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“Although you might want to wash off the glitter first.”
    Then she closed the door, and Nate was faced with the reality of going to another job where he’d have to take his clothes off.
    He sat in his car and turned on the radio. He flipped from the pounding beats of the pop music and went through the stations until he found a classic rock channel. The singer’s voice rasped out of the speakers and crackled out into the car as he turned up the volume.
    What was he doing with his life?
    He was going to be a nurse. There had to be other things besides stripping he could do to make money. He’d taken the stripping job because it was easy. Or he’d thought it would be.
    The song wailed out of the cracked window, and he heard the wind whistle through the interior as he pulled out from the apartment parking lot. He’d need to turn in a couple of his props when he went to quit. Because he was doing just that.
    There was enough gas in his car to make it to a few places along the strip and hope he could get a job. It was still early enough in the season. Most of the summer job applicants wouldn’t be out in force yet.
    He passed a boutique and saw a help wanted sign. It took him two blocks to turn around, but only a couple minutes to flash a smile at the manager and get her to set up his training. They needed some muscle to move the stock around the store and process the merchandise as it was delivered off the truck.
    They also needed someone to clean the toilets, and she was honest when she told him he could help sales simply by flashing his dimple and telling women they looked pretty in the clothes.
    There were worse jobs. As he climbed into the car and stared at the toolbox in the front seat next to him…he realized there were much worse jobs.

CHAPTER SEVEN
     
    After buying enough books and journals to melt her credit card, Betty drove around the city until she had to get gas. Then she went through a drive thru and got herself a milkshake disguised as coffee.
    The kid in the drive-thru window had tried to pull an April Fool’s joke by telling her that her shake would be twenty dollars. Her look had obviously conveyed her lack of amusement, because she scored a free drink coupon thanks to her irritation.
    She’d made it back to the parking lot of her apartment, but could not for the life of her get up the energy to go inside. The ups and downs of the day were taking their toll. Betty didn’t want to blow any more money on gas. She’d only been gone a few hours. She was contemplating digging a hole and throwing herself in it when her passenger door opened and Ang knocked the napkins on the floor to sit next to her.
    “Only you would make out with a model then mope about it. He seems like a pretty okay guy. And you could do a lot worse than the man you’ve been pining over for years.”
    Betty slurped the last of her milkshake through the straw and sat the cup in the cup holder. “I made out with a stripper. A stripper my ex-best friend hired.”
    “I am the best, best friend ever. I ended up getting you your fantasy man. Literally.” Ang grabbed Betty’s hand on the steering wheel. “It was supposed to be a fun surprise. If it helps me look better at all, I tried to abort the dance when I found out who he was.”
    “Sooo…you only wanted a stranger getting naked in front of me.” Betty pulled her hand out from under Ang’s. “And when you found out it was Nate, you paid him to put the moves on me instead?”
    “What in the hell are you talking about?”
    Betty stopped staring angrily out the window at that. “I’m talking about the fact that you paid a stripper to make out with me knowing it was Nate.”
    “You are high.” Ang laughed at her some more.
    Betty grabbed her empty cup and slurped loudly. It gave her something to do, and she knew the noise was a pet peeve of Ang’s.
    Ang finally grabbed the cup out of her hand and threw it out the window.
    They both looked at the plastic on the ground