Page 14 of The Arrangement

"Listen, Clark, you're not my first pick either, but it could help both of us out."

My eyebrows shot up and I barked out a laugh as I pushed my door in. "Wow, don't be too flattering. Do I start now or what?"

Sebastian groaned and leaned on my door frame, not stepping into the house but leaning forward. "I didn't mean it like that. I just mean…listen, my partner that I usually work with is out of the game. I have references and a clean bill of health."

I stood incredulous in my living room, ignoring Hannah swirling around my legs as she purred. Taking in Quinn's deep, imploring eyes, I crossed my arms again.

"You're being serious right now, aren't you?"

He nodded. "I don't know if you've noticed, but I haven't posted in a while."

I blushed a deep scarlet and chewed on the inside of my cheek. "Haven't looked since … well, you know." I lied, hopefully convincingly.

He lowered his gaze as if he was seeing right through me; he leaned closer, the hints of his tattoos peeking out from beneath the cufflink shirt.

"Listen, I get good money from live streaming and solo shit, but I really rake it in when I have collabs. And I'm picky; I have to be, with who my family is." He wasn't lying there. The Quinn Foundation owned and ran half of the city, and what they didn't own, they invested in. I still couldn't wrap my head around why he was doing sex work to begin with. Thirst traps on social media? Yeah, absolutely, but this was different.

"Quinn, listen, I'm not doing that. It would kill my grandmother, first of all."

"We wear masks, totally anonymous, you know the drill." He was pleading at this point. "We split it fifty-fifty; it's more than reasonable."

I threw up my hands and bent down to pick up my cat, her gentle purring calming my nerves. "Absolutely not, but thanks for thinking of me, I guess?" I snorted, attempting to shut the door in his face.

His foot stopped the door from closing fully, and he looked down at me. "If you change your mind, here's my number and the number to my references. Just think about it." He had barely finished the sentencewhen I finally shut the door, grabbing the offered business card so he would just leave.

Shaking my head, I kissed Hannah between her furry ears and went to refill her food dish as I looked at the card. It was plain, with simple text that had what I assumed was his phone number—no name, but it was local—next to a scrolled text that said Wolfe LLC. I tossed it on my rarely used kitchen table with a sigh.

Did Sebastian Quinn just proposition me?

"How's work going?”my grandmother asked between sips of her shake. “I'm sure Hemingway's is about to be busy with the holiday season coming up." I swallowed the guilt around the lie I was about to tell, stuffing some fries into my mouth to delay my response.

"It's been great. That coffee shop, The Grind? It's really bringing in more foot traffic, too." My stomach twisted with the falsehood, but I would rather do anything than cause my grandma to worry.

"There's nothing better than good coffee and a good book." She nodded, frowned, and began to look around.

"What's wrong?" I asked, trying to follow her gaze around the room. Staring out across the room for a moment, she shook her head and smiled.

"Oh, nothing; I just couldn't remember where I had left my glasses, is all." My heart dropped as I motioned to the pair of bifocals perched on top of her head.

I changed the subject, talking about Hannah and how happy she was with the new cat bed I’d bought her. We passed the time with casual talk before it was time to head out. I couldn't tell her it was because I had a shift at The Grind, so I once again lied and said I had dinner plans with Sarah.

Shutting the door to her room, I let out a sigh of regret, and the smile I had plastered on my face for the visit finally slipped away.

"Georgia?" I jumped at the sound of my name, once againplastering on a smile when I saw my grandmother's nurse, Abbey, walking up to me with a clipboard in hand.

"Oh hi, I put the check with the front desk. I hope that’s okay?" I asked, not liking the way she was smiling at me. It looked sympathetic, and that was concerning.

"Of course, I was just wondering if you had a second. I wanted to go over some things with you about your grandmother's care." And just like that, the floor dropped from under me. Again.

I wasthankful that my driver was quiet on the way home. Gripped in my hands were the paperwork and pamphlets for my grandmother's continued care. Apparently, Mary had tripped the alarm sometime last night and they’d caught her wandering the halls. They wanted to add her to a different package—a more expensive package—due to her declining health and advanced age.

It was over six hundred dollars more a month, something that would have been hard with my full-time job and would now be impossible, even when I was covering as many shifts as I could at the coffee shop.

I was numb when I entered my apartment, the glow from the lamp I’d left on for Hannah's benefit lighting the space as I collapsed on the couch.

The cat jumped up on me immediately, rubbing her head into my hand as if she could smell her old owner on my clothing. So I sat there, petting the cat and looking off into space while I contemplated my new predicament. How was I supposed to come up with over six hundred extra a month on top of everything else?

Hannah's insistent chirping was becoming nonstop, and I looked over to her feeder to find the cause of her dismay. Sighing, I fed the furry beast and went to throw away her now-empty cat bag when I saw the business card that I had discarded just a few nights ago on my dining room table. Exhaustion pawed at me; my skin felt stretched too thin, like my body was too large for all of the expectations required ofme. I struggled to breathe deeply the way my therapist had taught me when I was sixteen. I could do this, I was fine.

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