Page 96 of Boyfriend of the Hour

And then there was the small but not insignificant fact that I couldn’t ever hope to pay him back for all of these things.

I had spent the rest of the morning putting the clothes away in my closet and trying not to have a heart attack whenever I saw the price tags.

Then I’d immediately called Rochelle and asked her to get me that meeting with her boss.

It wasn’t the clothes themselves exactly that made me call my cousin. It was what they represented. This weekend, I was supposed to act like Nathan’s girlfriend, someone who wore things like these to galas and fancy dinners, who could talkabout literature and art the way Matthew, Kate, and Frankie had always been able to do.

But it was more than that. People like that knew how to act in those situations too. Xavier, Frankie’s husband, and Nina, Matthew’s wife, were proof of that. They knew which forks to use at a fancy restaurant. They had impeccable grooming and museum memberships. Had traveled the world, stayed in five-star hotels, knew exactly how much to tip bellhops, and collected art like my nephews collected Pokémon cards.

It was a different world, and learning how to navigate it would cost money. And since Nathan had clearly paid way more than I ever would have accepted, the rest had to be up to me.

So, I was doing what I had to do.

Sitting beside me in the Diamonds locker room, Rochelle just smirked as she helped me apply false eyelashes over a thick cat eye. “Kyle’s not going to take you to one of those unless he knows you’re legit. This is your audition.”

Diamonds was no different from any of the other strip clubs still left in Manhattan. Past the theater district and close to the river, it was in the part of midtown that still hinted at the darker New York that existed before I was born, when Seventh Avenue was dotted with peepshows instead of Disney stores and restaurants. The building itself was a converted walkup that had been painted black up and down the brick exterior and over the windows. The entrance was covered by an awning lit with a neon sign bearing its name and an animated woman’s leg kicking toward the night sky.

“My sunny personality isn’t enough to wait tables?” I asked. “I have to take my top off so he can make sure my tits aren’t different sizes too? Everyone’s are, you know.”

Rochelle snorted. “Mami, last year you skinny dipped for two hours in front of fifty people that night Carmine snuck us intothe pool during the heat wave. I’ve seen you perform in nothing but a thong and body paint. Why are you getting shy now?”

I pressed my fingers to the edges of my lashes, waiting for them to dry. “I’m not.”

That was a lie. I actually had a very good reason for getting shy. A six-foot-four hulk of a reason with an adorably sweet smile. One that wore glasses, kissed like a god, and said the word “perfect” with a growl that made my toes curl.

Then I sighed with my eyes still firmly shut. “I just don’t want to do it here.”

“Why, you want to serve drinks topless at your regular job? I think you might get arrested.”

I shook my head. I didn’t want to ask. But at the same time…I knew I had to. “You haven’t seen Shawn here recently, have you?”

There was a long silence. Longer than the remaining seconds needed for the eyelash glue to dry. Gingerly, I removed my fingers and blinked. The lashes stayed put. Good.

Rochelle, however, was looking at me like something was very, very wrong. “Please tell me that motherfucker isn’t back in your life.”

My family barely knew anything about Shawn Vamos, but the same couldn’t be said about Rochelle. It had always been hard to hide from her, especially since she’d been with me on the day Shawn and I met. And for a long time, served as an alibi when I needed to claim a “sleepover.” She’d enjoyed attention from some of Shawn’s friends too, so it’s not like she had ever judged me for him.

But unlike me, my friend had easily grown out of that part of our lives. Out of the clutches of men like that.

For me, it hadn’t been so easy.

I gave a half-hearted shrug. “He showed up at the bar on Thursday.”

Rochelle swore under her breath. “Fuck, Jo.”

“Hey, I can’t stop him from just showing up places. He really is a bad penny.”

“A demon penny,” she concurred. “Why don’t you file a restraining order or something? Get him off your back permanently.”

I gave her a look. “You know why.”

Rochelle had the decency not to voice the reason out loud. “I still think you should tell your brother about that.”

“I am not telling Matthew or anyone in my family. You know that.”

“Yeah, but Matt would sic the entire NYPD on his ass,” Rochelle said. “Get him locked up for what he did to you.”

“I was legal at the time.” My voice was a monotone. I hated talking about this. “Technically, he didn’t do anything wrong.”