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didn’t—”
    “Means I have Indian blood,” Booker told her with a knowing smile.
    “Right.”
    He laughed. “I swear. Navajo, on my mother’s side.”
    “Uh-huh…” Kayla made to hand him back his beer, then noticed the lipstick stain around the lip and promptly pulled it back to wipe off. “Zach hates it when I get makeup on his things,” she added softly, by way of explanation.
    “Zach’s got a lot of hate,” Booker agreed. Their fingers brushed as he reclaimed the bottle of PBR. “Was he tellin’ the truth? At the clubhouse…”
    “Yeah.” Kayla swallowed, throat tight with shame.
    “You’re embarrassed about that.”
    “Whole town knows my business—and now your buddies do, as well. Wouldn’t you be?”
    “They already know everything there is to know about me,” Booker pointed out. “I don’t keep secrets from my brothers.”
    “Really? You told them that you’re writing off a third of Zach’s debt ’cause I’m a good lay?” It was a stab in the dark with only instinct to guide it, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that Booker wasn’t the type to kiss and tell.
    Her face filled with heat when he laughed. Wishful thinking had fogged up her vision before.
    “Forget it—”
    “No, let’s have it out,” Booker said. He wasn’t supposed to touch, but he brushed the back of his hand against her bare knee all the same, knuckles rough with callus. “You ain’t got a problem with your boyfriend pimping you out, but people knowin’ you slept with me… that’ s got you worried?”
    “He’s not pimping me out…”
    “What do you call that ten grand?”
    Kayla looked away.
    “Hey, I ain’t tryin’ to make you feel bad—”
    “Fuck you,” she gritted out, her temper on a hair trigger. “You don’t know shit. You came in two days ago. You’ll be gone in a week’s time. I have to live here, hear everyone talk about me like I’m trash…” Her voice cracked pitifully. It was just as well the cameras didn’t work. If Zach heard she’d gone all soft and weepy in front of a client, he’d never shut up. “And they’re not wrong, you know?”
    “Smartest girl in Ms. Dominguez’s English class,” Booker recalled. His palm was a warm, welcome pressure on her knee, rules be damned.
    Kayla waved off the flattery but let his hand remain in place. “Tell that to the folks at church. Or the grocery store…” She couldn’t keep the bitter snag from her voice. “Pretty sure thirteen was my intellectual peak. Everything since has been…one long string of bad decisions.”
    Booker was silent for a long moment. Kayla didn’t dare raise her gaze to his for fear of seeing contempt in his eyes—or worse, pity. When he spoke, his tone was more prompting than judgmental. “You don’t have many friends in this town, do you?”
    “What makes you say that?”
    “Word on the street is you’re…what’s the word?”
    “A slut?” she suggested, tilting her head back against the leather backrest. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Booker smirk. “You know it’s true.”
    “Promiscuous,” he corrected.
    “Same shit.”
    “Not really.”
    “Oh yeah?” Upholstery squeaking, Kayla shifted to tuck one leg under her and pin the other to the lit dais where she was supposed to have been strutting her stuff. She made herself face Booker head-on, the better to confront his lies. He didn’t need to be nice to her—he’d bought her time. He could just ask Zach and he’d be glad to send her off to the clubhouse again for another romp. All of the helplessness and the rage she’d kept down for the past twenty-four hours surged in Kayla’s chest like a second heartbeat. “What would you call a girl who turns tricks, who sleeps with other women’s husbands for money?” she blurted out. “What would your buddies call me, huh?”
    Booker hardly even flinched. “Pretty fucking desperate.” He had a good poker face. Kayla couldn’t see a single crack in his strangely