Chapter 23
“This is such a bad idea,” Daniel said, staring out the window.
“I also don’t like parking on the street, but I didn’t see a parking garage or paid lot close. I can try looping around the block?”
Daniel let out a laugh. “Not the parking, Jensen. I’m talking about the job interview. I think we should just go.”
“No way,” Casey said, leaning forward so his head popped up between the two front seats. “This is a great idea. Janelle’s assistant was super excited when I told her I knew someone that wanted to apply.”
He turned in his seat and looked at Casey, an eyebrow raised. “Were they?”
“One hundred percent.”
Well, Daniel didn’t believe that at all. It was more likely that the company didn’t want bad blood with the porn studio. But Casey had called up the company himself and somehow created a job interview out of thin air, so Daniel wasn’t going to voice his disbelief.
“Think of this as practice,” Brody said. “Get the first interview out of the way so you’re less nervous about future ones.”
“Except you won’t need any future ones because you’re totally going to get hired.”
Daniel wished he had Casey’s blind optimism, but Brody was right. This was good practice. He hadn’t gone through an interview process since he’d started at the Lillian, and he was bound to be a bit rusty. This meeting with Janelle would help him get back into the groove.
That actually did make him feel a bit better about making a nervous fool of himself.
He nodded once. “I’m going in.”
“Good luck,” Jensen said and leaned over the center console to kiss him. Not wanting to let an opportunity pass him by, Daniel tugged at the front of Jensen’s shirt and deepened the kiss.
“I need a boyfriend,” Casey whined just as Jensen’s tongue swiped Daniel’s bottom lip.
Daniel pulled back and glared at his roommate. Which wasn’t difficult, since his face was still between the two front seats and only inches away. Casey looked unrepentant at his intrusion on what should have been a private moment.
With a sigh, Daniel slipped out of the car. It was best to get this over with as quickly as possible.
“Wait,” Casey said as he opened the back door. “Fit check before you go in.”
He scurried over and started patting down the arms of the black suit jacket Daniel had borrowed. When he was satisfied it wasn’t spontaneously hideous, Casey bit the corner of his bottom lip as he adjusted Daniel’s already perfect tie.
Looking down at his roommate of the past several years, Daniel couldn’t help but feel a wave of gratitude and confusion sweep over him.
Casey was always nice to him, even when he was bitching at him for something.
At his core, he was a sweetheart that would bring home treats for everyone and offer his own possessions up for Daniel’s use.
But this was much more than borrowing an outfit or some shave gel. “Why did you do this for me?”
Casey shrugged and stepped back, finished with his fiddling. “You’re one of my closest friends, and you said you needed help, so …”
“You see me as a close friend?” Daniel asked, fucking flabbergasted. He didn’t think he’d done anything to warrant such a high status in Casey’s life. The man had a whole entourage of friends at his disposal.
“Uh, rude.” Casey put his hands on his hips. “I let you paint my toenails.”
“What are you talking about? You told me to.” Years ago, Casey had burst into Daniel’s room, shoved a container of nail polish at him, and informed him he would be painting toenails.
He’d said it with such confidence and authority that Daniel didn’t question it.
At the time, he hadn’t considered it a moment of bonding or cementing their friendship.
But Daniel was beginning to think he didn’t actually know what true friends were.
“Yeah, and I don’t let just anyone touch my feet. And I didn’t even complain when you did it horribly. If that isn’t true friendship, I don’t know what is.”
For fuck’s sake. “I’d never painted anyone’s toenails before—”
“That was more than obvious, sweetie.”
Daniel pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head.
“Hey.” Casey put a hand on his shoulder, drawing his attention.
“I’m serious. You’re my friend, and you never ask for help, so when you did last night …
I don’t know. I wanted to help. I mean, you never need anything.
You’re so self-sufficient and ready to take on the world.
I’ve always been envious of that. I feel like I need constant babying.
I can’t even go to the club without Brody because I don’t know how to tell people no.
” He rubbed the back of his neck and averted his eyes.
Casey was envious of him? That made no sense to Daniel.
He was struggling to hold on most of the time.
Each moment of the day was spent just surviving.
He had no money, no prospects, and no friends.
Though, it turned out he was wrong about that last assumption.
Casey thought they were friends. Close friends.
Maybe Brody thought the same—he had allowed Daniel’s boyfriend to wear his clothes because there hadn’t been time to do laundry or go shopping yet.
And maybe Arlo wasn’t as uncomfortable around him as Daniel had originally thought—he had revised Daniel’s résumé for him.
And all three of them had chipped in to cover Daniel’s portion of rent for the month.
It made Daniel wonder how many of the people in his life he thought were just mere acquaintances were actually his friends. And not just fair-weather friends like the assholes he’d paraded around with in college that left the moment things turned rocky.
“I don’t really have much to offer unless you need a good orgasm,” Casey continued, “but you already have your prim-ass boyfriend for that. So this is all I could do.”
Daniel smiled slightly at the mild insult of Jensen. Even in clothes borrowed from Brody, he still looked overly proper sitting behind the wheel of Casey’s car with his back straight. Fuck, he was cute.
“All you could do,” he repeated Casey’s words, then gestured toward the squat office building. “You got me an interview that could change my life. That’s not nothing.”
Casey puffed out his chest. “Casey Smith, altering lives through blow jobs and phone calls.”
“Hey, don’t sell yourself short,” Daniel admonished.
“Oh, I’m not. God already did that for me,” Casey said with a wink, then lifted onto his toes so they were the same height. “You need to get in there though. Don’t want to be late.”
Daniel blew out a breath and turned to fully look at the building that held his future behind its brick walls and glass windows. “Here goes nothing.”
In a moment that should have had more fanfare due to its impact on Daniel’s life, he crossed the sidewalk and pushed through the glass door marked “Butler Events.” Instead of trumpets playing or a choir detailing his courageous journey across the tiled floor and up to the black desk that might decide his fate, soft instrumental music flowed across the lobby.
The young woman that sat behind the desk smiled at him, her slicked-back ponytail swaying down her back as she looked up from her computer. “Good afternoon.”
“Good afternoon, I have an appointment with Janelle Butler,” Daniel said, trying his hardest to sound confident. If he acted like he belonged there, they might not throw him out on his ass.
Her red lips scrunched up as she trailed a long fingernail down the side of her computer screen. After a moment, she found what she was searching for and looked back up at Daniel. “She’s still on her lunch break, but if you want to have a seat—”
She was cut off by a door to the left opening up as two women entered the room, chatting. Daniel turned his head to look at them, and his heart plummeted to the soles of his dress shoes.
He knew both of them.
In a fitted green suit, Janelle Butler stepped to the side of the door, her short heels clacking on the tile of the lobby.
She looked just as put together and professional as she had at the event where Daniel first met her, but her smile was more genuine and her posture more relaxed as she focused on the woman with her.
Kassandra let the door close behind her and shifted the brown paper bag with a restaurant’s logo printed on the side to her other arm.
“Mrs. Butler, your one o’clock interview is here.”
Daniel wished the floor would swallow him whole as Janelle and Kassandra turned to stare at him.
If his legs were working, he would run out of the building.
He might run across the country and find a different town to live in.
Or he might just keep running, as it seemed his past was never going to leave him alone.
It was stupid of him to think that sooner or later the years of sex work wouldn’t catch up to him.
He just hadn’t thought it would happen before he got to interview for a new job.
Before he got the chance to prove himself.
“Daniel?” Kassandra said.
Janelle looked between the two of them. “You know each other?”
His tongue was too dry to answer. It stuck to the roof of his mouth and seemed to want to remain there. And what could he say? Was he really going to admit to their relationship? Yeah, he should just leave now before things got more humiliating.
“This is the Daniel I told you about,” Kassandra answered. “The one I met at a bar and who helped me get through the divorce.”
What? That was what Kassandra had to say about their unconventional connection? It wasn’t exactly a lie, but it definitely wasn’t the whole truth.
Janelle’s eyes lit with recognition. “The mysterious Daniel you never let me meet. And now I’m interviewing him for a job here. It’s such a small world.”
Daniel was effectively useless as Kassandra’s gaze went from his shoes to his wide eyes.
At any second, his sordid past could be exposed, and he’d no doubt be thrown out of the office and onto his ass.
Kassandra had his balls in her hand, and he wouldn’t blame her if she warned her friend about him.
“If you don’t hire him, we can no longer be friends,” Kassandra said, shocking Daniel so much he had to steady himself on the desk.
Janelle laughed and playfully slapped her arm. “I can’t make hiring decisions based on personal relationships.”
A conspiratorial smile crept onto Kassandra’s face. “Should we tell your dad he shouldn’t have hired his kids?”
“Only if you want your invitation to dinner on Sunday rescinded. Now go, I have positions to fill, and we wouldn’t want to waste Daniel’s time.”
Kassandra walked to the front doors, sending Daniel a smile on her way there. As she was leaving, she turned back to wave at Janelle, then Daniel. He could hardly lift his arm to return the gesture.
“So,” Janelle said, forcing Daniel to look at her. “Decided you finally wanted bigger and better things for yourself?”
Daniel could have laughed at how accurate her question was.
Yes. Yes, he had.
He wanted so much more than he’d forced himself to live with. He wanted a job he enjoyed, money he was proud of making, real friends that helped one another out, and a boyfriend who wouldn’t order seafood at a restaurant but would uproot his entire life at a moment’s notice just to be with him.
Yeah, Daniel was finally ready to move onto bigger and better things.