“I can promise that.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive.”

Ashley and I are very busy the next couple of days. We agree to go out on Friday, and by Friday morning I can hardly contain my excitement. I had spent the last two days ignoring the pangs of jealousy I would feel when her clients would ring the doorbell, and I could barely be civil to Aiden when he called. I had yet to mention him to Ashley again, scared to regress back to where we were a few days ago. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t still highly aware that something serious was going on between them. And that didn’t mean I wouldn’t eventually get to the bottom of it.

Ashley and I had regressed in other ways. We had become fourteen year-olds, smiling at each other over cups of orange juice at breakfast, talking in each other’s rooms until the wee hours of the morning. But Ashley was still Ashley. She was hot one minute and cold the next. It just so happened that these days there were more hot minutes than cold.

“Hey,” she says, snapping me out of my haze.

“Ashley…hi,” I say with a grin. It’s amazing how I can be so excited to see her when we life under the very same roof.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Stuff,” I say coyly, watching her as she sits across from me at the kitchen table.

“Stuff? What kind of stuff?”

“Good stuff.”

“Seriously?”

“Hey, I can be private too.”

“What are you implying?” she asks, but her face shows no annoyance.

“You’re withholding.”

“I don’t think so.”

I slam my coffee mug down on the table, “You’re kidding, right?”

She laughs, “No! What are you talking about?”

“You’re withholding and you know it. I mean, it’s fine, alright? But just admit it.”

“I will admit no such thing.”

“It’s sexy,” I say, blushing almost immediately.

“Are you blushing?” she asks, sweetly, covering my hand with hers.

“No,” I lied.

“Yes, you are. It’s not exactly something you see a lot in our profession.”

“Are you saying you’ve never seen a blushing prostitute?”

“I can’t say I have, Spence. I can’t say I have.”

“What can I say? I’m an original.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Yeah, what is it?”

“How did you know that…I mean, how could you tell that I was…”

“Ashley…”

“How did you know that I liked…girls?”