The Plan (Off-Limits Romance, #4)(74)
Instead, when Thalia hands me the manila folder in the Williamsburg café on a balmy, almost-springlike Thursday afternoon in April, I merely arch an eyebrow at the thing, and say, “What do you mean, extra money? I don’t need another job, Thalia. I barely have enough time to study as it is.”
“This isn’t a job. Well, it is,” she follows up. “But not a real one. You play chess, right?”
I frown at my friend. “Not since high school.”
“I’m sure they haven’t changed the rules in the past seven years, Bee. And anyway, you don’t need to be good. You just have to be able to make conversation.” Thalia’s brunette hair is neatly brushed and immaculately braided, unlike my own crazy auburn mane. She reaches across the table, taking a strand of my hair in between her fingers, studying it closely. “And you’re not a blonde. That’s a huge help.”
“I know plenty of excellent chess players who are blonde,” I say, swatting her hand away. “That’s a terrible stereotype.”
“No. I mean, the guy who’s looking for someone to play with has something against blondes. I’m not saying blonde women are too stupid to pl—” She rolls her eyes. “Never mind. Just listen.” She taps the folder with an expertly manicured index finger. “I’ve been running a little side line recently. I’ve been expanding on the whole Blizzard Buddy thing.” I’m about to ask her what the hell a Blizzard Buddy is, but she must see the question forming on my lips. She holds up a hand, cutting me off. “Blizzard Buddies are people who hang out with other people during storms. They come over to your place and eat pizza and drink beer while a snowstorm rolls across the city, and then they go home afterwards. No harm. No foul. And no funny business,” she stresses.
“People pay other people to hang out with them in New York? That sounds dangerous, Thalia. Tell me you haven’t been doing that?”
“Of course I have.” She shrugs a shoulder, taking a drink from her coffee cup. “The money’s good. And besides, I like meeting new people.”
“Who needs to pay someone to come hang out with them? Jesus. Do I need to remind you how crazy people are in this town?”
My friend tuts disapprovingly, tapping her finger against the folder again. “All of these men and women are thoroughly investigated before anyone goes over to their places. They have to provide a million forms of ID, have psychometric tests, and also undergo a criminal record check, girl. It’s safe as houses.”
Houses fall down all the time. They get broken into. People are killed in their own damn beds on the regular. People are raped. Thalia steamrolls ahead, though, not giving me the opportunity to voice my concerns.
“It’s a couple of hours in the afternoon, three times a week, Bee. And for six grand, I think you can clear your schedule.”
I nearly spit my coffee across the table. “Six grand?” Like hell there’s no funny business if a guy’s willing to play six grand for a girl to go over to his place. I have to suppress my desire to reach over and slap Thalia upside the head. She can’t be this stupid. She just can’t. “You have plenty of money. Why the hell are you getting caught up in this kind of shit?”
Thalia doesn’t bat an eyelid. “Look, just because I have money doesn’t mean I can’t have a job. You’re beginning to sound like my mother. I provide a legitimate service to lonely investment bankers who work too much to have a social life. I get to hang out in nice apartments, drink fine wine and eat gourmet meals, and I get paid to do it. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“It was beer and pizza a minute ago.”
“Sometimes it’s Budweiser. Sometimes it’s Mo?t. I’m not fussy. Look, this isn’t just some guy, Bee. This guy is—”
“No. I’m not doing it, Thalia. I have too much on my plate already, and so do you. You realize we’re only months away from taking the bar exam, right? We’ve been studying for years for this moment. If I drop the ball now, it’ll all have been for nothing. I wanna be a lawyer, not a chess buddy for some socially awkward rich boy.”
Thalia winks. “Can’t be a lawyer if you can’t pay your tuition fees.”
She has a point there. Working part time at the library hasn’t exactly been bringing in a monster paycheck every week. I spent a while tutoring freshmen at the beginning of the year, but the pay was abysmal, and half the time the little shits didn’t even show up, let alone settle their bills. Thalia snaps off a piece of the biscotti we’re sharing and pops it into her mouth. “So what if this guy’s social skills aren’t the very best New York has to offer? He’s harmless. And he owns an entire floor of the Osiris Building on Park Avenue. The top floor. That’s the motherfucking penthouse, Beth,” she stresses, as if I might have misunderstood her. “Unless you wanna move into your brother’s dingy basement apartment and sleep on his couch, or worse, move back to Kansas,” she says, delicately wrinkling her nose. “This offer is too good to be true. You should be snatching this folder out of my hand and thanking the gods that this chess-playing weirdo has come along, Bee. Seriously.”
I eye the folder once more, my brows pulling together, holding my breath. Thalia leans across the table and touches her fingers to the scar on the right side of my temple, making a pensive hmming sound. “How long have you had that?” she asks.