Whore.

Chapter 26: Koleos

"Hey Em?"
"What's up Offal? Coming today?"
"Sure. I just need to freshen up. I'll be over in thirty minutes. One hour tops."
"Okay. We'll be expecting you."
"Who's 'we'?"
"Alex took a week off. He's keeping me...company."
"This conversation is over."
I ended the call and laughed. I made my way to the bathroom with a slowly creeping feeling of dread. I wasn't at all enthusiastic about the conversation I was about to have with Emmet, even less so about his reaction and chastising that was sure to follow. Emmet could go from lovable jerk to condescending Mum in a flash. I pushed away the thoughts as I peeled off my clothes. Whatever was going to happen will happen, and I'd deal with it whenever it does.

I unlocked the door to Dorian's apartment slowly, as if a sudden entrance would somehow change their reactions. I heard Emmet squeal and I was caught in a bear hug. Alex was sitting on the couch, looking as relaxed as a lion in the savannah. One of the many things I had learned from the hours of watching the science shows was that lions were incredibly lazy. King of the jungle? They slept 20 hours a day. Emmet peeled himself back and beamed at me. His green-gray eyes almost seemed to sparkle.

"We really missed you, Mike."
"I can tell." I chuckled.
He brushed something off my shoulder and walked back to the chair in front of the computer. I followed quietly.
"Hi Michael," Alex drawled.
"Hey 'Lex." I sat beside him on the couch. "Hope I wasn't interrupting anything."
"Obviously not. Em says we only get a break at 12. He's all disciplined like that."
"Tough."
"I'm used to it. You should have seen him at the wedding. You would've thought he was the interior decorator."
"Hey, I wasn't that bad. But seriously, what type of decorator can't set a simple dinner table? And the flowers in the middle blocking everyone's view? Sure, they were pretty but completely unnecessary. I couldn't have any of that mess in Dory's wedding."
"You didn't have to flip out completely. Thank goodness Rob was there to hold you back."
Emmet laughed and spun around in the chair. His laughing facial expression waned. He stopped spinning and set himself to face me.

"What's going on with Swash? Give us details." He stretched out the last word. He wanted sordid stuff. I sighed and faced him.
"Okay, first thing you must know is that Swash and I aren't dating. We're not an item or anything like that."
"Okay..." He raised his eyebrow. "So it was just an extended sex session?"
"No." I wanted to say everything at once but this was a lot harder to explain without looking weird. Emmet frowned in confusion and seemed to think over what I had just said, looking for a sort of logical conclusion.
"I don't follow," Alex chimed in. "So you mean you're not dating, and you're not having sex?"
"Yes."
"So what are you?" Emmet spoke again.
"Would you believe if I told you we're just friends?"
Alex stayed silent. Emmet was staring at me oddly. He was probably trying to figure out if I was laying some sort of joke on him. His hand flew to his forehead and he rubbed between his eyebrows.
"So let me get this straight. Swash, who is just your friend, forked over twenty three thousand dollars just so you could hang out?"
"Technically, it's just about a thousand five hundred."
"How?"
"He's only paying the company charges," I looked away, trying not to show my guilt. "He's not paying me to stay with him."
Emmet was stunned. Alex was confused. Then Emmet's eyes widened with realization.
"You're trying to tell me that Swash booked you for two weeks, blocking out all other requests for you while only paying you the company charges? He couldn't have set up something like that. I'm sure you had him do it. What exactly were you trying to pull, Michael? You have no idea how much money you could’ve made in that time frame. We're still in the two weeks, right?"
I nodded. "I only did it because I needed a break."
"But we could have arranged that. You didn't need to sit in some guy's house for two weeks and become an inconvenience. And all this time, we thought you'd finally made it big. So did you do any jobs at all?"
"No. Only my station shift two days ago."
"Do you have another job?" Alex was back in the inquisition session. I shook my head. Emmet sat back in the chair and sighed. He was running the information through his mind, trying to decide a course of action. I admired his ability to give himself completely to a task at hand. A quality that reminded me of Bradley.