JT doesn’t respond, but just stares at me with wide, blinking eyes. His gaze is filled with pain, confusion, and even a little anger. But mostly, he looks lost. And this is what Sela and I had hoped for. That he wouldn’t be able to reason out any better way out of this ordeal.

Fishing to my pocket, I pull out my car key and turn from JT. I don’t even spare him a backward glance but tell him in no uncertain terms. “If you want the money to make your three-day deadline, you need to let me know sooner rather than later. I’ll need at least a day to move some funds around.”

“Beck,” JT calls out to my retreating back, but I don’t hesitate. I don’t pause. I don’t look at him again.

The offer’s been made.

Now I just have to wait for him to pounce on it.

I step out onto Mission Street, leaving the glass-and-stone building with redbrick walkways of Golden Gate University behind. The Millennium sits only two blocks away, but the bluish tint of the glass structure looks dull and faded as it reflects an overcast San Francisco day. There’s a light mist falling, but it’s relatively mild outside. Still, I pull my jacket collar up and quicken my pace toward our condo before it starts raining any harder.

Hitching my backpack up higher on my shoulder, I pull it around to my front so I can grab my cell phone out of the outer pocket. I turn it on as I make my way home, wanting to see if Beck has left me an update while I was in class today. He went into the office this morning to handle a few things, then he was meeting with his attorney to draft a buyout agreement for JT to sign.

If JT agreed to it, that is.

When Beck left him yesterday at his house, he was broken, alone, and pondering how his world was crashing down. Beck and I, on the other hand, were considering what a crapshoot this whole endeavor was. Would JT take the five million offered? Or would he try to figure some other way out of this mess just so he could keep his foot in the door at The Sugar Bowl?

My phone boots up and I don’t see any new text messages awaiting, but there is a notification of a voice mail. Tapping the screen to pull it up, I peer at the phone number of whoever left the message. It’s one I don’t recognize, but figure maybe it’s Beck calling from his attorney’s office. Touching the Play icon, I put the phone to my ear and listen.

“Sela…it’s JT. Can you please give me a call? It’s important.”

I’m stunned he’s called me, and when I pull the phone back, I note he left the voice mail only about twenty minutes ago.

I don’t call him back right away, instead using the short walk to the condo to try to figure out what in the hell he could possibly want from me. JT knows I don’t like him. He knows I think he’s a misogynist asshole. He, in turn, doesn’t like me because I’m a threat to his relationship with Beck.

The doorman at the Millennium greets me by name and I give a return smile. I stare thoughtfully at my phone during the elevator ride up. Once inside, I dump my backpack on the couch and walk to our bedroom as I call JT.

He answers on the second ring. “Thanks for calling me back so quickly, Sela.”

His voice is pleasant and polite, two things I bet he’s struggling with mightily right now. “I was in class,” I tell him. “My phone was turned off.”

“Right,” he says, although I’m sure the fact I’m a student means nothing to him. He only sees me as a Sugar Baby. “So, I was wanting to talk to you about Beck and The Sugar Bowl.”

“What about it?” I ask vaguely, playing dumb as best I can.

“I know he told you about his offer to me last night to buy me out, right?”

I could lie to JT and deny it, but he wouldn’t buy it. I can tell by the tone of his voice, and the mere fact he’s reached out to me that he knows in his heart of hearts that Beck and I are solid. No matter what bull Beck may have been feeding him last week about putting the brakes on, JT calling me makes it clear he thinks I hold influence.

And…if I can help this deal get pushed through, then even better.

“Yeah…he told me you needed some money and that he’ll give it to you in exchange for transfer of your ownership interest,” I admit to him.

“It’s not a good deal for me,” JT says adamantly. “But I think I have a better solution for all of us. It will give us both what we want.”

“What’s that?” I ask, now intrigued about what scheme he’s cooked up.

“I’d like to sit down and discuss this with you in person. Go over my idea, which is a little complex. I want you to tell me what you think, and whether you think Beck would be receptive to it. I don’t have a lot of time, given the deadline by which I need the money, so I was hoping we could meet now.”

I am free the rest of the day, but I’m not sure I should get involved. Beck laid down the ultimatum. It’s up to JT to take it or turn it down. But then the part of me that worries that JT will make things messy for Beck and The Sugar Bowl feels compelled to hear him out. Perhaps help to talk some sense into him. Make him see the benefit of taking the money and getting out. Help to convince him that Beck won’t back down on this and there’s no room to negotiate.

Of course, the one thing that I’ve truly got to consider is my hair color. I’d colored it back to as close to my natural state as I could get it, with the idea in mind I wouldn’t be crossing paths with JT again. Will he recognize me now?

My gut says he won’t. That he’s such a self-absorbed person that he wouldn’t recognize my face. He’s seen it plenty of times, no matter my hair color, and he hasn’t shown the slightest bit of recollection.

It would be a risk, no doubt. It could compromise everything.

But I could help to put the nail in his coffin if I can convince him it’s a fool’s errand to try to get more out of Beck than what he’s offered to him. Make him understand that he’s in a precarious position and that it’s well worth the trade-off…The Sugar Bowl for his life.

I laugh inside. Little does he know that he may walk away with his life intact, but if I have anything to do with it, he’ll be sitting behind bars with that precious life of his.

“I could meet you somewhere,” I say, throwing caution to the wind.

JT gives a mirthless laugh into the phone. “Um…yeah…not sure how much Beck told you about my condition, but I can barely get off the couch. Can you come here…to my house?”