Adrift

calling as a therapist. Then, because I’m a caring person, I reminded him of sexual diseases and things like that. A solid reminder for anyone picking up their hook-up curbside.
Jared and I had been exchanging emails for quite some time. His profile pic showed a twenty-something fit male, but I never ever trusted a profile pic. Hell, I’d carefully curated my profile pics and edited them to the point I sometimes didn’t recognize myself.
The last message in my queue and—jahwoski. One erect, well-manscaped penis filled my message box. It’s not a Monday without a dick pic.
I replied with the obligatory That looks delicious. Oh, how I’d love to wrap my lips around that bad boy. Or maybe you’d prefer to place it here… and attached my standard cleavage shot and hit send. Boom. Five bucks richer.
With my morning correspondence completed, I clicked over to prepare for my afternoon meeting in Wilmington with the bankers. Even though I’d been socking away my profit for the last two years, I needed a loan to get my restaurant going. According to my research, the median cost to open a restaurant fell in the $275,000 to $300,000 range, and given I wanted to open on an island, my cost would be higher. I currently had $30,000 saved. Math had never been my strength, but even Forrest Gump could determine I needed a loan.
This afternoon’s appointment would be my first bank meeting. I fully expected to be escorted out with a polite no. But I planned to cajole this bank officer into telling me where I fell short, not money-wise, but application-wise. I’d Googled it all, of course, but expected the real life loan application experience might differ from the outline on Wikipedia.
After I opened my restaurant, I’d say goodbye to OnlyFans. The account required daily work and constantly putting oneself out there. A restaurant would be the same in so many ways, but I could hold my head high and tell the world I owned a restaurant. No one looked down on a restaurant owner. And even though I had a PG account, I knew damn well every single person would assume I sold nudes. Or worse. And, truth be known, I’d come close to selling nudes. When it was eat or flash your boobs, you flashed away. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
A text came through, snapping me back to my afternoon.
Happy Monday.
Who is this?
Gabriel Chesterton.
A smile so wide my muscles stretched broke out across my face.
Hey! How’s it going? Any news on the probe?
He’d mentioned an investigation on a business he had invested in. I expected those kinds of things happened all the time. It sounded standard, and probably not worth talking about, but it wasn’t like I had a wealth of Gabe conversation starters at the ready. My phone lit up with a FaceTime call. Well, shit.
I flicked on my soft light and snapped my phone into the selfie holder, then settled myself down on the settee. Double-checked my hair, licked my lips for a gloss effect, and answered.
“Hey, stranger. Lunch break time?”
“Never ever mention business in writing. Ever. Got it?” Office buildings loomed in the background over his head, shifting up and down. He wore a well-fitted dark suit and tie.
“Why?”
“It’s a creed I live by.” I raised the stand slightly for a better angle of my face, fully aware that at the wrong angle I appeared almost cow-like. “You’ve got gorgeous eyes, you know that?”
“Lots of blue eyes in the sea,” I muttered. If in doubt, peruse OnlyFans. Or Instagram. Or one of my family reunions.
“Not like yours.” A loud horn blared in the distance. I looked away from the bouncy background to avoid motion sickness. “What you got on tap this afternoon?”
“I’m meeting with bankers.” It felt damn good to have a legitimate business meeting to talk about.
“Bankers?”
“I told you. I’m looking to open a restaurant.”
“Send me over your business pitch. I might know some investors. Maybe with better terms than you can get from a bank.”
“Okay. Will do.” I popped off the settee and returned to my laptop, carrying my phone, arm extended as far as it could stretch. Then I set the phone down, camera aimed at the ceiling, while I pulled up the deck I’d created. Might as well get his thoughts on it. Another guinea pig investor. Twenty-five rejections—after I got that many hard no’s, I’d reevaluate. Until then, I planned to keep on keeping on. “What’s your email?”
“Send it to my personal. My name at gmail dot com. Do you remember my last name?”
“Chesterton?”
“Yep. And who is it coming from?”
Shit. I was about to message him from my OnlyFans account, but Gabe wasn’t a subscriber. I mean, I suspected one of my four new weekend subscribers might be Gabe, but this would be real correspondence. An email between friends and potentially business colleagues. And it opened up more of my life to Gabe than I opened up to others. I had comfort in people knowing one side of my life, not both. But I shook off that worry. The guy lived in New York. “Penelope Smith. I mean, the email is Pop4Joiz.”
“Is Smith your real last name?”
“Would you expect anything less than a common last name?” This girl here was about as common as they came. Well, other than my middle name. My parents had aspirations for me, after all.
“All right, Penelope Smith. What time is your meeting with the bankers?”
“Three.”
“I’ll head back to the office and look it over. I have to get on a call with an analyst at one thirty, but I’ll email back any suggestions before then.”
“Thank you.” Gratitude filled me. I hadn’t asked for any help. But he offered. And god knew I needed it. I found my business plan template on Pinterest.
“Hey, Poppy?”
“Yeah?”
“Will you be around tonight?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll call to see how it went.”
I caught a quick glimpse of a playboy smirk right before he ended the call. And a