Page 6 of Total Exposure

“Well,” Chella says, taking another sip of her tea. “It’s all legal?”

“Of course,” I say. “I’m a fuckin’ lawyer. I can’t be breaking the law.”

“Does it involve sex?”

“No.” I laugh. “That’s the problem. This is like a real… condition, or whatever. I mean, it’s a weird one for sure. But this is all on the up and up and someone we both know has prescribed a treatment and asked me to deliver it.”

“Someone we know, huh?”

I nod my head.

“OK,” she says, taking a deep breath. “OK. I say do it then. She knows what she’s doing. We’ve both trusted her before, right?”

“Which is why I came to you. I mean, you know her a lot better than I do. Me fucking her on her fortieth birthday while her husband watched doesn’t exactly qualify as knowing her. But yeah, generally, I think she’s got her shit together.”

Chella goes quiet for a few seconds.

“What?” I ask. “What’d I say?”

She huffs out a laugh. “God, that night…” She closes her eyes, waits a few beats, then opens them again. “That night of her birthday… that was the first time I went to Turning Point. I was just thinking about how much has changed since then.”

“Fuck, I forgot about that. You were there. Shit,” I say, running a hand through my hair as I picture Chella walking down the stairs hanging on Smith Baldwin’s arm, already in the game, even if she didn’t know it yet.

Lucinda—the woman we’re both pretending not to talk about right now—wanted Smith as her choice that night. But he was otherwise occupied, so she picked me. The new guy at the club. And that decision right there changed everything in my life.

A single moment has power like that.

“You OK?” Chella asks when my silence fills the room.

“Yeah, sure. Just thinking, ya know. How things can change so fast.”

“So who did you have in mind?”

“What?”

“You said you might have the perfect guy for the job but that was also part of the problem. Who is it?”

“Oh.” I sigh. “I don’t know if you remember him from when we were kids, but Ixion Vanir?”

“Rings my bell, but not sure why.”

“We were friends, remember? You’ve seen him a bunch of times, but it’s been like twenty years or something. He doesn’t come to Denver much.”

“Ixion. That kid you were always attached to at the hip in grade school?”

“Yeah, him.”

“You’re still friends?”

“Well… sorta? Maybe?” But I give in and admit the truth. “Not really. But I wish we were.”

“So why would he help you?”

“Normally I don’t think he would. But he’s been drifting for a while now. In and out of trouble for years. He needs a change, I think. This might be a good change.”

That’s not really the reason. I mean, it is. It’s all true. But there’s more to it than that. Things I don’t want to get into now.

“If he’s always in trouble, then why’s he so perfect?” she asks. “I mean, what’s he got that you think you need?”