One
“HE SHOW UP YET?” MY brother, Weston, sticks his head out of his office to ask the question.
I try not to roll my eyes since it’s a harmless inquiry, but I’ve been jittery for almost an hour now. It takes work to keep my voice and expression calm. “Not yet. He said twelve thirty.”
“All right. Just checking. Let me know how it goes, Roar.” He disappears back into his office without another word.
He’s called me Roar all his life, his childhood shortening of my full name, Aurora. I find it rather funny since I’m a quiet person and roaring isn’t in my nature. Weston is five years older than me, and we weren’t close until we became adults. He’s normally not concerned about my social life, so I’m not sure what precipitated the questioning today.
He must know I’m nervous about Mike O’Dell stopping by.
I don’t like anyone knowing I’m nervous. I’ve cultivated a manner that’s cool, composed, organized, and in control, and it bothers me when someone recognizes that it’s often an act. Don’t ask me why it bothers me. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve hidden all my fears, anxieties, and confusion from the rest of the world.
I breathe deeply in an attempt to slow my racing heart and turn back to the spreadsheet on the computer at the reception desk of the office suite. We have an assistant who greets visitors, answers the phone, and does basic administrative tasks, but she works afternoons and evenings when most of our calls come in, so Weston and I take turns staffing this desk in the mornings. We haven’t had any calls this morning except for Mike confirming that he was coming in. Right now I need to finish this spreadsheet. It’s almost tax time, and Weston and I have worked too hard to make Companions for Hire a success to get in trouble with the IRS because of cute-guy jitters.
I’m thirty-four years old. I shouldn’t be so nervous about talking to a man.
But I am. And no matter how many times I envision this conversation in my head—imagining myself acting casual and appealing as I offer a certain proposition and (hopefully) have it accepted—I’m still scared to do it.
For the next twenty minutes, I spin my wheels, pretending to work but not getting much done, until the door to the office suite opens at exactly twelve thirty and a man walks in.
Mike.
He’s who I’ve been waiting for.
He smiles when he sees me. “Hey, Aurora.” Mike is about four inches taller than my five six, and he’s lean and fit with thick, wavy brown hair and vivid blue eyes. He’s just finished teaching a class at a local university, and he’s dressed in an appropriately academic outfit. Jeans, brown sports coat, and a slightly wrinkled shirt with no tie. I’m not sure what his shaving schedule is, but he always seems to have a five-o’clock shadow.
As far as I’m concerned, men don’t get any more attractive than him.
“Hi.” It feels like my cheeks are flushed—as they do whenever I experience emotion of any intensity—but I hope they’re not too noticeable. “Thanks for stopping by.”
“Of course. Did you have a good weekend?”
“Yeah. It was fine.” It was actually a pretty good weekend. I stayed in for most of it, binge-watching a vampire show on television. “How was yours?”
He makes a face. “I had papers to grade.”
We chat for a few minutes, talking about the paper he assigned in his zoology class and then shifting into the show I was watching and Weston’s attempts to install a new shelving system in my closet (still not completed).
It’s always easy to talk to Mike. He asks real questions and seems to genuinely listen to my answers. That’s not true of everyone. In fact, most people seem to go through the motions of conversation when they really want to be talking to someone else or checking their phones.
When we fall into silence after a few minutes, I hear myself saying, “Thanks for coming in.” Then I remember I already said that.
“Well, you said you had a new job for me. Since clients aren’t exactly beating down my door, I’m not going to pass it off.”
Companions for Hire is a service that provides exactly that. Companions. If you can pay our fee and any incidental expenses, we can provide a companion. Need a last-minute date to a wedding? A partner for a ballroom dancing class? A history buff to escort you through New England battlefields? A fluent French speaker for your trip to Paris? A fake boyfriend for a high school reunion? Companions for Hire can deliver—without any complications and without the underlying expectations of an escort agency.
The one kind of companionship we don’t provide is sex.
In my experience, if you want to hire someone for sex, those services are readily available. What’s harder to find for a fee are other kinds of social partners, and that’s the gap that Companions for Hire has filled for the past few years.
Five years ago, I needed a date to the yearly banquet of the nonprofit I worked for back then. I’d just gotten divorced from my husband of seven years, and I didn’t have the mental energy for dating yet. The friends I might have asked weren’t available, so I ended up attending the banquet with my brother. The whole evening I complained about how there wasn’t a reputable service that provided partners for hire for such events. I’d done exhaustive searches in the Atlanta area and far beyond, and I’d found nothing I’d be comfortable using. All the agencies I could find were either geared toward men or clearly a front for sex work, and neither of those options worked for me.
I had money to spend, and I needed a man to wear a suit and sit next to me for one evening so that I didn’t have to go to a big banquet alone. I should have been able to pay for what I needed, but there was nothing out there to provide me the service.
On the way home from the banquet, Weston and I brainstormed the concept of Companions for Hire. A week later, he called me up and said he’d put together a business plan for the company. He was bored with his corporate marketing job. He wanted to do something different and be his own boss. And since my skills lie in administration, he thought we could make a success of it together.
We did. A huge success that now brings in quite a bit of money. Most of our business is centered here in Atlanta, but our companions will travel around the world for jobs—as long as the client will pay expenses—so we get calls from all over. We carefully vet every client before we pair them with one of our companions, so we end up turning down more clients than we accept.
Being selective works in our favor. We’ve got a waiting list for dates with some of our most popular companions.
Mike isn’t one of our most popular ones. He isn’t as drop-dead handsome as some of the men who work for us—he’s more regular-guy cute—and he doesn’t dance or romance clients. He’s working on his PhD in wildlife conservation science, so we use him when someone is specifically looking for a companion who knows about animals or ecology. He’s gone on several hiking trips with clients, and he took one sweet old lady to Africa for a “wildlife safari.” But he doesn’t get jobs all the time. The work he does for us is a good supplement to his income, which at the moment consists only of his teaching assistantship, but he’s not making six figures like our top earners.
He’s been sitting on the leather chair next to the desk, and now he leans forward toward me with his forearms on his knees. “So what’s the job?”