Micah has his own car. It takes him a solid five to ten minutes to convince me to get into the car with him but eventually, I give in because I do have my pepper spray if he tries to kidnap me or something. He is charming, but so was Ted Bundy.

True to his word though, he does not try to murder me on the way to the Columbia Room which is an incredibly high end, exclusive cocktail bar. I've been here a few times with some clients but never on my own. It's a really nice place and once we're inside, Micah immediately gets us a small booth to the side of the bar.

I know that I shouldn't be here but I keep justifying it by asking myself what would I be doing instead? Sitting at that bar, waiting for it to be late enough for me to go back home. I can't go back home when Casey is still awake; I'd have to explain why I'm so dressed up coming home from my job at the factory. And Micah, like I said, is very charming and attractive and he seems like a good time. I don't know the last time that I've been out in the city just to have a good time. I have a few friends that I hang out with sometimes but our schedules rarely mesh well so it's rare that I ever see them.

It's been even longer than that since I've hung out with a guy who wasn't paying me to hang out with him. It feels kind of strange but in a good way. When they're paying me, I feel like they have expectations that I need to meet. I need to be calm and sexy and quiet because they pay me to listen to them. I have to look nice at every second and I have to cater to their feelings. But with Micah, I don't owe him a show. I don't have to look sexy, I don't have to ask him about his life without talking about my own.

There's no expectations with him because he's not a client, he's just a random stranger that I'm vaguely flirting with. But, in my defense, he started the vague flirting, I just went along with it because it's fun. And, I have mentioned that he's very pretty.

When the waitress comes to our table to ask us what we're drinking, Micah orders first and gets some sort of expensive whiskey.

"Go ahead and get what you want, it's on me," Micah tells me before I can answer. Paying for my drinks is sweet and he doesn't seem like he's doing it to get into my pants, so I don't object.

"Alright. I'll have a sapphire martini then. Thank you," I tell the waitress before she leaves the table.

"So you've been here before?" He wonders curiously, seemingly surprised that I knew exactly what I wanted.

"Just a few times," I shrug. I wonder how long it will take him to realize that I'm an escort and also when he realizes, what his reaction will be. I think that it's becoming pretty obvious but he hasn't said anything yet. "You come here a lot?"

"No," He shakes his head at me. "Only when I'm trying to impress somebody."

"And that person would be me? Well, I'm flattered. And very impressed," I assure him with a small laugh. My dark hair falls into my face when I laugh so I tuck a few wavy strands behind my ear.

"I'm glad," He responds. "So, when you're not hanging out in hotel bars, what do you like to do?"

"I don't do much," I admit. "I take care of my brother and I read poetry."

"Poetry," He repeats and I'm thinking that maybe I shouldn't have said that. I don't really like to talk about that with people, I feel self-conscious about how nerdy I am when it comes to poetry and I also feel like my favorite poems are a personal look into who I am, like a window into my soul. So I keep that private but I guess I just figured that I won't see this guy after tonight so what does it really matter? "What kind?"

"I don't know, all kinds, I guess," I say with a small shrug. The waitress comes back with our drinks and I thank her before she's walking away again. "I should have just lied and said that I just watch TV or something."

"No, I think that it's cool," He insists quickly. "Do you have a favorite poet? Or poem?"

"I do," I say with a nod. "But that's not something you find out on a first date."

"How many dates in do I get to find out then?" Micah questions and as I'm looking at him, I realize how bushy his eyebrows are. With his dark eyes, they make him seem slightly intimidating but his friendly smile negates the intimidation. It's like the top half of his face and the bottom half are two different people.

I don't know how to say that there won't be another date. Not only because he's a complete stranger but also because he's the son of a senator. There are so many things wrong with that situation. The families of congressmen do get a fair bit of media attention and I can't be in the media attention. It just takes one source to claim that I'm an escort and then I get outed and that's a pretty big scam for Micah and his father that they never asked for. "I guess you'll have to find out," I respond vaguely just to avoid having to tell him the truth. "What do you do in your free time?"

"I don't really have free time," He admits. "When I'm not going to government events for my father, I'm studying law at Georgetown."

"Wow, that's intense," I say. "And yet, you still had time to find your way to a hotel bar on a Wednesday night?"

"Classes haven't started yet," Micah explains as he sips his whiskey. "You're not in school?"

"Nope," I lean back in the comfortable seat. There's a rim of red lipstick on my martini glass. "Like I said, I have to take care of my brother and I work so there's not much time or money."

"You take care of your brother by yourself?" He looks curious now. Maybe I shouldn't have said that. I need to work on not over sharing but I guess that I just got excited about being able to share something about myself to somebody else. I'm always the one listening, not the one sharing, and so I guess I'm really bad at that part.

"Yeah but he's going to boarding school so it's not that big of a deal," I try to shake it off so that I don't have to go into further detail about my complicated life. If I sat here and explained every aspect of my life and how complicated it has been, we'd be here until Christmas.

"You are a very interesting person, Samantha," Micah informs me with a small smile that's starting to twitch at his full, pale pinkish lips.

"Interesting?" I repeat and I sip my drink again. "Sure, I guess that I'm interesting. That's not necessarily a good thing though. You know what else is interesting? How the Titanic was 'unsinkable' and yet, it sunk. Interesting, yes, but thousands of people still died."

"I meant it more like how it's interesting that in space, if two pieces of the same metal meet, they combine to make one bigger piece of metal," He says and those intense dark eyes are looking right into mine, melting me from the inside out. And he doesn't look away.

That's when I realize that I'm enjoying myself far too much and that I need to get out of here before things go even farther. I've had a few drinks too so if I stay here and he keeps flirting with me, I'm not sure where this would go and I'm honestly too afraid to find out.

I take the last swig of my martini before standing up from the booth that we've been sitting in. "I should go. Thank you for the drinks."

"Wait, now?" He seems surprised and as I stand up, he does too. "How about just one more drink?"

"I think that I've had enough for one night," I sigh. I'm definitely feeling the alcohol and I'm a bit tipsy, which means that I'm prone to bad decisions. And Micah is a bad decision. I shouldn't have come here with him. The second he told me that his dad was a senator, I should have run. But that smile really got to me and now I'm paying the price. I offer him a small, quick wave before I turn around and leave.

I should have come up with a better goodbye than that but I don't know what else to say on the spot,so I just hurry out of the bar and onto the sidewalk. There's a huge convention center across the street and I wait there while I order an Uber on my phone so that I don't have to find the nearest metro station.

Of course though, Micah follows me out of the bar and jogs up to me as I'm headed for the convention center. "Hey, Samantha, wait. At least let me drive you home?"

"I'm fine. Really, I've got a ride coming," I hold up my phone as if that proves that I don't need a ride.

"Did I say something?" He asks me. "I'm sorry if I upset you, I didn't mean to."

"No, nothing happened. I just have to get home is all," I promise him. "And this was a mistake. I am so bad for you that it's insane. And you're bad for me, really. Listen, you're a nice guy so you'll sweep another random girl off of her feet with your nice car and fancy bars. But I can't give you what you want."

"What is it that you think I want exactly?" Micah looks curious and a bit amused now.

"I don't know but whatever it is, I don't have it. Sex or a real date or even my phone number or whatever. I am a walking disaster," I try to explain to him without giving him the literal words, without telling him that I am an escort. I know that I'll never see him again but I will feel comforted knowing that we can walk away from this nice night and he won't hate me or be disgusted by me. "I'm sorry that I wasted your night."

"You didn't waste my night," He promises me. "I'm having a really good time with you which is why I don't want it to end yet."

"It can't go anywhere," I remind him slowly.

"That's fine," Micah decides. "Then just give me this night. No sex, I won't ask for your number. Just another hour. You think that you're a disaster, fine, but let me make up my own mind about you myself."

"You can't make up your own mind about me, you don't have all of the facts," I say but I still walk with him to the concrete benches near the convention center and we sit down. It's late now and there's nobody around. There are cars driving by occasionally but Washington D.C. doesn't get too crazy on Wednesday nights, believe it or not. "And I'm not going to give you all of the facts."

"I've already made up my mind, and I can be pretty stubborn," He informs me. "So, you like poetry. What's your favorite poem?"

"I already said that-"

"That you can't tell me on a first date," He finishes for me. "I know that. But the hotel was one, the Columbia Room was two, so this is technically our third date."

"A change in location does not restart the date," I object with a light laugh. He just looks at me, unwavering, and I finally relent. He really is stubborn. "Alright, I'll show you one of my favorites but it is not my all-time favorite."

"I can live with that," He decides.

I take a pen out of my black and gold purse and I hold out my hand. "Give me your arm."

His sleeve is already rolled up his arm so he thoughtlessly just gives me his bare forearm and I start to write a small portion of one of my favorite poems. It's called Good Bones by Maggie Smith. I write:

For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.

For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,

sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world

is at least half terrible, and for every kind

stranger, there is one who would break you,

though I keep this from my children. I am trying

to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,

walking you through a real shithole, chirps on

about good bones: This place could be beautiful,

right? You could make this place beautiful.

Once I'm finished writing it, I cap the pen and return it to my purse as Micah reads the squished writing. It's a lot of writing so I had to write small and wrap it around his arm but he seems to be able to understand what I wrote. I watch him read it and I'm definitely not thinking about how soft and good-smelling his arm was when I was touching it.

"I like it. Why is this one of your favorites?" He looks back up at me.

"I don't know, I think that I have a different perspective on it than the actual author," I say but when he just keeps looking at me, waiting for me to continue, I elaborate. "So she is kind of pessimistic, you know? Thinking that if a good thing happens, something bad has to happen too because the world is at least half bad. But I look at it as meaning that it's also half good. It's comforting to me to think that for all of the bad things that have happened to me, something good has happened to somebody else."

"Like what?" Micah asks me. He likes to ask questions, that's not something that I'm used to. The guys that I'm usually conversing with only ask small talk questions to be polite but they don't go in depth, they don't ask follow up questions, they want to talk about themselves as much as possible. Which is fine because they just want to be heard and I understand that. It's just that I'm not used to people asking in depth questions and follow up questions about me.

"Like when I got put into foster care, maybe some kid got adopted. Or when I got beaten, somebody else got healed," I try to explain myself to him. "She looks at it as if there's a child loved, there's a child broken. But I like to think of it as if there's a child broken, then there's another one that's loved. It just helps me get through the rough patches believing that it's for something good, so that something good can happen somewhere else in the world. It's a lot harder to deal with all of that pain thinking that it's all for nothing."

"Every time that you speak, you get even more fascinating," He informs me and he's looking into my eyes again. He's a big fan of eye contact too. I know that I keep comparing him to my clients but I'm just so used to them thinking of me as a body, a piece of meat. They usually forget that I even have eyes, they're just staring at my boobs. And right now, I have some pretty great cleavage but he's just looking into my eyes.

"I'm fascinating like a shark attack," I tell him. I already used the Titanic analogy but that one didn't really sink in for him (shipwreck pun). "You know, how everybody loves watching a shark attack. They make movies about it, make a week for it on TV. Everybody wants to know more about shark attacks because they're gruesome and exciting. But you do not learn more about the shark attack by getting in the water and letting it eat you."

"So... are you the shark?" He looks confused.

"No, I'm the first person getting eaten. The shark is just... okay, shut up. My point is that I could hurt you and it would probably be on accident but it's inevitable," I try to explain myself. "I'm the kind of girl that they make movies about, not the kind of girl that you take on dates."

"I'm going to be completely honest here," Micah tells me. "The more that you talk, the more I want to get to know you. Which is the opposite effect of what I think you want."

It makes me laugh. "You're wildly stubborn."

"Yeah, it's my downfall," He admits. "But, you know, there are so many fake people in this city. It's all politics and trying to climb the latter whether that's social or professional. I've only been here for a few months but I just feel like everybody is always up to something, playing some game."

"I know what you mean," I agree with him. With this city being the center of America's national government, people here have very important careers and if they don't, they want those very important careers and so they work very hard, they are ruthless, and when they get what they want, they decide that they want more. Always more.

"You are real though," He adds. "At least, I think that you are in the hour or so that we've known each other. And I haven't met any other real people."

"There are a lot of us out here," I assure him. "Maybe a little hard to find but you just have to get out of the political bubble."

"Impossible," He shakes his head at me.

"Tell me the first thing that comes to mind when I ask you," I change the subject, "what is one thing that you want most in the world?"

"A dog," He answers quickly.

"What?" His answer makes me laugh because I wasn't expecting anything like that.

"Sorry, that was a stupid answer but it was the first thing that came to mind. I do want a dog though, my mom is allergic so we have a cat but cats are stupid. They don't actually do anything."

"You know what, I'm sure that cat is sitting at home missing you and loving you and you are just disrespecting that poor cat," I defend his poor little animal.

"Are you a cat person?" He asks me. "Because that is an absolute deal breaker for me and I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

I laugh again. "No, I'm not much of an animal person. I mean, I do love animals but I don't want any. I have enough on my plate, enough to take care of, I don't want to add an animal to that mix."

"Okay so what would you say?" He asks me. "What do you want most in the world?"

"I don't think that there's one specific thing that I could ask for that would make me happy," I admit to him. "I can't pinpoint just one single thing that would make my life better, I think I'd need a list. But for now, I'd be happy with some tacos because I'm getting kind of hungry."

"There's a Pica Taco right down there," Micah says, motioning down the road. "The closest Taco Bell is by the Capital."

He's so eager to please my craving that it makes me smile. I wish that I could keep him around without destroying both of us but I know that it's not plausible. He's such a sweet guy and he has such an addictive smile. I don't want to give that up. I just wish that this night would never end. "No, I'm fine. I'm going to get my Uber now."

"That wasn't an hour," He objects.

"I know," I sigh in return. "But I'm having a really nice time and the longer that it lasts, the more it'll suck when it's over. Does that make sense? Anyway, thank you for the drinks and everything. It was nice meeting you, Micah."

"No, this sucks," He shakes his head but I'm already ordering the Uber on my phone before he can convince me to stay any longer. "I don't want you to go yet."

"Real life is waiting," I say. The Uber driver will be here in two minutes so this night is officially going to end. It's the right thing to do, it should have never began in the first place.

"I'm going to give you my phone number," Micah decides. He sticks his hand into my purse and retrieves the pen that I'd put in there after drawing on his arm. "Just do me a favor and take it."

I give him my arm and just let him give me his number because that's easier than arguing with him about it. I know that I won't be calling him though. And he has to know that too but if this is what makes him feel better about this night being a one-time thing, then so be it. He writes his number on my arm and then returns the pen to my purse.