairly sparse, which wasn’t unusual. A lot of guys were paranoid about giving away some tidbit of information that would out them to the whole world. As if anyone ever saw their profiles besides the Gentlemen they requested. Even admin didn’t see profiles unless one of us reported them for having content that violated the terms of service, and there were very few things that met that criteria. If I rejected the booking (something I could do for any reason including no reason at all), the client would be notified that I was unavailable, but no one would see his profile unless I flagged it.