Chapter 4: No Charge

He had written the invoice in block capitals, on a sheet torn from a legal pad.

EXECUTIVE ESCORT, SATURDAY, 7 PM TO MIDNIGHT. $425.00. PAID.

Under that he had written: ADDITIONAL SERVICES: NONE. BALANCE DUE: $0.

I read it standing in the kitchen in his dress shirt, with my hair everywhere.

The sun was coming up gray over the bike shop.

"You billed me nothing," I said.

"The contract closed at midnight," Josiah said. "I wanted the record clear."

"You took your earpiece out on my landing and said closed, like I was a file," I said.

"I did."

"And now you've written me a receipt for the best night of my life that says none."

He put his pen down.

"Ms. Dunavant, if I put a number on it, I'd be a man who sold it."

"And if you put nothing?"

"Then it was never a service," he said. "It was never on the clock. It was yours and mine."

I looked at the sheet again.

"You billed me nothing so you wouldn't have to say what it was," I said.

"That too."

He said it without a flicker.

I laughed, because it was the most honest thing a man had ever said to me before eight in the morning.

"I have terms," Josiah said.

"Of course you do," I said.

"One. Nothing between us is ever billable. I don't send an invoice, and you don't pay one."

"Two?" I said.

"I'm calling you Ms. Dunavant."

"Why?" I said.

"Because it's the only way I can keep track of which one of us is working."

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