Page 14 of Heartsmashed
“I was waiting for you to divulge that information.”
He stared at me for a second, then shook his head, a sheepish smile breaking through. “Wow. So not only did I hire a fake boyfriend, I hired one who’s heard me give terrible love advice to half of New York.”
“Not terrible, just…direct.”
“That’s incredibly generous of you.”
“Yes, it is.”
He let out a loud laugh, hit the cruise control, and settled back in his seat. “I think you owe me one embarrassing story for that.”
“What makes you think I have one?”
“Good point. I’ll take an extremely personal one, then.”
“I don’t do extremely personal on request.”
“That’s disappointing.”
“You’ll survive.”
“I dunno,” he said, tapping his fingers against the wheel. “I feel like I’ve really opened up here, and you’ve given me nothing.”
“What do you want to know?”
Sawyer pursed his lips, and I could practically see the wheels turning in his head. “If it’s not too personal, I guess I’m curious how you got into this. What did you do before you were a…”
“An escort?”
“Right.”
I let the question simmer for a second, wondering how I should answer. I didn’t want to lie to Sawyer—other than the obvious—and that had me wanting to give him the truth…even if I fudged the timeline a bit.
“I worked with athletes,” I said. “Kept them in one piece. Fixed them when they weren’t.”
His brows lifted. “Like…a trainer?”
“Sports trainer and physical therapist.”
“That explains a lot.” He nodded like he’d just solved something.
“Does it?”
“Yeah. You seem to know how to calm me down just by touching me, so that tracks.”
“Does that bother you?”
“No,” he said quickly. “Touch me whenever you like. I mean, when you think I need it.”
Good to know.“I’ll do that.”
Sawyer swallowed and waved his hand. “And you’ve also got that whole ‘calm under pressure, don’t panic, everything’s fine’ thing going on too.”
“It’s better than the alternative.”
“Oh.” He glanced over at me and grinned. “Like me, huh? Hot mess express.”
“I didn’t say that.”
