Selling Scarlett

Her eyes widen purposefully, and I know what she’s saying. She saw me disappear with Hunter. I expect her to ask me for details, but instead she pats my knee. "It’s your story, Cinderella. Just tell me, did you lose a shoe?"

She has a habit of saying things that I don’t understand, but I have a miserable sense that the answer is yes. Tears fill my eyes, and she whispers, "Oh, honey."

I nod, and I feel a little better.

When Rod lets us off in front of the girls’ rooms, Loveless slips off with me, toward the big house.

*

"I’m okay if you’re busy tonight," I tell her as we make it to the side entrance. "I don’t want you to feel like you have to babysit my sad self."

"Pshh. I don’t do anything I don’t want to do. Not usually. When I break that rule," Loveless says as we walk toward the elevator, "I break it for my Daddy when he calls wanting to talk about baseball.”

“Baseball?”

She shrugs. “He loves the Cubs. I can’t stand baseball.”

I think about my own Dad and feel a sharp pang. "Does your Dad know you do this?"

We step into the elevator, and Loveless smiles. "He knows I’ve got a good job in the entertainment industry, and he knows where I live." She shrugs. "I bet he thinks that I’m a stripper—but he doesn’t ask, and I don’t tell.” She laughs. “Thank God."

I nod. "Sounds perfect."

"It is. When it comes to some things, Mom and Dad don’t want to know."

"Are your parents married?"

She shakes her head. "Divorced. My mom’s married to a woman up in New York. It was an amicable split."

"Are you an only child?"

She laughs as the elevator dings and we step out. "You sound like Marchant giving me a job interview. He likes to psychoanalyze us."

"Really?" That doesn’t seem like the party-going bachelor I hear so much about.

She nods. "Really. Once you get three or more women in one place, it gets crazy enough without adding an extra dose of cray cray."

I smile. "Don’t I know."

I lead the way to my room and unlock the door. When we step inside, Loveless inhales deeply. "I love that smell."

"Which one?"

"That flowery smell they put into the rooms here," She looks over at a side table and smiles knowingly. "Those are tiger lilies—they aren’t what smells."

"So they spray in here to make it smell good? Like that ‘new car smell’ that dealers use?"

"Yep." She winks and walks over to the refrigerator, opening the door and smirking at the contents. "You’ve got the sex ‘fridge, too."

I’m in stitches as she goes through my refrigerator, giving examples for how to use honey, chocolate syrup, whipped cream, chocolate ice cream, strawberry yogurt, pickles, champagne, white wine, chardonnay, cherries…

By the time she’s finished, I feel five percent more lighthearted.

"Thank you, Loveless."

"For what?" she asks, popping open a box of refrigerated chocolates. She holds it out to me. "I’m just informing you of what goes on in this room when we get over-booked. These are girls’ private rooms, but we have to make do sometimes. I think I’ve come in here at least three times." She smiles naughtily, and I laugh.

"You’re about as innocent as a junior high schooler."

"I am not," I say defensively.

Her mouth draws into a frown. "I guess you’re not. So maybe you should just get on with your story. I want the whole sordid tale. I’ve got a Hunter story of my own."

"Yours first," I say. She opens her mouth to protest, and I say, "Because mine will take all night."

Her brown eyes widen and she waves a chocolate. "I’ve got enough of this to keep me going. I’ll go first, but I want the whole thing after that."

I blush, and she hoots. "Okay," I say grudgingly.

She crosses her long legs and begins to unlace her wedge sandals. "I was working with Mr. West a couple of years ago. I think maybe five. He used to come out here and get all coked up, drinking everything besides that big ole water tower Marchant uses to irrigate this place. But he never came to us that way. He’s got a room here, so he would spend the night and sober up. Sometime around three or four, he would come knocking."

"On your door," I murmur.

"It wasn’t me first. He used to come see one of their college friends. Elinor. But she was only here for two, three years and she moved on. I think she’s a lawyer up in Portland now. Great set of natural DDs."

"What’s a DD?"

She laughs. "Double-Ds."

"Ooooh." I smack my head. “Right.”

"You’ve got good ones, too."

I look down at my girls and smile a little awkwardly. "Thank you."

She nods, then reaches out her hand, pinkie extended. "I want you to pinkie swear for me that what I tell you next won’t leave this room. Hunter hasn’t been here for a while, but he’s still my client until it’s been a year, and he’s Marchant’s best buddy. I don’t need a headache, you know what I mean?"

"My mother’s an alcoholic."

Her face scrunches. "What?"

"I’m telling you something about me. So it won’t feel so uneven."

"My Dad has another family." I inhale deeply, because the truth is, it still hurts like hell. "A new wife and two girls. She says her girls came from the sperm bank, but I think that’s a lie. They look like my Dad."

"Oh." Her eyes go wide. "Well that is something. I appreciate your confidence. You’re right. It does make sharing easier. That must suck a big dick."

I nod. "Yes."

"So you want to hear my Hunter story?"

"For sure."

"Well, he used to come in feeling like hell. You could see it in his eyes. He was tired and I think he would feel sick. I think he wouldn’t want to go to sleep, so he’d come into my room and want to f**k me for four hours straight."

I flinch at her words, and she gives me a knowing look. "It’s not the f-word bothering you, is it?"

"No," I confess. "I have a dumb crush on him."

"So you don’t want to picture him with me."

"It’s silly."

"No it’s not. It’s natural. And it’s been a while, sister. More than half a year at this point.”

"That’s okay. You can, keep going. It’s not like he’s mine or anything."

"You sure?”

I nod, not entirely sure I want to hear, but certain I don’t want to miss out on details.