Page 12 of Interning For A Billionaire

He shrugged to show it wasn’t a big deal, but it was.

“We all need a little help every now and then,” he said. “I was also new in town a while ago.”

I nodded.

After giving it lots and lots of thought, I also decided to try out Ty’s plan. I wrote an email to Michael Greer asking him to go to therapy with me. I made myself sound completely unstable, fragile and pathetic. Even I was annoyed by myself in this email. Nobody could possibly want to play games with someone like that.

And it worked!

I heard nothing from him, and he steered completely clear of my side of the office from then on. No more casually meeting him at the bathroom or being brushed past by him on the way to the cafeteria. I actually couldn’t believe it. I went over to thank the guys, bring them some beers and promptly got invited to celebrate on a night out.

“Have you ever been to a gay bar?” Ramón wanted to know.

I shook my head.

“Then you are in for a treat! We’ll take you to our favorites,” Julius said, putting an arm around his boyfriend’s neck.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t really have money for that.”

“One drink,” Julius said, “Come on! San Francisco has amazing gay bars!”

I agreed, thinking this was the night life I had been wanting to experience. I went back to our apartment to shower, after being told to wear something “shimmery.”

“What’s that?” I asked Ty. “Did I mention I’m from Kansas? We don’t do shimmery there!”

“Then wear something sexy. Nothing blah, please!”

This was more pressure than I was used to when going out. Although that wasn’t really true either. Because I hardly ever went out and hardly knew how. In the end, I put on some high heels and applied some more make-up. The boys were delighted, whooping with appreciation.

“Now we are ready to roll!”

They’d ordered us a taxi to take us around. It was a balmy night, and they took me to a bar across town. As we approached the door, I could feel my heart beating faster with anticipation. The music could be heard a block away, pumping electronic music that made me want to dance. We went inside and I was struck by how many people were laughing and dancing inside.

I was introduced to some of their friends and quickly felt comfortable and accepted. Even though the majority of people were gay, they treated me like one of their own. Ty told them about my boss and suddenly all anyone could talk about was dick pics! I couldn’t believe how everyone had a story about either a boyfriend who had sent a dick pic to the wrong person, like their mother, or the guy who received a dick pic and recognized his boyfriend’s cock and realized he was cheating on him!

There was no judgement here, everyone was so friendly, and I thought how unlike home it was. We didn’t have gay people in Nolan, not that I knew of, to be honest. I’d always had my suspicions about the music teacher, but he had always lived alone.

After some drinks, the boys went dancing and I found myself having a great time. I danced until my legs felt like jelly and Ramón and Julius each bought me a drink.

“How did you two meet?” I asked them.

They looked at each other and grinned. “Grindr!” they said at the same time. I laughed.

“Do you have someone in your life?” Ramón asked.

I nodded.

“Male or female?” he asked.

I told them about Sven, my boyfriend from Nolan, whom I had gone to college with and who had started working for his father’s business back home.

“They do freezers, air-conditioning, that sort of thing.”

“Cool,” Julius said, and they burst out laughing at the lame joke.

“We’ve been together for three years now,” I said. I bit my lip. “Actually, I’ve been trying to break up with him for years. I kind of hope he gets the message now.”

“You’ve moved thousands of miles away! I think that’s pretty clear!” Julius laughed.

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