Page 31 of Hitch
“Enough for you to have as much as you want.”
He sucks in a breath, then puts a hand on my shoulder. “Let me call my team.”
It takes an hour, but eventually, some of his workers show up and set me up with the right equipment. Michael doesn’t ask questions, almost like he knows that whatever I’m doing is nefarious, but since he’s getting a lot of drugs for it, he doesn’t care. He shows me how to reset the cameras so they’re untraceable, even from his company. I don’t know tech much, but Michael does, and as much as I don’t like him, I trust him to be honest when it comes to that. He’s too prideful to do otherwise.
In the meantime, I meet his new sugar baby. She’s got black hair too, but blue eyes, and some of the best makeup skills I’ve ever seen. Of course, she’s polite, but glares at me like I’m coming to take what’s hers. She has no idea thatI’mthe one that walked out on him.
But to be honest, I see myself inside of her. I hope she gets exactly what she wants out of him.
Once we’re done, Michael walks me back to the front of the house. I hand over the mushrooms. It’s not everything that Duane gave me, but if I know Michael, this is an investment. He’ll come back for more, and then I’ll charge him extra to make up for this freebie.
For some reason, I want to thank Michael for the help, even though it wasn’t a favor. He got drugs out of it, so it’s an equal exchange. But then he points at my car, and I know what he’s about to say. That gratitude evaporates.
“What’d you get that for? Five hundred dollars?” he asks.
I walk to my car, not giving him the benefit of an answer. “Bye, Michael.”
“Maybe you should get a real job and not spy on people,” he says. “Buy yourself a better car.”
“Who said anything about spying?”
I slam the car door shut, then cross my fingers that the engine actually works. It does, and I peel out of his cobblestone driveway as fast as I can. When I pull onto the street, I see his new sugar baby in the doorway, waiting for him to come inside.
I drive across town to an apartment complex. Two giant trees decorate the entrance, but when I get to my mom’s one-bedroom apartment, my shoulders sink.
Her apartment is half the size of the place Michael rented to her, but it’s infinitely more expensive. And with her graduate school tuition, it means she’s still scrambling between paychecks. And I’m even paying for her car rental right now.
“Regina,” Mom says as she opens the door. “What are you doing here?”
Papers are scattered across the kitchen table, covered in red ink.
“Grading?” I ask.
“Actually, I’m editing my own paper. This thesis is the most anxiety-inducing piece of work I’ve ever had to write.”
I scan the room, looking at my mother’s dreams. She put her aspirations on hold when my dad walked out on us, knowing that she wantedmeto get the best education possible. She applied for me to get into the only private school in Oakdale and took two jobs to cover the tuition and our rent, working her ass off, just so that I would have the best chance to get ahead with my intellect.
Of course, that was my mom’s dreamforme, not my dream. Still, it only seems fair to return that loyalty now. She’s teaching at the local high school while also earning her doctorate degree in education. She deserves everything.
I wish I could say that helping her out is the only reason I’m working two jobs for Duane, but it’s not.
“Why are you in town?” she asks. “I thought you were busy with real estate.”
The truth is that I could’ve been done with my mandatory real estate courses by now, but after being Michael’s paid-girlfriend, then finding a job at the Double Take, it’s been hard to motivate myself to open up my computer and login to those classes. Not when my current job makes me more powerful than ever before.
If my mom knew about what I was doing with Duane—selling my body and selling drugs—she would be mortified, thinking I’m selling myself short. I don’t feel that way; I just want a different life than the one she wants for me. And still, part of me still wonders if my mom would like Duane. If she’d see a man who respects me.
“I was in the area,” I say. “Just wanted to check in on you.”
“Don’t worry about me,” she laughs. “I’m doing fine. You worry about you.”
It’s the same line she’s fed to me for years. Sometimes, I wonder what life would have been like if we could relax and not have to worry about money. If we would have had a different relationship now. How lying to my mom about how I’m paying for her car rental must make me an awful human being, but maybe it’s worth it if I can make her life easier. After how powerless we were for years, shouldn’t I give back to her, even if what I’m doing is illegal?
I fake an incoming phone call and give her a kiss on the cheek.
“I gotta go,” I say, then I head back toward Grainswept Fields.
Chapter11
