Page 18 of Lessons in Heartbreak

Her eyes darted over to my face, and she shook her head. “I need to go to work.”

“Aww, come on. You can sit with an old friend for a little while longer, can’t you? I’ll join story time at the library or something. I bet even I could understand those picture books.”

“No.” She stood, smoothing her hands down the front of her trim black pants. Her dog bounded to his feet, accepting some head-scratches from his owner.

“He goes to work with you?”

“Most days.”

“The dog is allowed in there but I’m not?”

“The dog isn’t going to pester me all day.” She sighed. “Besides, he’s a certified therapy dog. We use him to help kids who struggle with reading.”

I eyed the animal, with his giant tongue hanging out his mouth. “He can read? What kind of dog is this?”

Ruby’s eyes closed briefly, like she was praying for patience. “The kids like to sit with the dogs. Makes it easier to read out loud.”

“No kidding. No wonder he’s outranked me.” I stretched my arms over my head. “When do you open tomorrow? I’ll come in for some reading material. As long as they don’t have too many big words.”

She sighed. Again. “Goodbye, Griffin. I hope you enjoy the rest of your vacation.”

Ruby executed a sharp pivot, and with her beast of a dog by her side, she marched toward the library, and I watched her until she disappeared.

“Huh.”

That was interesting.

I was very, very interested in what was going on here.

Since I had nowhere to be, I sat on the bench for a while longer, staring at the creek, then stood, whistling as I walked back to my car.

Chapter FiveRuby

At a pretty pivotal point in my life, I’d learned a few lessons that would take years to undo. The first being that any sort of unknown could be made less scary with copious amounts of research. My browser history was probably in some sort of FBI database, for all I knew, especially the last couple months.

There was nothing to be done about that, though. Hiring and vetting an escort required a few private browsers, and no one had shown up to arrest me yet, so I was assuming that I was still safe from legal prosecution.

When I got to work the next day, there was an email waiting for me from the escort agency. If I wanted, I could reschedule a meeting with Jimmy (now that I knew his name, I’d decided there was no worry of sexual attraction to someone named Jimmy with thin lips and a baby face). But even though he would be the monumentally safer choice than trying to wade into the dating pool—shudder—I couldn’t bring myself to do it just yet.

The day was still young.

If I didn’t reschedule, Jimmy’s brief visit would go down as a very expensive mistake that I had no intention of making again.

“How was the meeting with the hooker yesterday?”

There was no need to glance up from my computer screen, because Lauren was the only person in the world who’d ask me that. “He’s not a hooker, Lo, he’s an escort.”

“An escort who also gets paid to have sex at his fancy brothel in Vegas, yeah?”

With a sigh, I closed out the browser. My search history had my cheeks going warm, and I prayed Lauren didn’t notice. “Whether he does or doesn’t is not my problem. I didn’t hire him for sex, I hired him for ...”

“Nonsexual sexual training?” she supplied helpfully.

I gave her a dry look. “Yes.”

“God, when I was in high school, we learned everything fromCosmo.” She plopped down in the chair opposite my desk. “They had the best articles. The day I learned about Reverse Cowgirl was the day my life changed.”

Lauren wasn’t that much older, but on days like this, it felt like she had decades more experience. She also had no filter, a healthy sex drive, and the determination to do her very best to bring me into the same hormonal space she occupied happily. “I don’t think a magazine can fix me, Lo.”

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