Paid Companion

by Nia Forrester

  Kevin and Nicki watched her as she walked away, the billowy palazzo pant-legs of her outfit swirling around her.

  “Is this going to be a thing with you all week?” Nicki asked, her voice tight.

  “Is what going to be a thing?”

  “Bringing up all of that stuff. Kev, you and Blake have finally moved past it … everyone else has finally gotten over it. Why would …”

  “Maybe I’m not as over it as I thought,” Kevin snapped, his gaze once again finding Blake and Lia, who were now in an animated conversation with one of their cousins.

  He didn’t know how true it was until he said it. But seeing Blake with Lia had awakened the sleeping beasts that were his long-swallowed anger, damaged pride, and sense of betrayal. Lia wasn’t his woman, but she was someone he feeling. And seeing her with Blake reminded him of a different time, a different woman, and a different, far deeper betrayal.

  She was playing her role well. Almost too well. Maybe she had begun to genuinely warm to Blake.

  Lia was sitting next to his brother on the short boat ride over to the Kingfisher Key, the 29-acre private island where the family would be spending the next week. She was leaning partially on Blake, or maybe it was the bounce and sway of the waves that made it look like she was. But for sure she looked like she was enjoying herself, intermittently lifting her arm, palms open and fingers spread as though feeling the wind course between them. And she turned every once in a while, to look at Blake and laugh at something he said. If she and Blake didn’t speak another word to each other all week, they would have already convinced everyone present they were an item.

  Reaching up to massage the back of his neck, Kevin groaned. He could feel the beginnings of seasickness: the vague queasiness, and the nagging, persistent ache at his temples and the back of his neck. And the situation wasn’t helped by the fact that it was dusk, and difficult to see the horizon so the motion of the boat in the almost-dark gave him the sensation of being flung about with no way to determine which way was up, down or sideways.

  Stumbling to his feet, he decided to head below deck to grab a ginger ale and maybe some Dramamine if there was any lying around. He shouldn’t have had those two beers at brunch.

  No one noticed him leave; they were all too enthralled with the sunset.

  Alone at the bar, he poured ginger ale over a glass of ice and before taking his first sip rubbed it across his clammy forehead.

  He didn’t think about her often, and he didn’t want to think about her now, but since this afternoon she was there, in the forefront of his mind: Christina.

  As deceitful as she was beautiful.

  As wily as she was witty.

  After everything that happened, he was still torn about whether to feel foolish or lucky that things between them hadn’t gone as planned.

  Kevin glanced at his watch. Fifteen minutes before they got to the island; twenty if the rough sea slowed them down further. And then once they arrived, there would be the inevitable bickering when his cousins argued about who got which cabana, and what time they should all be required to meet for breakfast. He wasn’t in the mood.

  “Hey.”

  Lia was standing at the doorway, holding on to the frame to maintain her balance.

  “Hey,” he returned.

  “Thought it would be better down here, but it’s actually worse,” she said, making her way shakily toward the bar and then gripping its edge.

  “Much. The salty air helps a little.”

  He wasn’t sure he wanted her down here right now. Maybe he needed to be alone, to scrub his mind of the memories of last time, and scrub his heart of the negative emotions that had begun to surface.

  “Then how come you’re not up there?” she asked. “You look a little green about the gills yourself.”

  “Green about the gills?” He let one corner of his mouth lift in a half-smile.

  Lia shrugged. “I dunno. It’s something people say at times like this, isn’t it?”

  “I never have.” He took a sip of his ginger ale.

  “Maybe you’re just not as articulate as I am,” Lia said.

  She was looking right at him, right into his eyes with those dark, liquid orbs of hers. He stared and she stared right back. She was flirting. The realization emboldened him.

  “You want a ginger ale?” he asked holding up his glass. “It helps a little.”

  She nodded. “Thanks.”

  “Didn’t seem like it was bothering you when you were up there?” he said as he dropped a few ice cubes into a glass for her.

  “It wasn’t at first. Just sort of crept up on me.”

  “Oh yeah?” He looked at her. Now he suspected that she wasn’t seasick at all. Maybe she’d simply come looking for him. “It’s like that sometimes.”

  “I don’t as a rule spend a lot of time on yachts,” Lia said taking the ginger ale he handed to her.

  “Me neither, believe it or not.”

  The queasy feeling was dissipating, replaced by something else. Lia Hill was incredibly distracting when she wanted to be.

  “Actually, I do believe it,” she said evenly. “You don’t seem like the type. It’s like you’re from this life, but you’re not … about this life.”

  Kevin smiled. “What does that mean?”

  “I think you know what I mean,” she returned.

  “How about Nicki, and Blake? Are they ‘about this life’?” he challenged.

  “Nicki, definitely not. Blake, I haven’t decided yet. But he’s very different than I thought he would be. Your entire family is. I talked to your father for a little bit and he’s not nearly as scary as you all made him sound.”

  Kevin shrugged.

  “I can’t pretend I’m not curious about why you guys feel like you have to deceive him, you know, about me and Blake being …”

  “Let’s not talk about you and Blake being … anything,” Kevin cut her off.

  “So …”

  Lia looked up into his eyes again and he felt another tug in her direction, an urge to move closer.

  “… what should we talk about?”

  Her voice had dropped to an almost seductive huskiness, and her eyes appeared suddenly darker. Her beestung lips were moist from her having just taken a sip of her ginger ale. He wanted to bite and then suck on them. This was going to be a problem, a really, really big problem. There were only two choices at this point—avoid her for the entire week, or just give in.

  “You,” Kevin said, his voice equally low in tone. “Let’s talk a little more about you.”

  So that was it, then – he was giving in.

  ~7~

  Kingfisher Key, FL, Monday, 10:47 p.m.

  “I can’t sleep, I’m too excited,” Lia whispered into her phone.

  Just yards away, she could see the surf. The waves lapped almost noiselessly against the shore, as though keeping their voices down for the benefit of the island’s guests. Only an hour earlier, everyone had turned in after a casual dinner on the beach, of barbecue chicken, corn on the cob and potato salad.

  “Why? What’re you excited about? I would’ve thought it would be super-awkward, being around all those people you’re lying to.”

  Lia held her phone away from her ear for a moment. “C’mon Steph, where’s your sense of adventure?”

  “I’m just glad you have cell service on the island. And by the way, you still haven’t sent me the email exchanges you had with Blake Morgan’s assistant.”

  “He isn’t his assistant, I told you. He’s … family.” She wasn’t sure why she’d hesitated in sharing with Steph that Kevin was Blake’s brother. Maybe because she didn’t know whether it was public knowledge or not. But it wasn’t as though Steph would blab to anyone, so Lia’s instinct to protect the Morgan family’s privacy in this instance seemed a little misplaced, even to her.

  “Send it, Lia. I know you’re starting to get comfortable with them and everything, but that’s usually when the bad shit happens.”

&nb
sp; Lia rolled her eyes. “There isn’t going to be of that. You don’t get it …” she let her voice trail off.

  On the other end of the line, Stephanie sighed. “Yeah. That’s what you said when you moved to Oakland, remember? And lots of bad shit happened.”

  Lia closed her eyes. “Thanks for reminding me.” As if she could forget.

  “I’m just sayin’. You tend to make snap judgments about people, and those judgments usually give them much more credit than they deserve.”

  Thinking about Kevin and their conversation on the boat, Lia was more inclined to believe that she hadn’t given him enough credit. At first, she thought he asked about her just to avoid talking about himself but soon, it became obvious he was actually, truly interested. Especially when she talked about her sketches, and how she’d finally gotten the nerve to confess to her parents that she wasn’t going to go to grad school after all, and that no matter how difficult, she was going to throw herself one hundred percent into her art. He told her she was brave, and sounded like he meant it.

  “Anyway …” Lia drawled, not wanting to have yet another conversation about her poor judgment and impulsivity. Stephanie’s ‘voice-of-reason’ role in her life sometimes felt more like a buzzkill than anything else. And the half hour she’d spent with Kevin had given her a buzz; one that was far keener than anything she felt after spending hours in Blake’s company all afternoon.

  If Blake was the popular high school quarterback, Kevin was his wingman, the much more brooding, soulful, and interesting tight-end, who was content to let his friend get all the glory, but exuded a quiet confidence all his own. Lia had never been a fan of the more obvious men anyway, the ones whose very presence caused a stir when they entered a room. Those kinds of men attracted messy, dramatic women with a penchant for messy, dramatic scenes and Lia prided herself on being neither of those things.

  “I should probably go,” she whispered into the phone. “I’m sharing a cabana and I don’t want to wake my roomie.”

  Glancing back into the bedroom, Lia saw that Nicki was sprawled out on her back, sheets flung aside, mouth open and once again, snoring.

  “Who’re you rooming with? Not with …?”

  Lia laughed. “With Blake? No.”

  “Oh, thank god,” Stephanie sighed. “Although …”

  Lia giggled again. “Yeah, I’m sure there’s tons of women who would kill for a chance to ‘room’ with Blake.”

  “But not you?” Stephanie scoffed.

  “Actually, no. Not me. I mean, he’s definitely as good-looking in person as his pictures, but no, not my type.”

  An image of Kevin crossed her mind; leaning against the bar below deck, the perspiring glass of ginger ale in his hand, his brow furrowed, chewing on one corner of his lower lip listening to her talk about her art, as though no one had ever described to him anything quite as interesting.

  “Sell that to someone who’s buying,” Stephanie said. “But lemme let you go. You’d better go rest up for all that acting you’re going to have to do.”

  Lia put her phone on the glass-top of the wicker coffee table nearby, and stared out at the surf, enjoying the whisper of the waves, and warm, salty aroma wafting off the water. She was tired, but too excited to sleep. The time she’d spent with Kevin was only one high-point of the day. Surprisingly, she had also enjoyed Edward Morgan. He was tall and broad-shouldered with a booming voice and a head full of wavy hair streaked with gray, and skin the color of red clay. At the corners of his eyes and mouth were deep lines, and his lips were darkened in a manner that marked him as a lifetime smoker.

  All he had smoked that afternoon were fat, Cuban cigars that put out a pungent yet strangely sweet smell. Lia had enjoyed talking to him about, of all things, his days as a swimmer in college. He hadn’t asked a single question about her and Blake, and seemed to accept at face-value the idea that his son and Lia had only recently met, and yet been so taken with each other that Blake wanted to invite her to this important family gathering. The mother on the other hand, the stately Jessica Morgan, had stared at Lia a little too long, and much too searchingly. She couldn’t say for sure, but if she had to guess, Lia would say that the mother knew something wasn’t right. But then again, mothers always knew.

  Looking back into the cabana again, Lia hesitated only a moment before going inside and very quietly changing out of the new linen pants she was still wearing, and into her own tattered denim shorts. Then, opening the door, she slipped out, and walked down closer to the water. Six cabanas lined the shore, each of them with two to three occupants. Like Lia and Nicki, Blake and Kevin were sharing, as were the two cousins, Kim and Tanya. Mr. and Mrs. Morgan occupied another, and tomorrow, Mr. Morgan’s brother—Kim and Tanya’s parents—and the rest of the family would arrive around breakfast time to take the remaining two. The Morgans were apparently in that phase of family life where most of the “kids” were several years out of college, but none had yet had children of their own, so even Mr. Morgan’s brother, who had grown daughters in Kim and Tanya, was without grandchildren. He and his wife would be bringing their nineteen-year old son, and their youngest, a daughter of sixteen.

  Lia’s own family was so small that the size and variety of Morgans was a rare and entertaining treat. Nicki and her cousins, though close in age, could not have been more different. While Kim and Tanya seemed to be quintessential spoiled Black American princesses who were adorned with conspicuously expensive clothing and accessories, Nicki’s style was one of discreet and quiet privilege. And the way she seemed to shrink in her cousins’ presence made Lia sense that they had a difficult history. She could easily see Kim and Tanya tormenting the much more reserved Nicki while they were growing up, probably out of an inability to understand what she was about.

  The water seemed to draw her toward it, so Lia heeded its call and went closer; close enough for it to lap at her toes. It was warm, so she crouched and ran her fingers through it as well, picking up a handful of damp sand and dropping it again, making a tiny mound and then watching as the waves washed it away. There was a full moon making a silver path across the water and illuminating the dock where the yacht was moored. Tikka torches were planted in the sand at intervals, making the beach appear like a dream sequence in a dream of the tropics. Except it wasn’t a dream. It was real, and she was there. Not on vacation, though it certainly felt like it.

  “Careful. There’s sharks out there.”

  Lia smiled but didn’t turn. She had been hoping he would come.

  “This close to shore?” she asked. “Seems unlikely.”

  “I heard about one that swam up in less than a foot of water and dragged some poor guy’s dachshund puppy back into the water and ate it for lunch.” He crouched next to her as Lia laughed.

  “You’re making that up,” she said.

  “Yeah, I’m making it up. But you have to admit, it’s a good story.”

  Only then did Lia brave a look at him. Kevin had changed, into a white t-shirt and what looked in the dim light like khaki cargo shorts. She could smell him too—he smelled like toothpaste and soap. He had probably showered and gotten ready for bed. But then he must have seen her out here and decided to come.

  It made her feel bold. Even more bold than she had been when she followed him below deck on the yacht. She still couldn’t believe she’d done that, and that she’d flirted with him once she got there. But the flirtation had fallen by the wayside once he got her talking about sketching, and then it had just been comfortable, and easy and natural. Like now.

  “It is a good story,” she admitted. “The kind of story people like to hear about Florida for some reason.”

  “Makes us feel better about living in the grime and crime of the city, I guess.”

  Lia looked at him again. “Where do you live? I can’t believe I never asked that before. Here in Miami, or …?”

  “DC. For now.”

  Upon hearing Lia’s stomach gave a little flip of excitement.

 
“Oh, I didn’t know that. I thought …” She said nothing further because Kevin was staring at her, or rather, at her lips as she spoke. He seemed transfixed by them.

  “You’re so pretty,” he said, so quietly, it was almost as though he hadn’t intended for her to hear it, like it was meant to be a thought and not spoken aloud. Then he was standing, almost abruptly and extending a hand down to her.

  Lia took it and he helped her up. Gently pulling her hand away, she brushed them against her shorts to rid them of residual grains of sand.

  “We shouldn’t stay out here too long,” Kevin said, his voice still strangely low. “Sand flies will eat you alive.”

  “If the sharks don’t get us first,” Lia quipped. Then she looked up at him to see if, like her, he was smiling. He wasn’t. Instead, his face had turned very, very serious. He took her hand again and pulled her against him.

  She imagined he would crush his mouth against hers like a hero in a romance novel, but instead he leaned in slowly, his nose brushing deliberately against hers, a gentle Eskimo kiss. Then he leaned his head slightly to the side, touched and she felt his cool, minty breath. She couldn’t wait. She got on her toes, and pressed her lips against his. They were warm and pillowy soft. Her chest heaved in her eagerness.

  Finally, Kevin returned the pressure with his own, sharing his breath, gently taking her lower lip between his, pulling back and allowing her to do the same with his. They played like that for a while, their kisses almost mischievous, but for the growing heat they were producing low in Lia’s belly and between her thighs. Kevin’s kisses told her he would be a patient lover, who would spend long minutes making sure she got her pleasure before he sought out his own. Thinking about that made the heat between her legs hotter still and the kisses became less playful, and more urgent.

  Lia moaned and pressed herself against him, feeling his hardness between them, barely contained by the thin fabric of his shorts. She wanted to reach down and touch him, stroke him, and help him find release, but god, they hadn’t even been on a date. He would think her a terrible hussy. And she was! Of course she was. She’d only met him a little more than twenty-four hours ago, and now here she was, her tongue in his mouth, his hands sliding lower on her back, making their way down to her ass.