Chapter 2: : Chapter 2

Nate Reynolds’s good mood evaporated the second he stepped inside his house. The booze-drenched air clogged his nostrils, and the familiar sight of his father passed out on the living room couch with a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels clutched in his hand chased away any lingering amusement Nate felt after his conversation with the beautiful brunette from the parking lot earlier.

Kris.

She’d been a favorite of Alchemy’s male staff since she first showed up at the cafe a few weeks ago. She was a regular now, but her perfect hair and designer clothes screamed “spoiled princess,” which was why Nate had steered clear of anything resembling flirting. His coworkers could drool over her sultry looks and aloof haughtiness all they wanted, but uppity rich girls weren’t his type.

However, she’d turned out to be more intriguing than he’d expected—fiery and sharp-tongued, instead of dull and vapid like the few heiresses he’d hooked up with in the past. Kris’s extravagant five-figure offer didn’t hurt, either. Nate may not like spoiled rich girls, but he had no problem taking their money, and God knew his family needed the green. However, the idea of selling his body for cash—even if he was only pretending to do so—caused his stomach to churn with nausea.

Nate had forty-eight hours to decide whether his values were worth the roof over his head.

I’ll deal with it later.

He had more pressing issues at hand—namely, getting his father up to his room and airing out the sickly smell of whiskey before Skylar returned home.

Michael Reynolds grunted and shifted in his sleep. He’d been a handsome man once, with the same sharp bone structure and olive complexion as his son, but age, grief, and alcohol had transformed him into a shell of the person he used to be.

A familiar cocktail of resentment, resignation, and weariness bubbled in Nate’s veins as he opened all the windows and spritzed the air with a lemony-smelling spray Skylar had bought on their last Walmart run. He tidied up the things Michael had knocked over—the umbrella stand in the tiny entry hall, the framed picture of a ten-year-old Nate and four-year-old Skylar on the side table—before attempting to pry good ol’ Jack from his father’s hands.

Michael stirred. Nothing kicked his ass into gear like the threat of being separated from his precious alcohol.

“Nate?” His bleary, bloodshot eyes blinked up at his son. “Whaddaya doing here?”

“I live here,” Nate said, voice clipped. “Is this what you’ve been doing all day?”

Michael was supposed to be job hunting. He’d gotten laid off from his construction gig for showing up to work late and drunk, and he’d said he would find another job soon.

That had been two months ago.

“I sent out a few resumes,” Michael mumbled. “Don’t know what happened after that. Must’ve fallen asleep.”

Nate exhaled a controlled breath. His patience with his father had run out a long time ago. He understood Michael’s heartbreak—he and Skylar battled the same grief. No matter how many years passed, the sadness lingered in their household like a dark fog that wouldn’t go away.

But life didn’t stop moving because you were sad, and Michael had two children to take care of. Since he’d traded in his responsibilities for the oblivion only found in a bottle, Nate had taken over as de facto head of the household.

He was twenty-three, but he acted more like a father to Michael than Michael did to him.

“Shower and get dressed. Skylar will be home soon,” Nate ordered.

He knew when to pick his battles. There was no use pushing Michael on the job hunt when he was like this—he’d just stare at Nate with that empty look in his eyes, like he’d lost the will to live.

He basically had five years ago, when Joanna Reynolds got on a plane home from visiting her best friend in Chicago. She’d never arrived. Her plane had suffered a mechanical failure and crashed in the Rockies, leaving behind no survivors and dozens of devastated families, including Nate’s own.

Michael struggled to sit up. “Didya get any new roles this week?” he asked.

It was both his and Nate’s dream for Nate to become a successful actor, only they had wildly different motivations. Nate had dreamed of taking over the big screen since he was a child; Michael just wanted Nate to earn enough money to keep him flush with alcohol.

Yeah, no.

Once Nate had the cash, he would ship his father off to the best rehab he could find. Maybe then, he could glue the pieces of his family back together.

“I had a modeling gig,” Nate said, sidestepping the question as he looped an arm under Michael’s and pulled the older man to his feet.

Nate took the occasional odd job to supplement his salary from the cafe—modeling, catering, bartending. It didn’t matter as long as they paid him. Every dollar counted.

The Reynoldses weren’t destitute. There were families in far worse straits than theirs, but between Michael’s unemployment and alcohol addiction, Skylar’s expenses as an incoming high school senior, and Nate’s acting aspirations, they were stretched paper-thin. Thin enough that rent day sent spirals of anxiety tunneling through Nate’s body every month.

If Nate were selfless, he’d cut back ruthlessly on their spending and give up his dreams of Hollywood stardom. The pursuit of an onscreen career wasn’t cheap—headshots, acting classes, an inordinate amount of gas spent driving all over L.A. for auditions and networking events. It added up. He’d dropped the acting classes when Michael lost his job, but it wasn’t enough.

However, Nate wasn’t a financial genius or a saint. He was a twenty-three-year-old with a dream. Call him selfish, but he’d be damned if he was going to let his hopes slip through his fingers as easily as his youth.

He’d shouldered the responsibilities of an adult twice his age since he was eighteen. Now all he needed was a big break in his career.

Just one. That’s all I need.

A car door slammed outside.

Nate stiffened and quickened his pace until he reached his father’s room and laid Michael awkwardly on the bed. By the time he yanked the elder Reynolds’ shoes off, tucked him beneath the comforter, and drew the curtains closed, Michael had passed out again.

“Dad? You home?” Skylar’s voice floated up the stairs.

Nate shut the door to his father’s room behind him and met his sister in the living room. She wore a blue and white jersey and matching shorts with a soccer ball tucked beneath her arm. Her grinning face was flushed, and her hair was slicked back into a ponytail. She’d inherited their mom’s hazel eyes and golden locks, and sometimes, Nate’s heart splintered at the resemblance.

Skylar’s face lit up when she saw him.

“Nate! You’re home early.” She tackled him with a sweaty hug and laughed when he faux grimaced.

She was a big hugger, no matter the time or situation.

“Get away from me. You stink.” His teasing lilt tempered his words.

“Duh. I just came from soccer.” Skylar rolled her eyes, then wrinkled her nose. “Actually, this entire room stinks. Ew.”

“Blame your BO.”

“Shut up. I do not have BO.” She gnawed on her lip. “Dad’s been drinking again, hasn’t he?”

“No, he hasn’t,” he lied.

“Bullshit. It reeks of whiskey.” Skylar’s eyes landed on something behind Nate. He followed her gaze and cursed silently when he saw the bottle of Jack Daniels on the coffee table. He’d forgotten to stash it away before dragging their father upstairs.

Skylar knew about their father’s drinking, but Nate tried to shield her from the worst of it as much as he could. She still held onto the romantic notion that Michael would snap out of his stupor and transform into a doting father again, even though it’d been five years, and Nate didn’t have the heart to shatter her fantasy.

“Language,” he warned, zeroing in on her use of “bullshit” instead of the half-empty whiskey five feet away.

Skylar rolled her eyes again. “Whatever. I’ve heard you say worse things.”

“How was camp?” Nate switched topics. He and Skylar could bicker for hours, but he was exhausted after a busy day at the cafe. He also needed time to mull over Kris’s offer.

“It was great!” Skylar’s ponytail swished with excitement. Nothing animated her more than soccer, except maybe a new issue of Scientific American. Nate didn’t know where she got her love of science from—their mother had been an English teacher, and their father wasn’t exactly Bill Nye, either. “I scored two goals, and Coach said if I keep up my performance, she’ll write me a recommendation for Stanford at the end of the summer.”

“That’s awesome.” A genuine grin stretched across Nate’s face. He’d dropped out of college to work after their mom died and their dad spiraled; while his school grades had been average at best, he missed the college experiences—of crazy roommates and new friendships, of parties and girls and all-night adventures, of being young and wild and free.

He hadn’t had the pleasure of living life the way an eighteen-year-old should’ve lived it, but he’d do everything in his power to ensure the same opportunity didn’t slip by Skylar. She was smart and spirited, a straight-A student with dreams of studying biology at Stanford. It was an expensive dream—even more so than Nate’s—and getting a full-ride scholarship was their only hope of affording it if she got in.

To get a scholarship, Skylar needed an edge over the other applicants. Luckily, she was as talented at soccer as she was at academics, which was why Nate hadn’t given a second thought to forking over an ungodly sum of money for a prestigious summer soccer camp that boasted Olympians and World Cup athletes as alumni.

He’d worked his ass off for weeks to make up for the drain in their bank account, but it was worth it. Hopefully.

“By the way.” Skylar tugged on her ponytail, her tone so casual it immediately raised Nate’s suspicions. “Can you drive me to the movies tomorrow night? I’m going with a new friend from camp.”

His shoulders relaxed at the mundane request. Thank God she wasn’t going on a date or anything like that. Nate had enough to worry about without having to beat hormone-driven teenage boys away from his sister. “Sure.”

“Thanks!” Skylar gave him another hug before bounding up the stairs. “I’m going to take a shower while you order pizza.”

“Who says I’m ordering pizza?” Nate yelled after her.

She answered with a knowing laugh.

Takeout was a luxury these days, but Saturday night pizza had been a family tradition since they were children. Sometimes they missed it if there was an event or something else going on, but they stuck to it as much as possible. It was the one non-essential item Nate made sure he budgeted for every month.

Silence descended in Skylar’s wake.

Nate leaned against the wall and took out his phone, scrolling aimlessly until he stopped on Kris’s name.

Memories of her huge dark eyes and lush curves sent twin thrills of arousal and challenge through his veins. She was bad news. The princess types always were.

But $15,000…that was enough money to pay several months’ rent. Nate would have peace of mind and time to focus on auditions. Who knows? Maybe one of the auditions would lead to his big break.

Plus, he wouldn’t mind seeing Kris again.

For payment purposes, of course.

Nate’s jaw clenched as the logical side of his brain battled with his resistance to selling his body for money. There was also the moral dilemma of seducing someone to break up a relationship.

Perhaps he was being hypocritical, because modeling and acting were, in their own ways, selling bodies, and Nate was no saint. But he had his values, and the idea of faking interest in a woman for cold, hard cash sat like greasy pizza in the pit of his stomach.

After another ten minutes of waffling back and forth, he shoved his phone back into his pocket and walked upstairs, where he scrubbed away the day’s headaches with a long, hot shower.

He didn’t need to decide now.

Kris had given him forty-eight hours.

He had forty-five left.