Page 11 of The Intimacy of Skin

What I was doing was crazy. I knew that.

Convincing Matt to take Crew on to the staff was easy.

He was so uninvolved, he didn’t even know we didn’t technically have an open position.

Brandt was pissed but couldn’t go against his boss’s wishes.

It was a win-win for me and a lose-lose for Brandt, which always made me happy.

Crew, on the other hand, seemed to need a lot more convincing. To be honest, I didn’t mind having to. Was how I did it a bit asshole-ish? Sure. I’d stopped trying to pick between a clear-cut right and wrong a long time ago.

Maybe around the time my only friend abandoned me for a better life, and I’d paid the tenth sex worker, I realized just how gray things were.

There were no secrets to be kept when I had no one to keep them from.

I was tired of existing the way I did. I was sure I’d search the streets for something else if I didn’t find my release through a human body.

Something stronger than wine or whiskey.

Maybe if my veins burned enough or my nose was clogged with enough powder, I wouldn’t want to tear my skin apart in a desperate attempt to escape myself.

Dad seemed to like it just fine. I could easily follow in his footsteps, and instead of riding the line of morally correct versus incorrect, I could take a deep dive straight to the bad.

I had no idea what I was doing with Crew. Should I be doing something at all? Probably not. Though who was I to interrupt fate? Crew and I crossed paths too many times for me not to.

Glancing at the clock, I knew we had maybe half an hour before staff started rolling in to prep the kitchen. Brandt tended to show up ten minutes after we opened, if at all.

Crew was waiting for my reply as if he had no idea I didn’t know what I was doing or what his position was meant to be, aside from keeping him around.

Which, I guess, he didn’t know that. I reached a hand towards him, gesturing for his ID and social.

“You’ll mostly help me with admin stuff.

Boring paperwork, inventory, cleaning… I won’t be working you too hard.

I guess it’s sort of like an assistant position. ”

“No cooking?’

Sometime during our conversation, he’d rolled his sleeves up past his elbows.

I paused, taking him in briefly before grabbing his ID and social from his hand.

Today, he wore a well-loved graphic tee.

I didn’t usually ponder on other people’s wardrobes, but his stuck out to me.

Crew seemed to only wear the most muted colors: simple, plain black and gray with a similarly styled zip-up jacket.

Each time we crossed paths, he’d worn dark-washed jeans with the same pair of Vans.

His shoes were the most colorful part of his outfit; a baby blue on top with the laces and bottom a dingy white.

When I took him to the hotel that night, I noticed how differently he seemed to be dressed compared to the others.

He seemed to stick out. Instead of huddling in a circle, chatting and fidgeting in place for companionable warmth, Crew was alone. He’d been the only one wearing anything fully intact. It stuck with me.

Most of the sex workers I picked up were the same as the others, laughing with what I assumed were their friends when they weren’t being approached.

During the winter, I always kept the heat at full blast for anyone who got into my car.

They’d have miles of skin on display, despite the chill in the air.

I knew some of them couldn’t afford something warmer. Though I had to wonder if others had convinced each other that to make it as a sex worker, you had to risk hypothermia.

An annoyed throat-clearing pushed me along. It took me another moment to remember what Crew had asked. “Do you want to cook?” I tried to save face, though I wasn’t sure how possible that was. I turned my attention to his ID, rather than what I had been looking at before.

“Oh, fuck no.” He slowly pulled his jacket sleeves down as he spoke. “I promise you I can burn water.”

I winced internally as he covered his arms. Maybe that was the exact reason why he insisted on wearing jackets that hid his body.

It could be sensibility, though I doubted that.

“Good.” I forced a closed-mouth smile. “I didn’t hire you as a cook, so I don’t expect you to.

Unless you’re just dying to learn.” I let autopilot take over as I found the documents I was looking for.

When Crew was naked before me, I had no chance in hell of hiding my reaction. Under the hotel lighting, I could see all of them. Every rushed and angry scar that marred his skin. Some were raised, a pinkish-red color.

Hesitance had flashed in Crew’s eyes back then.

It was masked with anger, perhaps forced indifference, and I could see right through it.

I could only imagine the look on my face.

I’m sure I looked shocked when I first laid eyes on him.

Crew had looked like he’d been ready to throw his clothes back on and dash if he needed to.

He didn’t know he had nothing to worry about.

Once I saw him, I knew I had to feel him. My palms itched to know what his skin felt like against mine. I needed to know if touching him made the vibrating urge to rip my life apart stop.

And it did.

Thanks to my desperation and the threat of him bolting, I didn’t get to lavish his body the way I wanted to. I overlooked a few things. The tattoo on his ankle and the small, faded scars that took residence wherever the thick, dark ones didn’t.

When Crew handed me his ID, his sleeves pushed far enough for me to see them. There were dozens on each arm. Some were uniform, falling into line with each other, but most were chaotic. Different lengths, sizes, depths… I could’ve gotten lost looking at them.

I had two questions burning in my mind: were they done by himself? And if so, who the fuck made this man feel pain so deep within that he had to bleed to let it out?

Neither of us spoke while I went over the forms in front of me.

I finally reached the point where his ID was important and read it, paying attention this time.

“Crew Mitchell Hayes. You’re pretty young.

” The birth date got me for a second. I tried not to let it show, even as I did some math in my head.

Crew scoffed at me, shifting in his chair. “No, you’re just old.”

“Ouch. I’m only twenty-eight.” He was twenty-three now, so if he’s been doing sex work for almost eight years, then he was just around fifteen or sixteen when he started. Fucking hell.

“Like I said”— he pointed at me, his accent drawing the I out in “like”—“You’re old.”

“So funny. Do you have a high school diploma or GED? Any college experience I can notate?”

He rolled his eyes before focusing on the desk in front of me, rather than at me.

“I’m not a complete failure, don’t worry.

I finished high school. College experience, not really.

I’m well acquainted with most of the male professors from the community college here, but there’s only so much I can learn on my knees. ”

Crew was laughing. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the humor within me to do the same. “Jesus, Crew. I never said you were a failure. Three of my cooks and two of my servers finished college?—”

“Oh, great, so all of y’all are smarter than me.”

“Don’t interrupt me, damn it. I’m trying to make a point here.

” Frustration leaked through my tone, though I was trying to hide it.

Not let it get to me. “Let me rephrase that— only three of my cooks and two of my servers have finished college. Out of six cooks, five of them have a high school diploma or GED. Out of all eight servers, only four of them have that, and only two of them have a degree.”

Silence lulled between us ominously, almost desperately.

I intended to show that it didn’t matter what kind of experience he had—or lack thereof—when working here.

Crew’s face slackened a bit, relaxing around his eyes.

I could see strain beneath them. He came off as cocky or stubborn sometimes, and I was learning fairly quickly just how argumentative he could be.

But his eyes gave him away. I could see layers of pain within the dark circles.

Years of exhaustion that wouldn’t be wiped away with one good night’s sleep.

No, Crew looked like he needed years of rest.

He deserved a lifetime of it, from what I was beginning to understand.

With a much shyer shrug of his shoulder, Crew brushed the topic aside. “That’s a lot of people. Do you manage them all, or does the other guy?”

The question was complicated, though it shouldn’t be.

“Brandt is my manager, technically. I manage the kitchen and the floor staff, but I haven’t been able to help the servers like I need to for a long time.

” I rubbed a palm down my face, sighing, and pinching at the hair along my chin.

“That’s a big part of why you’re here. Brandt is…

busy. So I’m stuck with a lot of what he would usually do, and the back-of-house stuff has been taking up most of my time. ”

Crew scrunched his nose. “That sounds like a lot. Willow said she knows the owner.”

I made myself busy with computer work, finishing the documents.

“Matt, yeah. He isn’t around all that often.

” I was trying not to scare Crew too much this early on.

Maybe I should just be honest, but what good would that do?

With the tasks I planned to give him, he probably wouldn’t notice most of the chaos. “He’s also very busy.”

“Yeah, you all sound very busy.” Crew snorted.