Chapter Text
It’s quite literally the craziest thing Betty has ever heard. The most ludicrous of all the insane suggestions her best friend has been throwing her way since high school. Yet Veronica’s face is perfectly serious and Kevin is nodding in eager agreement.
“Why not Elizabeth?” Kevin emphasises her given name in a way that’s uncharacteristically camp and lifts both eyebrows in challenge
“Are you guys serious?” she ask incredulously. They can’t be, they really can’t be.
And yet, “As a heart attack,” Veronica assures her without so much as a trace of humour. “It’s perfect.”
“It’s, a,” she waves her hands, physically floundering to match the stuttering in her mind. “It’s an escort agency.”
“All Manhattan’s powerful independent women are using them,” Veronica flicks her wrist dismissively as if Betty’s reservations are merely prudish small-town nonsense. “They’re very reputable.”
Betty looks askance at the screen of her laptop where, from the home page of Blossom’s Escort Agency’s website, a handsome blonde man stares enticingly back at her. The website is classy and the men on the home page look more like GQ models than hookers but Betty’s conservative enough to be embarrassed by the mere suggestion that she should browse what Kevin gleefully refers to as ‘the merchandise’.
“B you were the one saying you were dreading this god forsaken work gala without a date. Well Veronica Lodge is here with a solution”
“An escort?” Betty repeats in disbelief unable to see how Veronica can in any way consider this a solution.
“I know plenty of women who pass these guys off as dates,” Veronica assures her, blithe and breezy as always. “They’re professionals. Guaranteed to be discreet and charming. You don’t want to sit alone all evening? Well here’s your answer”
She wavers. It’s fractional, a mere half second of doubt and yet Veronica and Kevin, blood hounds that they are, scent her weakness immediately. “We’ll help you choose?” Kevin is already clicking the button marked ‘Our Escorts’ and the faces of a dozen frankly beautiful men appear on the screen causing both her friends to oooh dramatically.
Firmly she tells them she’s not hiring an escort. No matter how much she wants to avoid being the single dateless new girl at her firm’s annual charity gala. She hasn’t been doing a great job of fitting in at Eamson, Eamson and Wise Associates, the prestigious law firm where her mother had been so proud she’d landed a position earlier in the year. Sure, her work is commendable but her bosses seem at once impressed with her professionally and distinctly unenthused with her personally. The quaint small-town charm that suited her so well back home in the town with pep jars against the hard edges of these savvey New York professionals leaving her feeling perpetually foolish.
Later when she’s ejected Veronica and Kevin, and their outlandish ideas, she imagines the gala. Imagines herself sitting awkwardly alone smiling false and bright at anyone who engages her in strained conversation before they inevitably shuffle off to more engaging pastures.
She glances at the laptop and, all the while blaming Veronica’s liberal application of Cabernet Franc, lifts the screen. It’s a little like the dating site on which she once created, and almost immediately deleted, a profile earlier in the year. The difference being that every profile features a stone-cold hottie with a list of interests and accomplishments that would impress Alice Cooper herself.
It’s marketing of course, the men on the site are a product, their pictures professionally taken and their bios professionally written. Still unless they’re outright lying every guy the high-priced agency offers is, in one way or another, pretty much perfect.
She filters the profiles by age and interests, feeling massively sleazy for treating human beings like a list of coffee makers on Amazon, and scrolls through the results. Jesus Christ, she thinks as her gaze passes over the pictures, where the hell did they find so many beautiful men?
Her gaze snags on an image that she can’t deny makes her heart jump a little. He’s perhaps not as conventionally handsome as the others but the fall of thick black hair over his blue eyes and the smirking curve of his mouth compel her gaze in a way the square jaws of the others do not. His interests list as literature, classic cinema and journalism and the reviews – she’s actually not okay with reviews, Jesus – gush with appreciation of his charm and wit.
Forsythe J Pendleton. It takes a good ten minutes of staring at his face and another large glass of wine before she texts Veronica. “Fuck it,” she writes. “I’m doing it!”
No more than thirty seconds later her phone rings and Veronica’s squealing excitedly in her ear. “Betty Cooper, I’m impressed. A true twenty first century power woman,” She laughs at Veronica’s enthusiasm. “Did you pick one?”
“Yes,” she confirms and before Veronica can ask. “And no, I am not showing you which, this is weird enough”
It only gets weirder. There’s an app, an actual app like this guy’s a fucking Uber, on which she can manage her booking and, naturally, add her credit card details. There are further details about her chosen escort too, including the blatant euphemism ‘Available for extended services’ alongside which there’s a small black check that makes her hurriedly shut the app with her face burning.
When she tells Veronica about it her dark-haired friend hoots with laughter. “Go for it,” she says with a broad grin. “Totally on me”
“Oh my god V, no!” she blushes so hot she feels flames all up her neck as Veronica laughs with delight.
“Hey, no judgement here. It’s been, what, a year since you broke up with Trev?” Veronica offers a wicked encouraging smile. “You want it, girl, you get some!”
On the day of the gala her phone cheerfully reminders her of her booking - as if she’d somehow forget she’s hired and escort like the desperate dateless loser she is - and asks her to confirm the meet up location.
While she waits, early and overdressed, in a café not far from the gala venue the app informs her that her ‘date’ is on time and will arrive within five minutes. Nerves swirl sickeningly in her stomach and she’s about ready to bolt when the door opens and in walks Forsythe J Pendelton looking like he just stepped down from the pages of Esquire in his expensive suit with his artfully unruly hair jet black and impossibly glossy in the bright lights of the café.
He spots her immediately and gives a confident dazzling smile as he offers his hand in greeting. “Elizabeth,” he shakes her hand firmly, gallantly ignoring the clammy evidence of her apprehension against his palm. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Somehow, against the odds, she manages more than a squeak in response. “Good evening,” she replies as he releases her hand.
Professional is how Veronica had described them and that’s exactly what she finds him to be. He takes charge of the situation, letting her know how these things usually work and assuring her that he’s checked the event’s guest list and has no clients or acquaintances, in short anyone who knows she’s paying for his company, attending.
“Oh,” she hadn’t actually thought of that possibility. “Thanks”
“So, Elizabeth,” his smile is bright and natural. Designed, she thinks, to put her at ease. “Tell me about yourself”
He asks questions about her work but none about her personal life and certainly not about why she’d need to hire him. When she self-consciously starts to tell him she’s never hired an escort before he cuts her off before she can launch into a rambling justification with a smooth laugh.
“Elizabeth,” he shrugs, a languid tilt of his shoulders that she thinks is at least eighty five percent pure sex appeal. “I’m aware how little time professional success leaves for anything else. I’d be out of a job if it did”
When they mingle among her clients and colleagues he introduces himself as her date and keeps the conversations flowing in non-personal directions with an impressive conversational range from current affairs to investments and round to literature and art.
That he’s extremely good at his job is immediately evident. His hand lies lightly on the middle of her back as they navigate the ballroom, warm and strong through the thin satin of her dress, and his eyes watch her subtly as he guides her in and out of groups and conversations ensuring she’s always comfortable and entertained. He wordlessly takes her empty glass and passes her a refill with a smile while the conversation moves on around them and she’s struck for the hundredth time in the evening by the thought that he’s almost completely perfect.
When they sit for the meal he pulls out her chair and lays his arm over the back of it as he sits beside her, leaning in slightly to talk to her in a low private voice that makes her heart beat a little faster than it should.
“What made you study law?” he asks as he takes a tiny sip of what she thinks might still be his first glass of wine, looking at her over the rim in a way that makes her feel like she’s the most interesting person in the room.
It’s his job she keeps reminding herself. To make her feel like this. He’s charming and suave and attentive because that’s what she’s paying him to be. Still it’s nice, the way he keeps his eyes on her, his focus entirely on her answer. In the spotlight of his green blue gaze she feels so comfortable that she finds herself answering honestly. “My parents. They really pushed me to do law”
He arches an eyebrow and she gets the sensation that every movement he makes is studied, practised into sensuous and artful perfection. “Did you enjoy it?”
“I guess,” she fiddles with her napkin. “It wasn’t what I really wanted to do but it’s interesting and challenging and there’s a lot of opportunity in law.”
He tips his head in that same deliberately attractive way and his hair, which she’s already decided has some kind of sexual superpower woven through its strands, falls over his eyes. “What had you wanted to do?” he asks, the curve of his lips devilish and divine. “What was your dream Elizabeth?”
It’s not her name, not really. Elizabeth might be what’s on her birth certificate but it’s not who she is. Hearing that name rolling, sweet and sexy, off his tongue makes her feel like another person. Like the kind of confident liberated woman who could take out her phone and click the button to ‘Request extended services’ without a moment’s hesitation.
“Journalism,” she answers after taking a steadying gulp of wine to distract herself from the very dangerous direction of her thoughts. “Investigative journalism. I love to write and get in underneath a story. I ran the school paper in High School. The Blue and Gold was my life.”
His mouth stretches into a smile and his teeth, which she’d thought were perfect, look suddenly a tiny bit goofy. “The Red and Black,” he replies and shifts his arms from around her chair so he can lean forward with his elbows on his knees. “I was editor, sole contributor and chief coffee maker. We were underfunded, unsupported and barely read in the beginning but my friend Toni, she was the photographer, and I, we loved it. I think it was something about producing something serious that really made us feel like adults you know”
“Right?” she agrees emphatically, her hand turned palm up as she gestures at him in agreement. Feeling energised by the turn in the conversation and the sudden brightening of his eyes. “It wasn’t often but now and then I’d find a real story, not just high school canteen drama, and the buzz was incredible”
He runs a hand through his hair, not for the first time in the evening but the action seems less affected than before and leaves his hair sticking out at an odd angle. “All right then Elizabeth,” her name sounds different this time. There’s a teasing playful note to his voice what makes her smile in response. “What was your best story?”
“The best writing or the biggest scoop?” she asks and his lips twitch with what looks like pleasure at how seriously she’s taking his question.
“Scoop,” he replies and for all she’d thought he was attentive before she feels suddenly, and probably foolishly, that for the first time his interest in her answer is genuine.
“Well we exposed the music teacher for sleeping with her students. That was pretty juicy.” She laughs lightly at his impressed whistle. “What about you? Did the Red and Black break any quality scandal?”
“We had our own teacher expose,” his eyes dance and she knows he’s got something good, something he’s proud of. “The English teacher had a meth lab in the basement” at her shocked look he grins ruefully. “It wasn’t the best area.”
“Wow, that is impressive,” she muses playfully. “But did you catch any murders?”
His eyes widen comically, “Seriously?”
“Oh yeah,” she tilts her chin in teasing superiority, fighting back a grin of pleasure at how obviously impressed he is. “My friend Kev and I totally solved the case of the quarter back’s untimely end”
“Ok,” he leans back and throws up his hands in defeat. “I was going to follow up with discovering the mayor was siphoning school funds into a private account but I’m feeling a magnificently out gunned right now”
At her laugh he smiles again, drops his elbows back onto his knees, and looks at her from under his lashes. Not in the same seductive way that’s been making her knees weak all evening but almost bashfully. She decides with a fizz of tipsy pleasure that this is his most attractive look yet.
They exchange high school stories and she giggles like the school girl she’s reminiscing about being when he tells her about the ancient printer in their office that used to regularly jam and how often he’d find his pint-sized photographer gently coaxing it into life with the toe of her doc martin boots.
When people start leaving disappointment settles like mud in her belly. She hasn’t, she realises, had and evening this good in months, possibly years, and pathetic as it may be that she’s paid for it she still isn’t ready for it to be over. She excuses herself to the bathroom and pulls out her phone.
Her hand is physically trembling as she unlocks the screen and her heart beats fast and hard against her ribs. Oh God she thinks as she opens the Blossom’s app, I’m actually doing this.
She’s drunk enough that her inhibitions seem to have fallen away and the mental barrier between the thought that she’d really like to sleep with Forsythe and actually stumping up $400 for the privilege seem to have been washed away in a gentle flow of easy conversation and Pinot Noir.
She blames the app. It just makes it too damn easy. With one click of a button he’ll just know she wants him for the night. She won’t have to say anything or blushingly hand over any cash. She’ll just click the button, her credit card balance will take a significant hit and he’ll escort her home and, if the innuendo in those deeply unsettling reviews is anything to go by, give her the ride of her life.
The little voice inside her head telling her that this is a bad idea, that she’ll feel cheap and dirty tomorrow if she does this is shouted down by a voice that sounds a lot like Veronica’s.
You got needs B and American Excess. What are you waiting for?
Nothing she thinks recklessly as she navigates to Forsythe’s profile. Nothing at all.