Stoke My Fire Read online

  “Okay, let’s see,” Melody murmured. “We’ll search for Mr. Christopher Day at Synthesis Spirits. We’ll throw in the words marketing, just to narrow the search and … Wow.”

  “Is he really ugly?”

  “No. Not at all. He’s quite cute. Those blue eyes are like that deep blue color in the center of the ocean. Nice jawline too. If I grabbed the face, he might break my fingers with that jaw.”

  I spun the laptop around. He was quite handsome. Older, maybe late thirties or early forties, but he had light brown hair that was effortlessly messy. He looked like he literally rolled out of bed and somehow it worked for him.

  “He’s older,” I remarked.

  “So? He’s a babe. If he ever wants another escort, I’d jump right on him.” She touched the laptop screen. “I’d call him glorious, and he would expose me to all his glory.”

  “You fall in love a little too easily.”

  “And you never do,” she said. “Besides, I didn’t say I’d fall in love with him. I said I’d jump his bones. I know what I want, and I know what I need—they don’t match-up. I’ll fall in love with the geek with the heart of gold, but I’ll screw the thief with a boner until I meet that geek.”

  “This guy works in an office. I’m fairly certain he’s closer to a geek than a thief. Except that he’s working in the liquor industry.”

  “And he hired an escort,” she said. “If he was ugly, maybe we could say he was desperate, but he’s not, so there’s something in him that was reckless enough to hire you.”

  “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or an insult.”

  “Both,” she said, leaning forward to kiss my cheek. Using her cell phone, she started playing a song and dancing like she didn’t have a care in the world. I guess she didn’t. Melody was the only good thing about this job I was stuck in. I hoped she would understand the day I could walk away from Linc, I would do it, and I would leave this apartment too. There was nothing keeping me in this city except my debt to Linc, and I didn’t expect that to change anytime soon.

  Chapter 3

  Christopher

  I finished the cigarette, dropping it and smothering it with the toe of my shoe. This three-piece suit felt a little tight, but Synthesis Spirits was all about appearances, and if I hadn’t shown up looking like I belonged in a Rolex commercial, Mitchell would have had a meltdown about how I was ruining the party.

  I checked my phone. It was 6:58. She had two minutes to get here before the party started. I fixed my cuffs. It would not be good if she was late. I should have scheduled to meet her a half an hour early, so we could get our story straight—how we met, what job she would be pretending to have, all that bullshit people are interested in. Sarah's fake job was something I definitely should have thought about before I got here.

  A vet? No, someone would inevitably have a pet with a weird symptom that she wouldn’t be able to diagnose.

  A teacher? No, at least half the people in this company had kids. No matter what school she could say she worked at, one of them would have a kid who went there and would know she didn’t teach there or ask her about something happening at the school that she wouldn’t know about.

  Not a hairdresser—somebody would want a haircut. At the very least, the men would go prowling around to where she said she worked, hoping to get a few minutes talking to her alone while they got a haircut.

  Not anything too blue collar. I was certain she would have perfect, soft hands that would show she didn’t work with them.

  My only choice was to say she wasn't employed. I would say she was attending school. The University of Chicago. I went there for a semester. I could help her smooth out the lies.

  I heard the sharp squeak of tires as a taxi stopped in front of the building. The passenger door opened. As she stepped out, I was struck by her sexiness again. Her long black hair swayed as she snapped the taxi door shut. She was a bit more modest in her clothing than I would have expected, but I could still see her calves and thighs, which look supple and worthy of further inspection. After she paid the taxi driver, she turned and our eyes locked.

  She was stunning. The photo either didn’t do her justice or she knew how to do her makeup subtly enough that it embellished her face without the makeup being apparent.

  She walked straight up to me. “Hello. You must be Mr. Day. I'm Sarah.”

  “Hello, Sarah,” I said, swallowing back a thousand less casual things I wanted to say. “You look very nice.”

  “Thank you. You do as well.”

  She was standing incredibly straight like a dancer, and her arms clung to each other. I would have expected an escort to be a bit more provocative in the way she talked or acted, but the only provocation I was getting from Sarah was her long eyelashes, the way her dark hair perfectly curved near her breasts, and the fact that her behavior reminded me of any girl-next-door while looking like a knockout.

  I honestly wanted to get a taxi and go back to my apartment with her now, but I knew that would violate my contract with Linc Platinum Company.

  I offered her my arm. “Are you ready to go in? The party is about to start.”

  She took my arm, and I led her into the building. The party was taking place in an older office building that was mostly used for proms, large meetings, and office parties since the building had an open floor plan, which made it easy to recreate it in whichever way someone needed.

  We stopped at the elevators, and I pressed the up button. Her hands were still clasped around my arm. Her hands did look too soft to belong to any blue-collar job, but less delicate than I thought they would look. I reached out and touched her fingertips. She looked up at me, gazing at me like her eyes had to adjust to the dim lights in the elevator.

  “I hope I’m dressed okay,” she said, glancing down at my suit. “I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be wearing.”

  “You look great.” I slid my hands into my pockets, concentrating on not wanting to think of her naked, pressed up against the wall, grinding her ass against me as I push into her. I shook my head, trying to focus on what I needed to happen. I turned to her. “I figured we could say you’re a student at the University of Chicago. I used to be a student there, so if anyone asks you anything you don’t know the answer to, I’ll cut in and answer it for you.”

  She tilted her head. “You seem very certain that I never went to the University of Chicago.”

  “Did you?”

  “No,” she said. “But I went to community college for a year. In situations like this, I tell people I’m a cashier at a bodega.”

  I felt a flicker of jealousy. I didn’t want to think of her with other men in the exact same situation as this. Maybe this escort business wasn’t the kind of thing I could do. Some might call me territorial, but I was sometimes full of myself and liked to imagine I could give a woman a once in a lifetime experience.

  “Oh. That works too,” I said. “Do people ask you questions about working in a bodega?"

  “Not really. They're not very interested in such a low-level job. I’ve been asked if I get a discount for food and things like that. I’ve been offered a better job too.”

  “And you didn't take that offer?”

  She shook her head as the elevator doors opened. I felt an awkwardness in the air like she wanted to say something but couldn't or wouldn't.

  The elevator doors open. We stepped inside, and I pressed the button for the fifth floor. The doors closed.

  “Do you have any stories you use for how you and a client met?”

  “There are a few options. We could say we met through online dating, though people tend to resist that one because they don’t want to look desperate. We could say we met at a bar, which is believable for the most part if you're the kind of person who goes to bars alone. We could say we were introduced by one of your family members or a mutual friend. If you wanted to make yourself look more heroic, you could say you saved me from a mugger or that I was locked out of my building and you let me s
tay in your car to get warm.”

  “Do you really think it’s believable you would get into a stranger’s car?”

  “Maybe you look extremely trustworthy.”

  “I don’t.”

  She glanced over at me with the closest thing to a smile on her face that I had seen since we met.

  “Well, it’s up to you. If you want to make something up on the spot, I’ll go along with it.”

  “Let’s go with the bar angle, and we’ll say we started dating a couple weeks ago, which is why I’ve never mentioned you to anyone.”

  “You’re not close enough to any of your coworkers for them to question that?”

  “I’m only close to one of them, and she already knows about you. You'll meet her tonight.”

  “Oh.”

  She seemed embarrassed that someone else would know about her job. For how experienced she sounded, it didn’t add up to me, but I wasn’t going to pretend to understand what was going on in her mind.

  The elevator doors opened on the fifth floor. We stepped out, and I immediately felt like we had stepped into a snow globe. There were fans shaped like snowmen blowing around tiny white confetti all over the office. I was certain Mitchell thought it was cute in theory, but it was loud and Sarah and I both had confetti all over our clothes within a few seconds. On top of that, Christmas music blared throughout the floor.

  “Wow,” she said. “Somebody really likes Christmas.”

  “It’s my boss Mitchell,” I said. Stacia came running over to us, wearing a red dress and a Santa hat. She wrapped her arms around me, giving me a quick hug.

  “You made it!” she said. “I was beginning to think you were going to get cold feet. Get it? Cold feet.”

  “I got it, Stacia. Stacia, this is Sarah. Sarah, this is my good friend, Stacia.”

  “His best friend,” she said, wrapping her arms around Sarah, too, but less firmly. Sarah stiffened slightly, and Stacia let her go. Stacia took a step back. “I’m so glad to meet you, Sarah. You look amazing. I love that blouse.”

  “Thank you,” Sarah said. Stacia pointed to the right.

  “The alcohol is lined up on the east wall, and there’s a game of Santa beer pong going on at the west side of the floor.”

  I peered over to our left. There was a long table set up with a crowd of people surrounding it.

  “How is Santa beer pong different from regular beer pong?” I asked.

  “The cups have antlers glued on them to make them look like reindeer, and the shape of the cups is going in the opposite direction, the top of the triangle farthest away from your, uh, enemy? Your opponent? Whatever you want to call it. Anyway, if you get into the cup the farthest away—Rudolph—you get twenty bucks. Do you get it? Bucks.”

  “You’ve already won, haven’t you?”

  She pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of her cleavage, dancing it in front of my face. “Look at this beauty. Andrew Jackson never looked so cute. I was the first one. Still a champion, even six years after college.”

  "Well, I'm certain you want to get back to beating everyone."

  "You're right. I have to make enough to buy Maggie new speakers. We'll talk later when I'm too drunk to play."

  She half-ran toward the beer pong table. Sarah pulled her arm away from me.

  “She seemed very affectionate toward you.”

  “Stacia?” I asked. “She’s an affectionate person.”

  “Why didn’t you go with her to this party?”

  I nearly burst out laughing. “I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at you. It’s just that Stacia’s girlfriend would murder me if I did that.”

  “Oh.” Sarah flushed. It was cute. “I’m sorry. I didn’t understand. I thought she had a crush on you, or you had a history because you didn’t seem to have any problem being close to her.”

  “Nah,” I said. “She’s just friendly, and unlike a lot of friendly people around here, she doesn’t have an ulterior motive.”

  “That is rare.” She tugged on her dark hair. "I have a friend like that. Melody."

  "I like that name," I said. "Stacia and I have—"

  I stopped as Cheryl moved into my periphery, holding a cardboard cutout of a Christmas tree. After she set it down next to the table filled with various Synthesis Spirits alcohol, she turned and saw me. I was not overly superficial—granted, Cheryl was greasy-faced, always seemed to have some kind of sticky substance on her hands, and she either had an incredibly bad nose job or incredibly unlucky genetics—but she also sounded like I imagined a cat would sound if it could speak human words, and she was obsessed with talking about herself and this actor, John White.

  She was obsessed with talking about me, too, but I only knew that because Stacia, Mitchell, and Debbie, who worked in accounting with Cheryl, told me.

  “Chris! Chris!” She ran over to me, possibly because she thought I’d run away, which I have resorted to doing before. I would like to consider myself a bit braver than that, but I've learned even the most blatant attempts to get Cheryl to leave me alone were unsuccessful. At this point, Sarah was a last-ditch effort. “How are you doing? I went to your cubicle to talk to you today, but you weren’t there, so I was thinking, where could he possibly be, and it occurred to me to check the food trucks, but you weren’t at any food trucks on the street. I thought you might have gone to the bathroom, but I asked Tom after he came out, and he said you weren’t there either, and I think he thought I was really weird for standing outside the bathroom, but it’s not like I went into the bathroom. I really wanted to tell you about how John White went to this children’s hospital for the annual—”

  “Cheryl,” I cut in. I indicated to Sarah. “This is my girlfriend, Sarah.”

  Cheryl, for the first time since I had met her, was silent. Her jaw went a little slack. She stared at Sarah like Sarah was naked in a convent. Sarah, to her credit, only extended her hand for a handshake.

  “Hello, Cheryl. It’s nice to meet you,” she said. I watched her, amazed as she didn't try to wipe her hand off on anything. There was not a single time I had ever touched Cheryl's hand where I didn't feel the need to douse my hand in hand sanitizer, then soap, and then use hand sanitizer again. “I really love your T-shirt.”

  The T-shirt was a large headshot of John White. I hadn’t actually known what John White looked like—he was an actor known for romance movies—until Cheryl came in wearing that shirt a few months ago. She gushed for so long, I had no choice but to memorize every part of his face.

  “Oh, my gosh, I love this shirt too,” Cheryl said, grinning. “I had it specially made, and it was so expensive but so worth it. There’s this little stain here from when I was eating this sausage sandwich, and I tried really, really hard to get it out, but it just wouldn’t get out, and I didn’t know what I was going to do. I was very, very upset about it, and then I heard about this stain remover that came in this little tiny bottle …”

  Cheryl kept talking. I watched Sarah absorb all this information like Cheryl was telling her about adventures in Quantico or skydiving. I could see how she could be successful as an escort. She was certainly beautiful, but I imagined that in her job, being able to listen to people’s boring stories was a better trait than her looks, especially when men wanted to hire an escort again. Beauty was incredibly cheap in comparison to kindness.

  As Cheryl took a breath, I rested my hand on Sarah’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Cheryl, but we still have to say hello to everyone else. Maybe we’ll talk later. I promise I won’t be in the bathroom.”

  “Oh, gosh, of course. Please go say hello to everyone. They’re playing beer pong over there, which I think is a rather stupid game because of course, you want to drink the beer—”

  “Thanks, Cheryl,” I said. With my hand moving down her arm, I led Sarah toward the table filled with Synthesis Spirits’ various liquors. Sarah’s gaze flickered over all the different bottles. I handed her a plastic cup with a permanent marker. She wrote her name on the cup and then grabbed a
bottle of vodka. I grabbed the rum and poured myself some, mixing in some cola. I added some ice cubes to my cup while Sarah sipped from hers.

  “Sorry about Cheryl,” I muttered. “She’s actually the reason you’re here.”

  “She’s probably lonely,” she said. “It doesn’t sound like she has anybody at home. From the sounds of it, she doesn’t seem like she was socialized much as a child either. She doesn't seem to understand when people aren't interested in what she's saying.”

  “I’m guessing your major was psychology when you were in college.”

  She laughed. “I was undeclared, but I did take a course in psychology.”

  “Well, now I feel bad. I’ve spent a lot of time and energy trying to avoid her.”

  “Oh, I don’t blame you for that. I’m sure it’s a lot more annoying hearing her every day and having her stalk you to the bathroom. I’m just saying that, whether it’s nature or nurture, I can’t blame her for it.”

  “You’re a better person than I am. I blame people for how they are all the time. But, honestly, there must be someone in your life you think is an asshole and no amount of nature or nurture will excuse that.”

  She sipped her drink again. "Why don't you introduce me to the rest of your employees? You might as well test my acting skills on more than one person."

  Her resistance to talking about her private life was a bit unnerving, but it must have been how she learned to do her job well. It must have been easier for her to pretend to be who her clients wanted her to be.

  I introduced her to everyone else at the party. She was equally as charming with everyone else. She listened to everyone’s boring monologues, pretended to want to try three different cocktails, and touched Mitchell’s half fat, half muscle bicep.

  Stacia moved up next to me as Mitchell talked to Sarah about his favorite advertisements. She leaned closer to me, her hair tickling my arm.