he knows this guy doesn’t work at, and there’s a woman there in the corner watching like this sort of thing happens every day. And well, shit, maybe it does. It takes him until he’s looking over the paperwork to see that the Bentley-driving stranger’s name is Alejandro Santos, and he thinks that’s actually his real name.
He has a couple of rules, all of which make sense except one. No touching. It’s not, no touching unless I touch you first or, no touching unless it’s in this specific place at this specific time. And he sounds final when he says it, like he really is about to pay Avery stupid amounts of money for nothing more than eating fine dining and talking to him.
He wants to balk, because after talking to Shanice about it for the entire forty-eight hours before his meeting with Alejandro, he lost himself in a sea of websites and Twitter accounts following the lives of people who live this every day.
Usually it’s women. They look like they’re in sororities and have daddy’s platinum card—and in some cases they do, it’s just a very different kind of daddy. Some of them only get a little cash and some gifts, some of them get extravagant trips. And all of them have sex with their sugar daddies, and all of them imply that it gets a little…freaky.
Which he can handle. His tastes are simple, but he likes fucking men who are bigger than him and stronger than him. He likes the feeling of being held and possessed. He’s a little femme, and he’s not opposed to leaning into the stereotype because that’s the kind of person he’s always been, and it’s been years since he bothered to be ashamed of that.
But he thinks he can handle anything and everything Alejandro throws his way. He holds his breath for most of their first date, but he starts to get an actual read on Alejandro, which is hard to do since he actually made good on his promise not to go digging around in the man’s life.
He stumbled onto an article about him that was printed like fifteen years ago—and he supposes it’s just one of those creepy, the internet is spying on you kind of things because it just shows up on his newsfeed. He doesn’t read it, but he sees the headline about the corporate rising star in the tech field, Alejandro Santos, and his husband. The photo is a thumbnail so all he gets are hair color and pale skin, and he doesn’t look deeper because, well, he swore he wouldn’t. He doesn’t think Alejandro is married now though. He wasn’t wearing a ring, and he had something about him that felt so fucking sad Avery wanted to cry by the time they were done with dinner.
He drives home in his brand-new car and tries not to think about how wrong it looks parked alongside all the fifteen-year-old beaters that the people in his building drive. He thinks about this life, and the money he’s got now, and how much things are going to change in the next few months.
A text from his mom comes in as he’s pulling a second pair of socks on because his heater sucks, and she wants to know about when his flight to New York is. He realizes that part of his agreement is to be at Alejandro’s beck and call—no matter what. And it’s not like Chanukah is a huge thing. His finals will be approaching, and his mom usually doesn’t bother him too much if he brushes her off.
So, he texts her and says next year—though he thinks that might actually be a lie. He thinks it’s almost the holidays and because Alejandro doesn’t talk about family at all, he may be lonely. He unpacks his little chanukiah he got from a rummage sale a year before, and he sets it in the window. He has just enough candles to get through the week, so he puts those out too. He turns his phone on full volume and he settles in with a book.
The wait will be long, but he knows this is his job now. He can quit the Taco Stand—and he will tomorrow. He doesn’t pay his rent now—according to this contract, he doesn’t pay any of his bills. He just has money and time.
The sun starts to set, and he knows tomorrow is the first night, and he wonders if he’ll be home in time to light