Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 127213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
“And how did that happen exactly?” Frank asked. Still, he reached over the table and stroked Ezra’s hand. “This is delicious.”
Ezra smiled and had a sip of coffee to start with. “Good dermatologist. A dietician. A personal trainer. A growth spurt. Going through puberty. Suddenly, people paid attention, talked to me more, and I no longer felt like someone giving me his cock to suck was doing me a favor. Mom encouraged me to take care of myself, helped me pick new clothes, and by the time I was a senior in high school, I felt like I existed the way I was always meant to.”
Frank stopped chewing for a second, then swallowed. “And that was more than a year ago, right?” He eyed Ezra with a frown.
Sweet.
“Don’t you worry, I have not stained your moral compass. I’m twenty-three,” Ezra said, starting his meal with the tomatoes. Fiber first. Then protein, and he’d wrap up with carbs to keep the sugar spike to a minimum. He felt guilty about gorging on so much bread and cheese at Ros and Shane’s, so today’s menu needed to be perfect.
Frank’s relief was so obvious his expression made Ezra chuckle.
“Okay. Good. I might like guys younger than me, but I’m no cradle-snatcher. So you were close with your mom, but… aren’t anymore? Why did you lose touch?”
Ezra chewed a bit slower to think through his answer. He wouldn’t have called his relationship with Mom close. They just had a lot in common, and she saw him for what he was.
“Because of the job I chose to do. She thinks it’s dirty, and told me that I’m on my way to sucking dick for crack,” he said, laughing. “She’s a hypocrite, so I don’t feel the need to reach out either.”
Then again, he had ended up in an arrangement with a murderer, and now had to hide out at a junkyard with a different kind of criminal, so maybe she hadn’t been so wrong after all. Not that her choice of staying with a shitty husband was any better.
“How so?” Frank asked between one bite and another. He’d never been this inquisitive before, and Ezra was torn between feeling flattered by the attention and wary that he was giving away too much. Another thing Mom had taught him. Keep your cards close. They might be used against you.
He filled his mouth, once again buying himself time while Frank watched him, his eyes so open, so interested in what Ezra had to say. Most of the people he’d spent time with were more interested in talking about themselves, and he wasn’t sure what this meant.
But his family wasn’t some big secret, so he shrugged. “She married for money. But I suppose she thinks it’s fine to sell yourself if it’s just one person. Or maybe she just got jealous when I grew out of my teen pudge and started getting more attention from guys than her.”
“So how did you get into escorting if your mom was against it?”
Ezra laughed. “Mom couldn’t tell me what to do once I turned eighteen. She should blame herself for telling me to go into a profession that would give me access to high quality men, since I was gay and all that. I did a few modeling gigs, and I started going out to get my bearings as an adult. I think it started the way it did for a lot of people. This one guy offered me cash for spending time with him while his wife was away.”
It had felt good to be desired. And he soon found out the money that could be made in the profession would offer him a chance to live independently and reach whatever goal he chose.
“What about your father? You cut contact with both your parents?”
Ezra sipped more of the coffee even though his stomach twisted with ice, as if an eel had passed through it. “There isn’t really much to say about him. He was never very family focused. Unlike you. How come you lost touch with your sister?” he asked, eager to shift the attention to Frank because the less they talked about Ezra’s dad the better.
Frank gave his pancakes a thoughtful nudge with his fork. “I got mixed in with a bad crowd at a young age. I didn’t grow up with money, so I don’t know if I was compensating or just greedy, but from one violent outburst to another, I ended up in a gang. A lot of my tattoos are from back then. Weirdly enough, unlike my family, those guys were fine with me being gay, even if they made the occasional joke. But I was already big as a teen, so no one fucked with me. Looking back, the older guys must have just understood I’d be useful, so what did they care who I fucked?”