Page 62 of Playboy For Hire

“Is it about your family?”

I frowned. “How did you know?”

“Because you never talk about them.”

“For good reason.”

“Come on, you know all my family history. Time to dish about yours.”

I pondered that. I didn’t like talking about my family. But I also didn’t want to confess to Quinn that I’d just been fantasizing about licking his neck. Maybe my family was the lesser of two evils, as conversation topics went.

“It’ll just sound like I’m whining,” I warned him.

“Whine away. I’ve got time.” He took another sip of vodka and looked at me expectantly.

So I told him. I told him about the phone call from my mom, and her way of making me feel small, and the guilt and criticism and how I wanted to make her happy, but nothing I did was ever enough—not unless I gave up who I was. I told him about my dad, and his drift into right-wing conspiracy theories, and how sad I was that I couldn’t talk to him anymore without him bringing that up. I felt bad, leaving my mom to deal with him all on her own, but her way of coping was to just enable him, and I hated that even more than losing contact.

“And they’re coming up here next week for some awards ceremony, and my mom wants me to come, and bring a date, and I just—it’s going to be excruciating, sitting there. I couldn’t subject anyone else to that. It’s going to be enough of a struggle to get myself to go.”

“You could subject me,” Quinn said softly.

I shook my head. “Thank you for the offer, but you don’t know what you’re saying. It’s like volunteering to eat crushed glass.”

He shrugged. “You’ve helped me out with a family obligation.”

“Yeah, but your family isn’t terrible.”

“I really don’t mind.” He smiled. “I mean, what are friends for?”

I laughed. “Maybe I should say you’re my boyfriend. They’re kind of conservative, but at least it would be a different kind of disappointment for them.”

Quinn’s eyebrows rose.

“Don’t worry,” I said quickly. “I wouldn’t put you through that. I have no idea how they’d react, but it probably wouldn’t be great.”

“That’s surprisingly thoughtful of you,” he said.

“Surprisingly? Gee, thanks.” I threw the bottle cap at him. “Honestly, they might be happy,” I continued. “If I could pull a good-looking lawyer as my boyfriend, that might give them hope for me in the future.”

“Good-looking,” Quinn scoffed.

“What? You are.”

“I’m not fishing for compliments or anything,” he said. “It’s just that you’ve called me ‘good-looking’ an awful lot. It’s the kind of compliment my aunts give me.”

I stared at him for a moment. Then I stood up and took his hand.

“Come here.”

“Where are we going?”

“Just come here.”

I tugged him to his feet, then dragged him over to the mirror on the back of my closet door. I moved behind him.

“This,” I said, pointing to his face while I watched him through the mirror, “is the face of a good-looking guy. I mean it when I say it. I’m not bullshitting you.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

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