3. Chapter Three #2
I blanked. Of all the questions I’d prepared an answer to beforehand, this wasn’t one of them. I hadn’t even thought about the monetary aspect of it—not since BlueJay19 told me she wasn’t going to take a dime from me.
I didn’t even know what number he expected.
My surprise must have shown on my face. “Really, it’s not a big deal,” Mark assured me.
“I know it’s an unsavory aspect of the whole thing, but I gotta know what the damage was.
I haven’t actually hooked up with a local girl yet—I’m curious whether they try to bilk you more than the babes down in Miami. ”
“I…” Static filled my mind.
“I mean, I’m assuming the two of you hammered out some kind of per-visit thing,” Mark said, glancing from me to his sandwich and back again. “God help you if that girl’s already got you handing out a weekly allowance, Tommy boy! I know you like to jump into things feet first, but…”
“No, it was a one-time thing,” I said, thinking fast. “I don’t really want to say the number.”
Mark nodded like he understood. He sized me up from the other side of the table, and I was suddenly reminded of the fact that my friend had spent the better part of the last eighteen years reading people from the other side of a sales desk.
“I’m not gonna tell anybody,” he said with a nod. “The hotel, the drinks, all that—ancillary. What was the gift, Tommy? Promise, I’ll drop it after that and we’ll never discuss it again.”
I swallowed hard, picking a number that neither sounded too high or too low. “A thousand.”
I thought he was going to choke.
“One thousand?” Mark’s eyes widened. “One thousand United States dollars?”
Oh shit. Wrong answer, I thought.
“You said we wouldn’t discuss it,” I insisted.
Mark’s teeth showed in a grimace. “I love you, Tom. I wouldn’t have this job at CreditCore if it wasn’t for you. I’d have gotten shitcanned after what happened in Manila. I’m not going to add insult to injury, and I want you to know that what I’m about to say comes from a place of brotherly love.”
God damn it, I thought, panic flaring in my gut. He knows. He knows that’s not a right answer, and he’s going to tell me he’s realized I’ve been lying to him this whole time—
Mark pointed a finger at me. “You, my friend, got ripped the hell off.”
The fist inside of my chest unclenched.
“I did?” I asked. My voice cracked a bit; hopefully Mark would interpret it as shock rather than the relief it actually was.
“Dude,” Mark said gently. “You paid, like, twice the going rate. And that’s for Miami, which is a way bigger market for this sort of thing.
” He clucked his tongue, like he wanted to be upset at me but just couldn’t find it in himself.
“And you splurged for the Armada. Jesus, that girl really got one over on you, Tommy boy.”
Fuck. Oh, thank God. Mark didn’t know about Bailey. He just thought I was an idiot—a naive rube willing to pay whatever price a pretty girl named in order to spend a night with her. Honestly, if this was a few weeks ago, he wouldn’t have been that far off the mark.
“This is why you should’ve let me help you make your profile to begin with,” Mark insisted. “Costly mistake, but one I know you won’t make again. Besides, from what you’re telling me…” He trailed off, looking almost wistful. “Hell, this girl sounds like she was almost worth it.”
“She most definitely was,” I said.
Mark ignored that. “So no second date with the redhead,” he said, waggling a finger at me.
“Not when you’ve got her used to getting that kind of treatment.
You and me, we’ve got to start hitting up the clubs, man.
You’re finally coming out of your shell after the whole Debbie thing, I’ve finally got Tina out of my hair… it’ll be great!”
“Maybe,” I said, already knowing I’d turn him down when the time came. “I don’t know if I’m going back to Sweetheart. You’re right. It was great—it was amazing—but probably too expensive to be more than a one-time thing.”
“That’s probably the right mindset,” Mark said, looking chipper.
“I wasn’t going to tell you this because I didn’t want to scare you off the whole thing right out of the gate, but there’s occasionally some unsavory types hanging around places like that.
Wouldn’t want you to get taken advantage of, Tommy. ”
Keeping my expression neutral took an effort. “You mean like… scams?”
“Ohhhh yeah.” Mark leaned back in the booth, putting his hands behind his head. “Some of them are insidious. Guys getting bled for months by girls who don’t even exist. Romance scams, they call ‘em. Places like Sweetheart are supposed to be clean, but you never know.”
I swallowed hard. Because I did know.
“You said it was no different than applying to CreditCore,” I said, remembering the barbecue. “That it was safe. They do background checks and things like that.”
“Sure, sure.” He waved a hand. “But scammers are gonna scam, Tommy boy. I’ve got a buddy down in the Miami office who got taken for eight grand. Eight freaking grand. Never even got a crumb of pussy out of it, either.” He shook his head. “Shameful.”
My stomach dropped. “Yeah,” I said, thinking of what I’d heard around my kitchen table that very morning. “Shameful.”
Mark must have misinterpreted it. “Hey, woah, I never would’ve let that happen to you,” he assured me.
“This is why I kind of wanted to shepherd you through the whole thing in the first place. So you didn’t end up with emptied-out bank accounts or waking up in an ice bath with a kidney missing.
” He grinned. “Just kidding. But you can be too trusting sometimes, Tommy.”
I nodded. I knew the scam ecosystem just as well as my friend did. Maybe even better.
“Well, if I do do anything else on Sweetheart, I’ll run it by you first,” I said.
“Cool.” He leaned forward, his gaze sharp with renewed interest. “Anyway, tell me about this date you’ve got on Friday. Sounds like it didn’t take much more than one night on the prowl for the old Tommy to come out to play, huh?”
I chuckled. “It’s a funny story, actually…”
I told Mark all about the visit to Sakura Nails: how Miki flirted with me shamelessly, insisted on cleaning up my nails and putting a clear coat on them, then slipped her number onto my receipt. He was laughing and shaking his head by the time I was done.
“That girl’s one slick operator,” he said, surreptitiously checking out my fingers. “She might be trouble. She does do good work, though. You really let her give you a manicure?”
I shrugged. “Nothing in this world’s just for girls, I guess,” I said.
“They look good,” Mark said, glancing at his own nails. “I can’t even make fun of you for it.”
We mostly made small talk after that. The lunch rush had mostly ended by the time we bussed our dishes, and Mark drove us back to work before peeling off to the sales floor while I retreated to my office.
The rest of the day, I was a model employee.
I cleared a backlog of approvals that had been rotting in my inbox since Thursday.
Dug my way through my emails, clearing the whole inbox in about an hour and a half or so.
When Brenda stopped with questions about the deck I'd sent the team, I had the answers almost before she finished her sentence.
The look on her face was almost worth the years of being too timid to be this kind of man.