“It’s barely noon,” Nat sniveled.

“It’s five in Iceland.”

Nat chuckled despite her angst. She followed Ava out of the building.

* * *

They found a hole-in-the-wall bar—long, narrow, dim, as if to deny the fact that it was daylight outside. Physically, it was not unlike the bar where Nat worked, but Nat’s place of employment was fun, vibrant, catering largely to college students and Williamsburg hipsters. This establishment appeared to cater to gloomy, hard-core day-drinkers. As Ava ordered them two pints of beer at the bar, Nat briefly pondered the backstory of the other patrons. Divorce? Unemployment? But her mind quickly returned to her own problems. She was twenty-one years old and embroiled in a financial, academic, and residential crisis. Her self-absorption was only natural.

When Ava returned to their sticky table, Nat dunked her lips into her beer. It was bitter, hoppy, cheap. Ava watched her for a moment, her own beverage ignored.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

Nat forced down two more sips of liquid courage before telling her classmate—now her friend, her confidante—everything.

“Shit,” Ava murmured. “Can your parents help you out?”

“My mom and stepdad have two little kids and not a lot of money,” Nat said, fiddling with a paper coaster. “My dad could be a millionaire, for all I know. But I wouldn’t take a dime from him.”

“You could take a semester off and work,” Ava suggested.

“I’d lose my partial scholarship. And even working full-time I wouldn’t make enough to save up tuition and cover my living expenses.”

“What about a student loan?”

The concept of incurring a debt that would take years to pay off on an illustrator’s salary made Nat’s chest tighten. She tried to take a deep breath, but the pressure wouldn’t allow it. She was suffocating. She was coming undone. Tears slipped from her eyes, streaking her cheeks. A guttural sob escaped from her throat.

Ava’s hand landed lightly on Nat’s. “We’ll figure something out. There’s always a way.”

Nat turned her hand over, gripped her friend’s fingers. “How do you do it?”

Ava gently extricated her hand and took a drink of beer. Her expression was unreadable as she set the heavy glass down on the damp coaster.

“I have friends who support me.”

It was rude, invasive, too personal, but the question flew from Nat’s lips. “Are you an escort?”

“No,” Ava snapped, two spots of color appearing on her fair cheeks. “I’m a sugar baby. It’s different.”

“Different how?”

Ava leaned in. “Escorts get paid to have sex. I get paid for my time.”

“Tell me more.”

“I go on dates with rich, successful men,” Ava said, her voice low. “I look pretty. I flirt, listen to them talk about their work, their kids, their marathon training, whatever. . . . At the end of the night, they give me three, four, five hundred bucks.”

“Just for dinner?”

“Just for a drink. Just for a coffee. It’s called a pay-per-meet.”

Nat’s eyebrows lifted—at the sum, and at the brazenness of the transaction. Even without sex, it sounded tawdry, exploitive, uncomfortably close to prostitution.