“I’m in deep shit, Flick.” Dad’s voice stops me in the doorway to his office. He glances up from the paperwork strewn across the desk. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him look so defeated—my father’s always been an optimist and a dreamer—and my fingers freeze around my apron strings.

“What’s going on?” He doesn’t respond, so I forget my apron and my quickly approaching shift and creep toward him. “Dad?”

“I’m going to lose everything.”

Panic swells deep inside me but I keep my tone even, soothing, as I perch myself on the edge of his desk. “It can’t be that bad, right?”

“Trust me, it is.” He gestures to the papers in front of him. I snatch the top sheet, browsing over it as he explains, “Do you remember Alexander Cade?”

Alexander Cade. It’s been a few years since I saw him but the thought of the hulking, bully of a man tenses every muscle in my body. “Yes,” I say, that single syllable drawn out and questioning. “What about him?”

“The loan, Flick.” Dad’s shoulders droop forward, like a deflated balloon. “I’m supposed to pay off the money he loaned me, but I’m behind.”

I was ten when my parents got a loan from Dad’s old “friend” to open our restaurant. For the first several years we were in business, Alexander Cade would stop by frequently and unexpected, boasting an arrogant grin while he ordered half the menu—on the house, of course. It never failed that by the time we brought out his food Cade was no longer hungry, and the only thing he wanted was another payment toward the balance of the loan. The last time he came to York’s, the summer I graduated high school, he’d slipped one of his sweaty, beefy hands beneath my skirt to give my ass an appreciative slap. Without considering the consequences, I’d knocked his soda onto his lap.

Cade responded by calling me an ungrateful little bitch and reminding Dad that he still owned us.

I’m not sure what was said after they stepped outside the restaurant to argue, but Cade never personally collected money from us again. Since I haven’t seen his asshole driver in months either, I figured the loan was fulfilled.

Obviously, I was dead wrong.

Scrubbing the image of sleaze-stuffed-into-a-business-suit from my brain, I suck on the inside of my cheek, count to ten, then ask, “Can you ask for an extension?”

Dad shakes his head. “I got one last year and besides, Alexander’s son is handling business now. Said he’s done doing favors.”

Of course, they’re done doing favors. Returning the first page of the contract to the desk, I pinch the bridge of my nose. “How much?”

“Twenty.”

“Twenty-hundred?” That’s doable. I can sell my car and take the “L” to work and school once the fall semester starts. My roommate affectionately calls my old Versa “the P.O.S that could,” but it’s easily worth a couple grand, if not a little more. And whatever money I have left over can go toward my books.

Dad lets out a bitter sound. “Twenty thousand, Flick.”

I choke on a gasp. Holy shit. “Dad,” I start in a tone that’s dangerously calm, “how on earth do you still owe that much money?”

Grasping the armrests of his chair, he hangs his head in shame. “The kitchen upgrade.”

The fucking kitchen upgrade. I swallow down my growl. Even though business wasn’t doing so hot, he’d insisted on the new kitchen a few years ago. Said it would make work easier, even though our lunch and dinner rush is still only a steady crawl. Don’t get me wrong, the food at York’s is incredible, and our customers swear we make the best burgers in Chicago, but thousands of dollars of stainless steel appliances didn’t compensate for a building too small to handle the demand in an area teeming with competition.

Plucking at the black hairband around my wrist, a nervous habit, I inhale. “Okay … so what happens if we can’t come up with the money?” Because I can’t imagine handling this in a year, let alone thirty days.

He lifts his green eyes to mine. “They take this place. They take the house.”

Ice trickles down my spine. They take everything. Just like he said earlier. Before I can ask him about different options—bank loans, other “friends” in high places, anything—someone knocks on the office door. Brooke, one of the other waitresses, pokes her head in, worrying her upper lip between her teeth.

“Hey, Flick? I’ve got to pick up Casey from daycare or I’ll be charged a late fee. Can you—”

“Yeah,” I croak and my belly pitches. Brooke was ecstatic when we hired her right before Christmas. York’s was the first place to call her back and she and Casey were close to being homeless. Too many people depend on this place to let the Cade family take it all away. Crossing my arms over my stomach, I offer her a shaky smile. “Give me just a minute.”

As soon as she leaves, I give Dad a pointed look. “We’ll figure this out, okay? We’ll go to the bank. We’ll—”

“They won’t help.” He closes his eyes and gives my hand a firm pump. My heart plummets because my father’s never been the type to roll over and give up. “I screwed up and now I’ll have to pay the price.”

“Don’t say that.” I wipe my hand over the beads of perspiration on my forehead, not giving a damn if I screw up the makeup I’d carefully applied earlier. “I’ve got to get to my shift, but we’ll talk about this later.”

“Flick?” Dad stops me just before I leave his office. I peek over my shoulder. “I’m sorry about this. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay.” It’s not, but there’s no use making him feel worse. I don’t care if I’ve got to sell the shirt off my back and become a permanent fixture at the plasma clinic, we are not losing the restaurant and definitely not the house I grew up in. “I swear we’ll figure something out.”

And I’ll start with visiting the new Cade in charge myself.

* * *

Hours later, I sit in my living room telling my roommate about Dad’s problem as she makes herself a drink in the kitchen. I met Wendy in the sixth grade and we’ve been best friends since. After we both decided to stick around Chicago for school, we rented our shoebox apartment together. Wendy doesn’t want her parents knowing where she is at all hours and I want independence, so our cheap, two-bedroom set up works perfectly for us.

“I can’t believe your dad didn’t tell you,” she yells from the other room, and I hear ice cubes clink against glass. “That doesn’t seem like something he’d do.”

“Yeah, I know. He seemed so out of it all afternoon, I didn’t even tell him I was personally getting in touch with Cade to ask for an extension.”

“Speaking of the motherfucker… He finally got back to you?” Wendy appears in front of me holding two Coke and rums. I don’t normally drink the stuff because it tastes like chilled motor oil, but after the day I’ve had, I happily accept the glass.

The first sip burns my tongue and throat, so I only get out an “Mmmhmm,” as she plops down on the opposite end of the couch and grabs her laptop from the coffee table. I beat my palm against my chest a few times until I’m able to wheeze, “He’s meeting with me in the morning.”

I spent most of my shift trying to get in touch with Jackson Cade. After the twentieth time, his soft-spoken receptionist must have gotten sick of sending me to voicemail only for me to call back. He had picked up then, introducing himself in a seductively low voice that zipped a current of electricity straight to my toes. The enemy wasn’t supposed to sound so good, but damn, if his voice hadn’t touched me in places that were … well, untouched.

“You’re persistent as fuck, Miss York,” Jackson had chuckled, and the way he said my name left my throat dry. He’d paused briefly, giving my un-sexed brain enough time to imagine his lips wrapping around other words, before he growled, “Be here at nine, but I can already promise you’re not going to like what I’ve got to say.”

Then, without another word, he hung up on me.

I relay the story to Wendy, who rolls her chocolate brown eyes and snorts. “What a complete fucklet. Do me a favor, Flick, and verbally castrate the bastard tomorrow morning.”

“Right, because that’s always the way to get what you want.” I sip my drink. It goes down easier than the last, but I still cringe. Hauling my own computer onto my lap, I check my eBay auctions and tug my eyebrows together. I started listing old clothes the second I got home, and I’m already up to a whopping forty bucks. “I swear, I’m on the verge of selling my worn panties. I mean, it worked on Orange is the New Black.”

Fluffing her strawberry blond bob, Wendy crinkles her pierced nose. “Filthy, Felicity. Really filthy.”

“Desperate times,” I mutter, slamming the laptop shut. We sit in silence for a few minutes with only the sound of the TV filling the room, then she slaps a hand over her mouth. Arching an eyebrow, I meet her shocked expression. “Oh god, what?”

Sidling across the couch, Wendy spins her laptop around so that I’m staring at a photo of a voluptuous blonde wearing nothing but a scrap of black lace and satin. My face lights up as I take in her come-hither expression—lip tugged between perfect white teeth and partially closed eyelids.

“Is she going to loan me the money?” I ask, laughing.

Wendy raps a long purple fingernail on the screen, luring my attention to the headline. Selling My V-Card for France. Ignoring me as I choke on a mouthful of Coke and rum, my friend excitedly hisses, “It’s fate, Flick.”

And another reminder that, at twenty-one, I’m the oldest virgin she knows. Hell, I’m the oldest virgin I know. Last year, I’d planned to give it up to my boyfriend of a year—I’d even gone on the pill. Everything was going to be special—candlelight, hotel room with a jacuzzi, the whole nine yards. And then, two days before the big night, Justin let it slip he’d not only knocked up a sorority girl, he’d gotten a couple of nasty parting gifts in the process. He promised it was nothing a trip to the clinic and a good dose of antibiotics couldn’t fix, but I’d tossed his ass to the curb.

After I gave him a gift of my own: a knee to the dick he’d teased me with for months.

I focus on Wendy just in time to hear her point out, “You did say desperate times. If I still had mine I’d make a profile before you could say, ‘Deflower me, sir. Pop my cherry. Fuck me good and hard and rough.’”

And she calls me filthy. “Nobody actually pays for this sort of thing,” I argue. Wendy’s delicate features tug together and she jerks her head from side to side.

“Um, Tits Monroe sold hers for a hundred grand.” She spins the laptop back toward her. In a giggly Marilyn Monroe voice, she reads, “I’m so grateful for V-Bay because they helped me take a trip to Europe and put a down payment on my first house. It was an incredible experience. Thank you for making all my wildest dreams come true!”

“V-Bay? They named their site V-Bay?” Good god, I’ve heard it all. Rolling my eyes, I rise from the couch. “And you really believe her story?”

“That some rich guy paid a hundred grand to bone her? Definitely. But—” She reaches out to squeeze my ass, earning a shriek from me. I swat her away, and she waggles her brows. “I bet you’d get more. Tits Monroe is an eight, but you? You’re a solid ten, woman. Big green eyes, tiny little waist, an ass that’s made for—”

“Wendy,” I groan.

She beams and shoves her small breasts together, bowing her head to my much larger chest. “Your milkshake will bring all the rich old bastards to the yard.”

Is she serious with this crap? “Yeah? And I bet you five bucks it’s a scam and she only made a thousand.” Glaring at her, I snatch my empty glass from the coaster and fake a yawn. “I’m going to shower and head to bed. Hopefully, I’ll actually get something accomplished in the morning.”

Something that doesn’t involve screwing god-knows-who for a website that’s either a rip-off or a prostitution sting.

“Oh come on, Flick!” Wendy’s voice follows me as I stalk down the hall to the tiny bathroom we share. “You know, even if it’s only a thousand dollars at least you’re a little closer.” She yells something else a minute later, but the sound of the shower muffles her words.

Since I know it’s only a matter of time before she forces her way into the bathroom to ask if I heard her, I shout back, “Whatever you say!”