“You’re fucking kidding,” I grumbled, tossing my phone on my bed. Another goddamn Grindr profile shut down overnight. As I swallowed my daily PrEP pill with the glass of water on my bedside table, I tried to brainstorm other solutions.

This was getting tedious, and I was starting to worry that they might report me to the police. The last thing I needed was to have some cops on my ass. That really would drive me to working street corners, and I would never do that again.

Not only would Adam kick my ass, but so would the closest thing I had to big brothers.

I’d stumbled on a gay-run dude ranch in Tennessee last autumn, and decided to drop by for some quick cash. I’d just assumed the place would be easy money if I could hide out from the owners.

Instead of the easy hookups I’d expected, I’d run into the owner right away. Josh was only a few years older than me but way wiser. He had taken me in, offered me the job and a place to live, and… well, the rest was history.

Josh and Evan—the owner’s boyfriend—had taken the time to give both Adam and me as much work experience as we could handle. In our short but intense internship with them on their ranch, I’d driven tractors, done accounting, and everything in between.

It had given me a taste for other jobs. Not crappy retail jobs, but jobs where I could do different kinds of interesting things.

Not that I hated escorting, but all the bullshit that had sprung up around it, making it harder and harder to do safely and with any measure of dignity? It started to make other lines of work look more attractive, and I was goddamn lucky that I had some other experience, a roommate, and a credit card.

“Bad luck again?” Adam called from the kitchen, where he was pouring us coffee and bowls of cereal.

I sighed. “Yeah. Another profile shut down. No way can I make it work with just my paid ad sites, though.” Some people used them, but not enough. All the guys who might want to hire me were on Grindr. It was easy pickings… or it had been, anyway.

“I keep telling you, they’re always looking for employees at my place. Or any old convenience store. It’s reliable hours,” Adam said.

“And I keep saying no.”

Adam was juggling bowls and cups as he pushed past the blanket in my makeshift doorway to bring me cereal and coffee. The lack of privacy was getting old, but whatever. Adam plopped on the bed with his own bowl and mug, shoveling cereal into his face. “Yeah, but you should try it out,” he said around a mouthful.

“Gross,” I told him—both the prospect of working retail and his idea of table manners.

For starters, I’d need clothes I didn’t mind getting ruined. Wearing my thrift store Armani to work at a corner store was a recipe for mugging, dry-cleaning, or both.

But it would be predictable income, he was right. And when my last job before Charlie had been several days prior, and paid less than I was used to…

“What’s wrong with me? Am I getting old?”

Adam paused and then choked with laughter, which answered my question.

“Never mind,” I mumbled, blushing.

“If your job’s making you question whether twenty-three is old, there might be a problem,” Adam pointed out.

I made a face. I hated to admit it, but he had a point there, too. I spent so much time obsessing over details of my skincare regimen, my clothing, and how old I should tell people I was.

I didn’t mind reading newspapers to stay current on world events, taking online courses so I could understand enough to ask smart questions, that kind of stuff. It didn’t make me feel bad like staring at myself in the mirror did.

“Every job has its perks and pitfalls,” I told him. “But bring in a job application, I guess.”

“One step ahead of you!” Adam scrambled to his feet so fast he flipped his cereal bowl and spilled milk and soggy Lucky Charms all over the foot of my bed.

“Adam!” I grabbed his spoon and chucked it after him as he raced for his room. “You asshole!”

He brought back a sheet of paper and waved it in my face. “Yeah, but I got you this.”

“And now I have to do laundry!”

Adam shrugged. “Oops. So, I’ll help you fill this out.” He didn’t let me grab the sheet, which was just as well, because I was pissed off enough that I would have torn up the job application and need to get another.

“Jesus. I don’t even know that I want the damn job,” I grumbled, picking soggy cereal off the bed and flipping the bowl over. “Grab me a towel.”

When I glared at him, Adam relented and brought a dry towel to sop up some of the milk, at least. “Sorry.”

That was rare enough to stop my anger in its tracks. I sighed instead and shook my head at him. “Someday you’ll learn to move with more grace than a charging buffalo.”

“I doubt it,” he told me. “Not at this rate. I think I’ve reached peak grace. I dropped a case of cans the other day at work, you know. Burst two open.” He sounded almost proud of his own clumsiness.

“Well, I can’t suck worse than you do at working there, then,” I told him.

It was far from my dream job, but if I took part-time hours, maybe I could supplement my income. Might be a crappy fourteen bucks an hour or something, but diversifying income streams was just a smart maneuver.

“And while you work, you can study—” Adam started.

I held up my hands. “Whoa, whoa. Ain’t nobody talking about studying here.”

Adam huffed a sigh of frustration. “You’re the one with all the money, Kev. Spend it on your future instead of your wardrobe. Pay your way through, like, law school or med school. Isn’t that what hookers are supposed to do?”

My jaw dropped. He knew damn well that I didn’t like that word.

God, I wished he’d grow up a little. He could stand to actually show some feelings once in a while without throwing jabs into his sentences. I knew he came from a shitty family background, but so did I, and I managed not to piss off everyone I talked to within three sentences.

“Sorry,” he muttered, holding up his hands. “You get the point.”

“That you think I’m a cheap whore,” I threw back at him. “Who’s supposed to be working my way toward, what, a free future?”

He shrugged and pressed his lips together tightly, clearly holding back what he really wanted to say. That was a change.

“Well, newsflash. I’ll apply for your shitty job, for now, until I get a better balance of regular clients,” I told him, unable to keep the fury out of my voice. “But I’m not gonna follow anyone else’s life path. Do you think I wear this stuff because I like it?”

This time, Adam did answer. “Yeah.”

I glowered. The fact that he was half-right made it worse. “Yeah, I like to look good. But I can do that in thrift store clothes. I don’t give a shit what brand names I have on. I do it for my job, like you get those dumb haircuts for your job.”

“Hey!” Adam frowned at me and patted his hair. It looked lousy short. Back in Tennessee, it had been grown out and he hadn’t looked like a dozen other frat boys in our block.

“Oh, no. Did I insult your hair after you insulted my whole damn life?” I grumbled. I grabbed the job application from him and shoved the bowl of soggy cereal bits into his hands instead. “Go on, let me finish cleaning up this mess you made, as usual.”

He huffed and stormed out of my room, which was a bit silly since he couldn’t slam the door. He flourished the blanket in the doorway instead, and I had to bite back my laughter at his attempt to dramatically exit.

God, Adam pissed me off sometimes, but despite my natural impulse to dig my heels in, he had a point about getting an education. I didn’t want to go get some useless degree that I didn’t need, but practical training in another career could pay off.

Look at Charlie. It took five years in school to become an architect, he said, but it was a practical set of skills that made him employable anywhere, however old he was and however he dressed.

What could I do in a year or two? I’d dabbled in so many different things at the dude ranch that I barely knew what I was interested in anymore. I liked a bit of everything.

That was one perk to escorting: lots of free time and exposure to a hundred different types of lives. They skewed to the middle-class or rich guy jobs like lawyers, politicians, and bankers, but there were plenty of boring accountants and middle managers who needed to get laid, too.

I liked to keep things running, but I had the feeling being in an office would just crush my spirits. I wasn’t going to put myself through that hell just to make someone like Adam feel better about his own existence.

“Fuck,” I mumbled under my breath and flopped onto my back on the bed. My legs touched the wet, milky patch and I moaned to myself with the awfulness of it all. It was too late to get wash-and-press back in time for tonight without some exorbitant fee.

First stop: laundromat. Maybe a few hours of staring at the machines would give me a flash of inspiration about what I was supposed to do next.

As it turned out, watching the shapes of my clothing blur into circles in the aggressive coin washer didn’t give me the answers to the mystery of life. The laundromat did, however, give me free wi-fi. That was a perk of spending the extra couple bucks and going to an upmarket laundromat, as much as Brooklyn contained such a thing. Another was not having my clothes ruined by a shitty machine, of course.

The wi-fi let me log into Scruff, where my profile had flown under the radar for now. It was a little easier to bury my job description in the text description, even though they said explicitly at the top of the description box that paid solicitation wasn’t allowed.

And I had a new message.

Hey handsome, looking for company this weekend. Yes, I read your profile. Extra gifts for discretion.

That perked my interest, and I thumbed to his profile. It was blank.

I typed back a quick message to tell him to WhatsApp me, and sent another message with my phone number. That was the first sign of trustworthiness—when they didn’t hesitate to give me their number. WhatsApp was encrypted, too, so neither of us had to worry about the cops.

It took a few minutes, but I got a WhatsApp message not long afterward from him.

I work in Washington so I don’t want this getting out. Do you understand?

Oh. That answered too many of my questions at once. I bit back my first few responses, and instead settled on a simple question.

Does your wife know?

I was completely unsurprised when I glanced down to see a one-word answer.

No.

I gritted my teeth. May as well go the whole way.

How did you vote on FOSTA/SESTA?

His response was quick.

How about I give you a fat gift, you shut up and do what you do best?

I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t stop the laugh that burst out of me.

What’s that?

Suck my dick and look pretty. Does that turn you on? Or is it the money?

If he thought the alpha-male politician thing was gonna turn me on, he had another think coming. Guys like him didn’t even want to admit that guys like me were human, much less worthy of protection. Why the hell would I trust them in bed?

I actually felt kind of sad for him. He really didn’t understand how human beings functioned, yet he was trying to govern them. And I might agree with his policies otherwise, but who knew? He wasn’t going to sit down and talk with me, or try to listen.

It didn’t feel like there was any safe place for me anymore in politics, or in life.

I blocked him and chewed my nails. He’d probably get pissy and report me in retaliation. Wasn’t the first time, wouldn’t be the last.

Maybe, as much as I hated to admit it, Adam was right. And he did give a shit about me, even if he had a backhanded way of showing it.

The dryer’s soothing white noise stopped, and I was finally free to head back to the apartment and make amends. Clients were great, but I wasn’t going to lose a friendship for a few careless words. Fine, I’d pick up a bottle of wine on the way back.

I bundled all my sheets into my hamper, turned off my work phone, and headed for home.