Page 57 of Dad Next Door
“I imagine you have to censor a lot from your family.”
He grinned mischievously. “You’d think, but nope.”
“Your family knows you strip?”
“They know everything. My studio work, my solo stuff. Stripping.” He grinned wider. “My parents are the most chill people you’ll ever meet. I’m not even the only sex worker in the family.”
I froze as my mind stuttered again.
“You look like you’re buffering.” He snickered. “My stepbrother, Jesse, is an escort.”
“An escort?” I repeated dumbly.
“Yup.” He looked like a cat who’d just gotten hold of a particularly elusive canary. “A full-service one.”
“Like for women?”
“Men. Remember when I told you how most of the people in my life are queer? It’s pretty much everyone. My parents, my stepbrother, and almost all my friends at the club. Although it was a bit of a surprise when the twins hooked up with their boyfriends because neither knew they were queer at the time.”
“I’m still stuck on your stepbrother being an escort. And your parents are okay with that?”
“They worry about him, obviously. But they know he’s careful, and they support him.”
I tried to picture how I’d react if an adult Leo told me he wanted to get into sex work. The fear of something happening to him was there, but I liked to think I was rational enough to be like Quinn’s parents and support my son in all his choices.
“I forgot to ask if Kim is mad.”
“Mad?” I asked.
“That we left early.”
“No, not at all. She thinks we left because we couldn’t wait until the end of the reception for a little—” I did my best impression of cheesy sex music and waggled my eyebrows at him.
Quinn burst out laughing. “Was that supposed to be sexy?”
“It wasn’t?” I pretended to be shocked.
His smile faded. “So, what do we do now?”
“You mean about this?” I waved my hand between us.
He nodded.
“I don’t know. What do you want?”
He bit his lip. It was the first time I’d ever seen him look shy about something.
“We have two options,” I said when he didn’t answer. “We can either ignore things and pretend tonight was a fluke of happenstance. Or we can explore it.”
“What would that look like to you? Exploring it?” He chewed his lip nervously.
“I’m not sure. Like I said before, my life is complicated. I’m not looking for anything serious, and I have more issues than a periodical, but a fling between friends doesn’t have to be complicated.”
He nodded slowly, his eyes calculating. “That’s true.”
“I’ve never done a friends-with-benefits thing, and honestly, I don’t think I can. Definitely not with you. We’re already too close to try to pretend like feelings won’t be involved.”
“Yeah, that ship sailed a while ago,” he agreed. “What about a casual thing? Or a low-key one? Casual makes it seem like it’s just about sex.”