Like a Lover by Jay Northcote Page A

his
revision notes.
    A gentle
knock on the door pulled him back to reality. He looked at the time on his
phone and realised a couple of hours had passed.
    “Come in,”
he called.
    “Hi.” Dani
came into the room with two steaming mugs. “I was making coffee, so I brought
you some.”
    “Oh,
thanks.” Josh took mug she held out to him. “You’re a star. I’m ready for a
caffeine boost.” Dani sat on his bed, and Josh turned his chair around to face
her. “How’s revision going?”
    “Slowly,”
she said. “But I’m getting there.” There was silence for a moment, and then
Dani asked, “Are you okay, Josh?”
    “Yeah.
Why?” The response was instinctive, if not entirely honest.
    “Well. You
were supposed to only be meeting Rupert for lunch, but ended up staying out all
night. And then Jez told me you looked pissed off when you came back this
morning. So what’s up?” Her tone implied that she wasn’t going to let him fob
her off with a vague answer.
    Josh put
his mug down and rubbed his face with his hands. “Ugh,” he said eloquently.
When he met Dani’s gaze again, she was looking at him expectantly.
    “I don’t
know. I’m confused about this thing with Rupert. One minute he’s treating me
like a friend—more than a friend, even—and then the next minute
he’s giving me money to fuck him again. Yesterday was great. We had lunch and
hung out together all afternoon, but then he asked me to go home with him and
offered to pay me. Maybe I should have said no….”
    “But you
didn’t?”
    “I said
yes. He is a client, after all, so what else was I going to do? Plus I wanted to go home with him.” As soon as
he said the words, he knew he’d got to the crux of it. “I wanted to go home
with him, and I would have gone even if he hadn’t offered me money.” The lump
in his throat was back and his eyes stung. “Then we had an amazing night
together, I slept in his bed, woke up with him beside me… and then this morning
we had this epically awkward conversation about how much money he owed me. We
haggled over whether he should pay me for morning sex or not. Jesus Christ.
It’s so fucked up.”
    “Oh, honey.
Get over here.” Dani put her coffee down and held out her arms.
    The
sympathy on Dani’s face made the floodgates open. Hot, frustrated tears spilled
out of Josh’s eyes as he stumbled across the room and into her tight embrace.
She hugged him, stroking his hair and making soothing noises while he got
himself back under control enough to talk.
    “It made me
feel like shit. I don’t want his money anymore.”
    “But what
do you think he wants? It sounds as if he likes you too. None of your other
clients take you out for lunch or have you sleep in their beds all night.
You’ve been meeting him for drinks before every appointment. He’s been paying
you for more than just sex. He’s basically been paying you to be his boyfriend
for a while now.”
    Josh pulled
back, sniffing and wiping his nose on his sleeve. “Do you reckon?”
    He hadn’t
thought about it like that. He knew Rupert liked him, it was obvious. But he
still thought it was mostly about sex, maybe a little companionship too, but
that wasn’t unusual with clients. It didn’t mean Rupert wanted him as anything
other than an escort.
    “It sounds
that way to me. But maybe he thinks he can only have you if he keeps paying.”
    “But even
if he does like me, I can’t be his boyfriend.”
    “Why not?”
    “Why do you
think?” Josh snapped, frustrated. “What boyfriend is going to put up with my
job? I know Rupert doesn’t like it when I see other clients. It’s obvious. So
he’d never handle it if we were in a relationship. Plus how on earth could we
transition from him paying me for sex to actually being a couple? I don’t see
how it could ever work when we’ve started out like this. It’s a business
relationship, and it needs to stay that way.”
    She
shrugged. “Seems like you’ve been doing a pretty good