Page 85 of Ryker

Just like Tara has now.

The night Kenzie found out I was an escort was a bad one. We’d been together for a little over four months, and I was escorting a forty-year-old woman to the theater…

“Ryker?” Kenzie stops on the sidewalk, with her friends in tow, and gawks at me. “Hi!”

Oh fuck. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuuuuck. “Hey,” I lean over and kiss her cheek. “How are you?”

“Um.” Kenzie’s brow knits with confusion as she regards the woman I’m with. “Hi, I’m Kenzie.”

She probably thinks this is my mom. Only my mom is too sick to walk to the bathroom by herself, and Kenzie has no clue about any of that either. The client on my arm has flaming red hair, heavy lipstick, and drips in Tiffany.

“Pleasure to meet you,” my client says. “Come on, Ry. We’re going to be late.” This woman is a jealous creature. I don’t blame her. Her husband fucks anything with a hole, including me, and is never there for her like I am afterwards. She cries in my lap some nights and pays me five hundred an hour for the privilege. But she also thinks she owns me. I’m her property when we’re together. “Tell the girl goodbye.”

“Bye,” I say, feeling like a complete clown.

She drags me down the sidewalk, and I have no choice but to let her. I need the three grand she’s paying me for this date. Wincing when my client grabs my ass and sinks her manicured talons into my skin, I growl between clenched teeth. “Let… go…”

“Not until that little bitch knows who you belong to,” she claps back.

Regretfully, I glance over my shoulder and see Kenzie staring at us. Her jaw falls open. Her eyes are locked on where my client's hand is.

“He fucks me like a machine, too,” my client calls over her shoulder. “That’s what you get when you pay the premium price, sweet pea.”

It’s the last straw. I remove her hand from my ass. “We’re done.” She tries to touch me again, and I smack her hand away. “I said we’re done. Don’t call me again.”

“Ryker!” she seethes. “Don’t you dare walk away from me, you ingrate!”

I spin on my heels and rush back to Kenzie. “I can explain.”

“Oh, this should be good,” one of her friends says, folding her arms.

“That’s not your mom.” Kenzie points at my furious and humiliated client marching away in her six-thousand-dollar red heels. “Is it?”

“No. It’s not.” So many confessions sit on my tongue because I don’t want to do this here. Especially not in front of an audience. “Can we go someplace more private for a sec?”

Kenzie shakes her head. “Anything you have to say, you can say it in front of my friends, too.”

“Yeah, Ryker. Let’s hear you charm your way out of this one. Or does that come with the premium price tag too, sweet pea?”

I don’t even know who Kenzie’s friends are, but they’re surrounding me like a pack of wolves. My heart gallops in my chest. “My mom’s sick. She’s been dying of cancer.”

“And you’re going to the theater to find her a cure?” one of them asks.

“Shut your fucking mouth,” I snap back. Shit, I shouldn’t talk like that to anyone here. It’s not their fault I’m a liar and a cheat. “Her meds and stuff cost a lot of money. Money, we don’t have.”

“Oh my god.” Kenzie holds her cheeks. “Are you serious right now, Ryker? Are you a…” She looks around like she’s embarrassed being seen with me. “Are you a fucking hooker?”

“Escort,” I correct, knowing how stupid it sounds. “And it’s not—”

“I’m going to be sick.” Kenzie stumbles away from me like I have the plague. “You fuck people for money? You’re a whore?” Her voice rises. “Oh my god. How many diseases do you have? Oh my god, oh my GOD!”

We’ve never slept with each other. I’ve never done anything but kiss her for these four months. I gave her the only thing I haven’t given anyone else. “Kenzie, please, just hear me out.”

“There is absolutely nothing you can say that will make this okay. Back off right now.” Her friend shoves me, but I don’t budge.

All I can do is stare at the one ray of sunshine I have and beg for her to stay. “Kenzie, please.”

She takes off running and even though I try to hold back from chasing her down, my feet start moving. “Kenzie!”

---