Read Give Me Something for Free Online

spoiled brat who's had the world handed to him.  And,” he added with vigor, “I've never seen him be faithful to a girl.  He's with a new one every weekend.”
    “ Okay,” I said and tried to convince myself that what Nick was saying was true.  Plus, this was one job, one mark.  I could do this.  Get the money and run.  If that meant tolerating Mr. Full of Himself for a few months then so be it.
     
    $$$
     
    Nick left me with a folder full of everything I needed to know about Tucker.  I scattered the contents across my bed. I began studying the copies of bank receipts, lists of his favorite activities, photographs, both professional and candid.  The pictures revealed a little bit about what Nick had told me.  He drove an expensive truck, with what appeared to be some major alterations, like big tires, tinted windows, and a bunch of other over-the-top stuff. Farm boys and their trucks, I would never understand . There were dozens of shots of him with different girls.  All of them were beautiful. The unwelcome feeling of jealousy started to creep in.  Why did I care who he'd dated?  I didn't even like him . I forced it aside and took his taste in women as a compliment.  He must have thought I was just as pretty as they were. Why else would he have asked me out? 
    I never thought I was beautiful.  White trash pretty, maybe, but never beautiful.  Nick, on the other hand, saw something in me that I apparently missed.  Right after we started hanging out, Nick would tell me to flirt with a waiter to get us free food, or sweet talk a cop out of a parking ticket.  With him whispering directions in my ear, like “bat your eyes” or “touch his hand,” it worked.  Ninety-nine percent of the time.  One gay movie theater attendant threw off my whole average.  And, That's how this whole thing started.  We saw the reaction I had on the opposite sex and started upping the ante.  With a whole lot of practice and the access to money for clothes, hair, and makeup, I became beautiful and we moved from blue collar to white collar.
    From the amount of zeros on Tucker's bank receipts, his wealth far exceeded what I had imagined. I realized that Nick had been compiling this information for a while. Since last year, at least.  It must not have been a coincidence that they were roommates.  Another one of Nick's attributes was making sure that he had uninhibited access to the subject.  Nick had already duped Tucker into thinking he was a good enough friend to live with.  This was the most work I'd ever seen him put in.  He really wanted to make this work. Perhaps there was more to the story of their relationship than Nick let on.  For some reason, staring at the piles of collected information in front of me, I felt that this job was a little too personal for Nick.  I shook off the uneasy feeling that was looming in the back of my mind.  Nick had never lied to me before and he'd known Tucker a lot longer than I had.  If he says he's no good, I had to believe him.  Right?
    I picked up a picture of Tucker in a baseball uniform.  I knew he was a jock.   I let my fingers trace the outline of his perfectly structured jaw line.  I stared into his piercing blue eyes.  Even in only two dimensions, they still cut straight through the wall I was frantically trying to build up.  I pulled my eyes from his and noticed the cute way that his hair curled up around the back edge of his ball cap.  When I looked in front of me at the full length mirror that hung on the back of my door, I realized I was smiling.
    “ That's it, Lila Garrison,” I said, scooping up the papers and shuffling them back into the folder.  “Time to put on your game face.”  I stood up and walked over to the mirror, continuing my pep talk to myself.  “It doesn't matter how cute he looks in a hat or how he made you feel when he touched you last night.  Now, all that matters is making him fall in love with you, getting the money and saving