Page 1 of Sugar Baby

Chapter 1

Emery

The shitty old couch protests as my roommate, Oakley, plops down onto the seat next to me. I side-eye her, then go back to crunching on the stale-as-fuck cracker, since it and the six others left in the pack are all I have left to eat until tomorrow.

A domestic situation is happening on the reality show I‘m watching, the sixteen-year-old teen mom throwing a hissy fitbecause her baby daddy spent that week’s rent on a new video game. Not for the first time, I wonder if I should have just let Tray knock me up when we were in foster care so that we could apply for a show like this. Between the two of us, our tragic backstories would have the target audience for this shit show all tied up in knots. Boo fucking hoo and all that shit.

“Hey, roomie.”

“Hey,” I force out through gritted teeth. This chick seriously needs to back off. Can’t she feel the annoy-me-and-die vibes I have going on? I can’t stand the fucking sunshine and rainbows that pour off her in waves. And why wouldn’t she be that fucking happy?

Oakley wears designer everything. Even her workout clothes have expensive-as-fuck labels. I swear I saw some Gucci pajamas the other day too. Blonde hair, freshly blown and nails that wouldn’t dare to have a chip. And her sections of the fridge and pantry are always stocked with fresh produce, which half the time ends up spoiled and in the trash, because for the two weeks we’ve been living together, she’s barely ever been home.

I force myself to breathe and remind myself that four days from now, I’ll be starting my future. Monday can’t come fast enough.

Which doesn’t do me much good right now, because I can feel her staring at me. Giving up on the show, I face her. “What?”

She crosses her arms over her presumably surgically enhanced chest—otherwise, wow, that bra is doing fucking amazing things for her—and leans back, fingernails pointing to the ceiling, all the while eyeing my shittastic dinner. “You need to make some money.”

Using just my wrist, I wave my half-eaten cracker, shoving down the acidic bitterness her words drag up my spine. “My meal card activates tomorrow.”

She tucks her chin. “And eat the dining hall food, ew, no. Gross. Let me help you.”

I eye her warily. “I’m not doing your fucking laundry.”

Oakley barks out a laugh. “Ha, no. I only dry clean.”

Huh, well, that explained that mystery.

“And I’m not asking you to work for me. I’m offering to show you a way to make money,” she continues as she reaches up to run her bedazzled fingers through her hair.

I narrow my eyes. I’ve heard that line before.

I’ll give you a Hamilton, if you’ll stand on the corner and let me know if any pigs roll by.

Take this package to the lady in the car. Give me the fifty, and you can keep the rest.

That kind of cash in my life as little as six weeks ago—fuck, right now too—would have made a huge difference in my day, but I’ve turned over a new leaf.

I’m a college student now. I got out. And I am going to stay out. Even if it kills me.

“Pass,” I state in a flat voice and then turn back to the TV as I reach for my glass of water on the shitty, scarred coffee table.

“Oh, come on, hear me out. You can’t tell me that you don’t need the cash. And I swear, it’s nothing illegal.” She squints her eyes for a moment, then shrugs. “I don’t think it is, anyway. Everyone involved is consenting, and if money or gifts exchange hands afterward, who’s to know?”

I look at the cracker clutched between my fingers, which may as well be cardboard with how stale it is.

Not illegal?

And everyone is consenting.

It doesn’t take an undergraduate degree to figure out what she’s implying. And if thatiswhat she’s implying, then there’s no harm in hearing her out. Sex is the one commodity that I can trade without owing someone something. Men see my long,wavy brown hair, heart-shaped face, big hazel eyes, and the dusting of freckles on my cheeks after they notice my bubble ass and D-cup tits.

Puberty changed my life.

It took me out of one steaming pile of fucking shit homelife and dumped me into a cesspool.

But what the fuck ever.

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