Page 13 of Playboy For Hire

While I was looking at my phone, an email came in from the business school job hunters group. It was a weekly email, with a long list of companies that were hiring, opportunities for networking, and tips on getting jobs. My heart sank, but I forced myself to open it anyway.

You’re a big boy, Ryder. Surely you can manage the very difficult task of opening an email and reading it.

It wasn’t like climbing Everest, but by the time I was halfway through the list of positions available, my heart was beating fast and my hands were clammy. I made myself keep scrolling, but my eyes skimmed over the words, not taking anything in. A fat drop of sweat fell from my forehead onto the screen at the end, and I threw my phone down on the table, sucking in huge gulps of air like I’d just run a marathon.

“Hey, are you Ryder?”

I looked up to see a guy standing a couple of feet away from me. Close enough that I should have noticed his approach. But I’d been so caught up in my email, I wouldn’t have noticed if a disco ball had dropped from the ceiling and the bartender had started roller skating to September by Earth, Wind & Fire.

The man was a little older than I was, and an inch taller, which was impressive, because I was six feet. He had close-cropped black hair, light-brown skin, a large birthmark on his right cheek, and round, tortoiseshell glasses that did nothing to obscure his piercing, dark gaze.

He was skinny, wearing a pale blue button-up shirt that I thought was probably from Banana Republic, and slim-legged khaki chinos. Together, we were a stock photo of ‘businessmen in coffee shop.’ All we needed was for one of us to pull out an iPad so we could stare at it in mock surprise.

It dawned on me suddenly that the guy had said my name, and was staring at me, waiting for a response.

“Oh. Hey.” I started to wave, then let my hand fall, feeling stupid. “Yeah, that’s me.” I looked around the cafe, but no one else was coming to join us. “Did she send you here first to make sure I didn’t look like a murderer?”

The man blinked. “She?”

“Yeah.” I smiled, trying to put him at ease. He looked a little suspicious about me. “It’s totally cool. Happens all the time. I’d probably want to make sure I wasn’t a murderer either.”

Now he looked really confused. “Murderer?”

“Though I guess murderers probably don’t look all that different from non-murderers,” I continued. “The successful ones, anyway. But I still get wanting to do a vibe check.”

He just stared at me, as if I were speaking Mandarin.

“If she wants you to stick around for the meeting, that’s cool, too.”

Why was he looking at me like I’d confessed to being the second shooter in the JFK assassination? This wasn’t a good sign. Ifthe guy thought I was weird, he’d probably tell Quinn, and she’d cancel the date. Which I didn’t care about emotionally, obviously, but I’d been looking forward to the additional cash.

“I’m sorry. You are Ryder, right?” The man’s brow furrowed.

“Yeah.” I cocked my head to the side. “Is Quinn not coming, or…”

“Oh, God.” The words came out in a whisper. The guy pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, then crossed his arms over his chest. “Oh, God, this is embarrassing.”

“Embarrassing?” I guess it was my turn to start repeating words.

He closed his eyes, his lips moving soundlessly, almost as if he were muttering a prayer. When he opened them, he said, “I’mQuinn.”

I gaped. I didn’t understand what he was saying. I mean, I understood the words, but unless this guy was actually the butchest woman I’d ever seen, I didn’t know how to make sense of what he’d just said.

Quinn was a girl. I was sure she’d said so.

I held a finger up. “One second.”

I grabbed my phone, opened my texts, and scrolled through the short conversation Quinn and I had before I came here today. But nowhere had she—or, I supposed,he—mentioned his gender, and I’d never asked. I’d just assumed.

I looked back at Quinn, feeling like a complete idiot. I felt even worse when he spoke.

“Wow, okay. This is way more humiliating than showing up to the party on my own,” he said. “Which I didn’t actually think was possible, so, hey, that’s a fun surprise.”

“I’m so sorry—” I began, but Quinn kept talking.

“Well, this has been informative, but I think I’m going to go home and bury myself under a rock for the next ten thousand years, so, yeah. See you, uh, never, I guess.”

He turned to go, and before I knew what I was doing, I’d reached out and grabbed his hand.

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