Chapter Four #2
Jem tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair.
“You get one guess about something in my life per day, per category, but you can’t fish for answers directly.
Questions about important shit are allowed.
Like—I’m allergic to shellfish. You should probably know that.
I have an EpiPen on me pretty much all the time.
You know how Angelenos are about seafood. ”
River nodded and made it a point to remember to ask where he had it when they went out, because he would absolutely freak out if Jem suddenly stopped breathing. “I do.”
“And it’s fair to ask things like….” He leaned forward, quirking a lopsided grin, and lowered his voice to a parody of a come-on line. “Hey, Jem, do you have any psycho exes who might try to kill me?”
Absolutely no one was going to doubt that River was ass over tits for this guy. Hilarious. River leaned forward too. “Well, do you?”
He dropped the flirty attitude and rolled his eyes. “Nah. That would require them to have liked me that much in the first place. Should I be worried, though?”
“It hasn’t been a problem so far. Keep us posted. We can get you security if it happens.” River carefully didn’t offer an opinion on Jem’s exes. Apparently he suffered from the same brand of luck as River did.
“So those are the rules for me. That’s fair. But how do I earn the VIP passes, huh?”
“The old-fashioned way.” Jem smiled. “Conversation.”
Right away, River saw Amanda’s intention. “Oh, so I have to pay attention to you.”
“That was the hope, I think.”
Fuck it. The whole thing was kind of nuts, but River could work with crazy. He stuck out his hand. “All right, Jem. You’re hired.”
River left the room a moment later, shaking his head, and let himself into Amanda’s office. She looked up from her computer with a smug smile.
The gall of this woman. God, he loved her.
“Why couldn’t you have been a man?” River complained, foregoing the chair in front of her desk in favor of sitting on its surface. “If you were a man, I could’ve just married you and everything would’ve been fine.”
Amanda rolled her eyes. “Why couldn’t you have been straight? Why am I the one who has to change?”
River wrinkled his nose. “Ew.”
She spread her arms as though to say there you go, then flipped her tablet facedown and propped her chin on her hands. “So… what do you think of your new man?”
The cheek! The ego! River huffed. “Amanda, that’s not a man. That’s a vanilla oat-milk latte. Nonfat.”
As per usual, she refused to rise to the bait and instead picked up a nail file from her desk and pretended to use it.
As if she didn’t have the gnarliest hangnails this side of Appalachia.
She only used the file when she wanted to be theatrical.
“Dairy,” she said with barely a glance at him.
“Full fat. I know you checked out his ass.”
“Pablum,” sputtered River, who had held the door for Jem so he could watch him walk out of it. “Pablum for the masses.”
She set the file down and looked up. “So you agree he’s perfect.”
River needed more dramatic stage space than the desk could provide, so he slid off it and flung himself onto the sofa at the side of the room. “Yes. Fine. You win. I will take the All-American boy next door as my paid consort.”
Amanda dimpled. “Fantastic. I’ll finalize the paperwork.”
When Jem left the Seventh Circle Management offices, Tori was outside, parked with the windows down and the driver’s seat pushed back as far as it would go, reading a tattered mass market with two kilted ladies on the cover.
Jem wouldn’t have done it. Even in a nice lot, with security, and even though it was the middle of the day, LA still made him nervous sometimes.
You could take the boy out of South Carolina, but you couldn’t take South Carolina out of the boy.
Which was ironic, maybe, because Jem doubted he’d feel safer in SC these days, with the little intersectional Pride sticker on his bumper and everything.
But Tori had grown up here, and she refused to be influenced by Jem’s small-town sensibilities.
When he opened the door, she pushed her sunglasses down to look at him over the top. “So?”
Wordlessly, Jem pointed to the security booth, hoping the subtext was clear: Tori, I’m not going to break my nondisclosure agreement in the goddamn parking lot.
The NDA had a bit of wiggle room, because he’d let Amanda know Tori had helped him set up his account, but he didn’t have to test how much room in full view of Seventh Circle Management employees.
Sighing, Tori started the car. Once they’d cleared the attendant booth and pulled onto the street, she demanded, “Now spill.”
“I mean. Obviously I got the job.”
“Yeah, duh, they don’t make you sign away your firstborn ’cause you didn’t.” She merged aggressively into traffic and then added, “Oh shit, maybe I shouldn’t joke about that anymore.”
Jem didn’t think it counted if he wasn’t the one doing the birthing, but what did he know?
“Anyway, tell me about your sugar daddy. Is it a daddy?”
Jem had a bizarre mental image of a bouquet of balloons, all in blue, one depicting a teddy bear in bondage gear, with the words It’s a boy! “Yeah, Tori, it’s a guy.”
“Well?” she snapped impatiently. “Are you going to give me any details, or do I have to get out the pliers?”
“You could just let your driving do the work.”
Without looking, she reached over and slapped him on the back of the head.
“Jem! Come on. You haven’t given me any good gossip in so long, and I am dying.
Do you know what it’s like being a messy bitch who loves drama when you’re a happily married lesbian and you’re still friends with all your exes who are also all still friends with each other? ”
“…Awesome?” Jem suggested dryly, because like hell was he going to pity her for being happily married.
“Okay, yes, but also, I need something juicier to sink my teeth into than middle-school gossip. Jem!”
He loved winding her up, but if he tormented her for too long, she’d give him a wet willy, because she was secretly the same age as her students. “Okay, all right, fine. What do you want to know?”
“You could start with his name.”
“It’s River.”
Tori took the exit off the highway. “River,” she repeated. “Does he have a last name, or is he like Prince?”
“Well, he’s not unlike Prince. They’re both musicians. River prefers red to purple, though, I think—”
“Jem.”
He grinned. “It’s Wild.”
The car lurched as Tori slammed on the brakes at a light. “River Wild. The guitarist of the Flat Tires, River Wild, is your sugar daddy.”
“Official as of like ten minutes ago.”
“River Wild—the guy with more hoops in his ears than a Cirque performance. Wearer of leather pants and eyeliner. Crowd surfs at every opportunity. Giant anarchist tattoo on his back.”
Apparently Tori was a fan. “He didn’t show me the tattoo,” Jem said.
“That River Wild,” Tori went on as she hit the gas so she could cut across two lanes of traffic, “hired you, Jem J. Anderson—a man who plays golf and wears oatmeal sweaters and teaches kindergarten—as his sugar baby.”
Should Jem be offended? “I don’t think he knows about the sweaters.” He definitely didn’t know about the kindergarteners.
Tori made an exasperated sound as the car rocked around a corner onto her street. Jem guessed he was probably on dinner duty. “Jem,” she said after a deep, audible inhale, “the question I am asking you is—why you? Actually, why anyone?”
“You don’t think professional musicians have problems with their personal lives?”
As she always did within three blocks of home, Tori cut her speed in half. God forbid she risk a scolding from her wife. “I think professional musicians have nothing but problems with their personal lives,” she corrected. “Where else would the inspiration come from?”
Well, unlike Jem and Tori’s college band, obviously they wouldn’t be getting it from middle-school gossip. “Okay, and… that’s why he hired me?”
Finally Tori pulled into her driveway. As she put the car in Park, the flood of adrenaline ebbed. “To give him problems?”
“I think that’s a different kind of sex worker.”
“There could be overlap. You don’t know.” They got out of the car and headed into the house.
“Because he was already having too many problems, Tori. Like, his taste in men is apparently as bad as his taste in jewelry.”
Tori cackled as she followed him up the stairs into the kitchen. “I love it when you’re petty. Keep going. Tell me all his flaws as bitchily as you can.”
Jem rolled his eyes. “I’ll tell you whatever you want. First go find Ivy and see if the baby wants chicken tagine or homemade pizza for dinner.”
“Pizza,” Tori said excitedly.
Jem pointed down the hall toward the master bedroom, where Ivy was almost certainly having a beginning-of-second-trimester nap. “Ask the baby.”
“Ask the baby,” she mocked aloud, but she dutifully crept down the hallway to find out what the fetus wanted for dinner and returned pouting a moment later to admit it was tagine.
Jem pulled out the Instant Pot and a handful of spices and started the prep.
“So, River Wild’s flaws—go. And don’t tell me anything that’ll make me hate the Flat Tires, okay, they’re fun to listen to.”
“I don’t know anything about the Flat Tires,” Jem said. “I mean, like, I’ve probably heard a couple of their songs, but—anyway. You know how my eyes were watering all the way there?”
“I asked you three times if you were having a nervous breakdown,” she answered drily. “I remember.”
“Uh, so, turns out I had one of my contacts in inside-out, so I couldn’t see shit.
So I’m there in the ready room or whatever you want to call it, waiting for my potential new boss, and some guy comes in but he doesn’t introduce himself.
So I’m like, okay, it’s cool, maybe they’re interviewing more than one candidate? ”
“Mm-hmm,” Tori encouraged while Jem chopped onions.
“Anyway, I figure if the guy I’m supposed to interview with isn’t here yet, I’ll find the bathroom and fix my contact, and when I get back, actually able to see—”
“It’s River Wild,” Tori filled in.
Jem glugged olive oil into the Instant Pot. “It’s River Wild,” he agreed. “Which, like, I didn’t know what the guy looked like—”
“You live in LA.”
“Yeah. I live in LA. There are so many famous people here, you can’t expect me to remember what they all look like.
” He rolled his eyes and started seasoning the chicken.
“So when he’s like ‘oh, you do recognize me,’ I was like, uh, no, dude, I only know ’cause your manager has your Rolling Stone cover framed on the wall—”
Tori cackled. “Oh, so what he really needs is an ego check.”
“Everyone needs one now and then.” He pointed at her with his knife. “You’re next, Foster.”
She raised her hands. “Guilty. But tell me more about your sugar daddy’s flaws.”
With the oil sizzling, Jem added the chicken to the pot. “I don’t know, I only talked to the guy for like twenty minutes. He gave me homework, does that count?”
“Ooh. Karma.”
“Excuse you, I do not give the kindergarteners homework.” He paused in flattening the garlic to make a face. “I’m not a monster. Anyway, aside from the ego and the appalling taste in hookups and jewelry, he’s not bad. He’s funny, at least, and easy to talk to.”
He could feel her squinting at his back. “And sexy?” she prodded leadingly.
“Contract says I’m not getting paid to sleep with him.”
He should’ve known that evasive maneuver was the equivalent of closing his eyes so she couldn’t see him.
“Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe lack of payment has stopped you from fucking anyone before.
Besides, I didn’t ask if you were going to have sex.
I asked if he was sexy. To which I now assume the answer is yes, terrible jewelry and all. ”
Jem dumped the remaining tagine ingredients into the pot, closed the lid, and turned around. “Tori—”
“That’s a yes,” she said knowingly. “Just be careful, Jem.”
“This was your idea! Now you’re having reservations?”
“No! Yes! I don’t know. I expected you to get matched up with a fifty-year-old who’d make you her pool boy, I didn’t account for actually attractive, reasonably desirable people needing paid companionship.
You know what you’re like. You want love so bad, and you deserve it.
Just… don’t forget you’re an employee, okay? ”
Jem huffed and set the timer. “You don’t have to worry. It’s pretty obvious we belong in different worlds. I’m not going to get my heart broken, I’m just going to fix my bank account.”
“Okay,” Tori said, “cool. So do you think he can get us backstage passes?”