Chapter 2

Evan POV

The 7 bus runs late on Thursdays.

I've been standing at the stop for eleven minutes. I know because I've checked my phone twice—not because I'm impatient, exactly. I check time the way I track the hours between Lily's medication doses, or the minutes left on a parking meter I can't afford to let expire.

The wind pushes fast-food grease and bus exhaust down the street. Above the intersection, the sky is the particular gray of a Lockwood afternoon that can't decide whether it means to rain.

The address is still open on my phone.

1140 Meridian Avenue, Suite 3B.

Richard's message was brief: Blue Tears. Evening and late-night waitstaff wanted. Ask for Dom, front management.

I know what Blue Tears is. I looked it up the night Richard sent me the address, sitting on the edge of my bed with Lily's latest hospital invoice open in another tab.

The club caters to people who can afford privacy and expect to keep it. It hires two kinds of staff: those who pour the drinks, and those who provide what never appears on a menu.

Richard knows which job I'm applying for. I made that clear the first time he suggested a place like this.

I need money, I told him. I'm not sleeping with strangers for it.

He'd held up both hands and said he understood. Then he'd sent me the listing anyway, with three follow-up messages about how much the servers made in tips.

The bus finally turns the corner.

I get on, tap my card, and find a seat near the middle. My bag stays on my knees. The invoice inside doesn't get lighter just because I can't see it.

Three thousand eight hundred and forty-seven dollars.

That's Lily's current balance at St. Maria for inpatient cardiac care. It doesn't include the specialist consultations billed separately, or last week's medication adjustment, which hasn't cleared insurance yet.

I know every number. I know which ones can wait until next Friday, which ones will trigger another notice, and how far I can stretch the balance in my checking account if I pick up both weekend shifts at the restaurant.

Not far enough.

Mom's savings had lasted longer than anyone expected. She left it to us when I was fifteen and Lily was twelve, along with a house full of things we couldn't keep and the kind of apology no one could ask her to explain afterward. By February, the last of it was gone.

Since then, I've kept us moving with restaurant shifts, freelance bookkeeping, and the kind of arithmetic my business degree was never meant to teach: which bill can be late, how little sleep still counts as functioning, how much dinner I can leave in the refrigerator before Lily notices I haven't eaten my share.

The arithmetic has stopped working.

Lily called yesterday before physical therapy. She sounded cheerful, which usually means she'd spent a few minutes arranging her voice before dialing.

“Don't push yourself too hard, Evan. I'm fine. Go do what you need to do.”

She said it with a business textbook open beside her heart monitor. She's been teaching herself half a degree from a hospital bed and telling me she's fine since Dad's debts first started arriving in envelopes neither of us wanted to open.

The bus lurches to a stop. I get off two blocks early by mistake, check the map, and walk the remaining four.

The address belongs to a renovated mid-century building with pale stone, dark windows, and no sign. It looks expensive without bothering to prove it.

A brushed-steel number hangs above the entrance. The intercom has one button.

I press it.

“Evan Dalton. Richard sent me about the waitstaff position.”

The lock releases with a soft click.

Dom's office is at the end of the third-floor corridor. His door is open, and he's already looking up when I reach it.

He's in his late forties, broad through the shoulders, wearing a charcoal suit that fits too well to have come off a department-store rack. His face isn't unfriendly. It simply gives nothing away for free.

“Evan Dalton.” I offer my hand. “Richard said you were looking for servers.”

His grip is firm and brief. “He said you were looking for work.”

Fair enough.

He gestures to the chair across from his desk. I sit and place my bag by my shoes.

His gaze passes over me once, measured and professional. I wore the only decent button-down I own, ironed it twice, and borrowed a tie from Richard that I removed in the lobby because it made me look like I was applying for an internship at a bank.

“How old are you?” he asks.

“Twenty-three.”

“Experience?”

“Four years in restaurants. Mostly front-of-house. I started running floor shifts at Carver's on Delaney when I was twenty-one.” I settle my hands on my knees before I can start fidgeting with my cuff. “I have a business degree too. That's probably more useful for the inventory sheets than the drink trays, but I don't lose track of things.”

One corner of his mouth moves. Not quite a smile.

“We have two openings,” he says. “The first is standard service—floor coverage, bar support, private events. Hourly rate plus tips. The tips here are substantial.”

I nod.

“The second is companion work. Private, client-selected, and consensual. Most engagements pay between two and three thousand. Some pay more.” His tone doesn't change. “You'd attract interest.”

Two to three thousand dollars.

The figure fits itself neatly against the one inside my bag.

I keep my eyes on Dom. “I'm applying for the service position.”

“I assumed you were. I still disclose both options to applicants who qualify.”

Qualify. It shouldn't bother me. That tidy little word still catches under my skin.

“Then you've disclosed it,” I say. “I'm still applying to serve drinks.”

His gaze holds mine for another second. Then he nods.

“Understood.”

There is no sales pitch. No warning that I may change my mind once I see the money. He opens a folder and moves on.

Some of the stiffness leaves my shoulders before I can stop it.

We spend the next twenty minutes on shift schedules, dress code, private-event protocol, and the rules for dealing with high-profile guests. I ask how tips are recorded, when payroll closes, and whether uniform costs come out of the first check.

“You ask better questions than most applicants,” Dom says.

“I've had worse surprises than a uniform deduction.”

This time, he does smile. Barely.

He slides a confidentiality agreement across the desk. I read every page. The language is strict but clear: no names repeated outside the building, no photographs, no discussion of guests or their companions. Dom waits while I work through it.

I sign at the bottom.

“Your first shift is tonight,” he says. “Eight o'clock. Use the service entrance on the east side.”

“I'll be here.”

Outside, the city is exactly where I left it. Tires hiss over damp pavement. Someone leans on a horn half a block away. I stand beside the entrance and check the time.

Two to three thousand dollars per engagement.

The number comes back easily. So does Lily's hospital room: the stack of textbooks, the plastic cup beside her bed, the wires disappearing beneath the neck of her gown.

I put my phone in my pocket.

Tonight, I'm carrying trays. I'll learn the floor, remember every order, and make enough in tips to justify coming back tomorrow.

Four hours gives me enough time to go home, change, eat something, and catch another bus across town.

I start walking before the other number can follow me.