The image of Izzy’s retreating figure stepping out of the truck was burned in his mind. The sound of his quickened pulse outmatching the blood rushing through his head, the waiting and even more waiting for her to suddenly turn around, say she was joking.

She didn’t.

Which meant… he had really just agreed to exchange his truck for sex? With Izzy?

How the fuck did that happen?

Spencer kept replaying the conversation in his mind, trying to find where it he must’ve blacked out because was no other way to explain it. All he'd intended was to help her, try to get her to understand they were on the same side. That was all he'd been after since they spent Thanksgiving break at the lodge and he discovered how much Izzy resented him. As, in full on, raw resentment.

For reasons still unbeknownst to him other than the fact his friend had treated her friend like shit on several occasions he'd only learnt about in the aftermath.

Spencer would never outright say Izzy’s reasons not to like him were unfair and petty but come on, he literally couldn’t do anything to fix that.

It was mostly the shock of it all at first. Spencer could admit he had a tendency to aim to please, to be relied on. He'd grown up handling the most immature and destructive people he’d ever met in his life and keeping them off the edge from committing something like murder— well, he was proud of it. It was something he hadn’t come to know in school.

He got average scores, never won a medal or award for anything. He couldn’t see what a place like college would hold for him, when he amounted to nothing in high school. He could mean something when he made sure a friend got home safe from drinking, finished a piece of art on skin, when he prepared hot meals at shelters or food trucks. He felt important, he felt good.

Then there was Izzy Montego. With those brazen stares and open disgust for him, Spencer was at a loss. He liked to convince himself Izzy didn’t actually resent him so deep but he couldn’t find the courage to say it out loud in front of her. For fear she would correct him— that she’d meant it.

Apparently though, he had all the gall to agree for her to do something outrageous as sleep with him for his wheels.

‘I’ll call you later.’ Her parting words echoing in his mind, no shift or wariness in her expression before she left.

She had to be joking though… right?

Ridiculing his pathetic love life was one thing and nothing that was said wasn’t true. He was way over his head in thinking he could keep someone as hot and exceptionally talented like Julie interested in him. Izzy had every right to mock him, but to offer something like that…

Spencer wished he didn’t want it to be real. He wished that stupid, shameless voice in his head would stop running through his mind, entertaining his thoughts with the idea of Izzy under the sheets, taut body naked and sweaty.

So Izzy was attractive. He would be an idiot to say otherwise, it was partially why his ego bruised so bad when she didn’t give him the time of the day. Though, she wasn’t the glamorous kind like Julie. Izzy had the whole, exotic foreigner thing going for her with that smooth, bronze skin and curves in all the most seductive places. It was matched with lean muscles and a cold disposition that looked ready to bust your spine at any moment. Admittedly, that part turned him on too.

And Izzy knew her beauty, no doubt. She just wasn’t one to flaunt, one to show care, one to remotely express anything human— having a libido seemed out of the question.

Until it wasn’t.

‘I’ll call you later.’

She wouldn’t. She definitely wouldn’t call about that. He had seen how breezily she could lie with pretending that the eyeliner was hers. He'd braved up to contact Julie and sure enough, she was the owner and picked it up five hours before Izzy texted him back. After leaving him on read for the entire day.

Cruel, sardonic and confusing. That was how Izzy behaved. It intrigued him as much as it confused him but whatever fantasies he had to find himself closer to her, were not going to happen. He wasn’t somebody capable of catching a girl's interest, much less a puzzle like her.

He needed help.

In times of panic and doubt, Spencer usually had his childhood friend, River, to turn to. Though, ever since his music career picked off the ground, River had gone to treating Spencer as if he were dead, leaving his only means of a confidante his fellow barista at Sip It.

Beck Addams was nothing more than the youngest little shit of a brother to River before it grew into anything relatively close. Looking back, Spencer couldn't have imagined deciding to get a job nearby Beck's fancy IT school out of concern for the guy. And sure Beck, with his warped, dysfunctional family, would've struggled to get himself far away from their hometown for good.

Leaving aside the fact that Beck was a far cry from relating to Spencer's kind of problems. Spencer essentially dated up to two girls his whole life. Audrey Kent, in high school and Julie… nothing further. The rest were blurry one-night stands after getting shitfaced drunk.

Those were barely relationships. Whereas Beck had a lot more experience for many reasons such as his ease in charming people, coming from a wealthy upbringing and looks to kill for. Then most of all, he understood how people thought. Not to mention, his girlfriend was Izzy's actual friend and Spencer couldn't think of a better option.

Maybe Colleen, if he was desperate.
Spencer aimed to make it as casual as possible, since Beck was pretty sharp and could if he saw how much this was eating away at Spencer, Beck would fuck with him for the fun of it. He came over to Beck’s apartment, played some videogames before he started.

“Hey…”

“Uh-huh?” Beck's eyes were trained on the screen. The rapidly flickering colours of animated corpses getting their heads blown off reflected against his thick glasses.

“You ever uh, had a girl who didn’t say she was interested in you, offer to sleep with you?”

His lips pursed a bit. “… Few times, yeah.” With how flippantly he'd answered, it'd probably been more than just a few.

“And that checks out? They can just suggest things like that?”

“In my case.”

Smug little son of a…

Spencer’s had went out before he knew it and his open palm hit Beck hard enough to choke on air. He gradually recoiled, wheezing out, “The fuck was that for?”

“There was a mosquito.” He was met with skepticism wrapped in a glare. “Anyway, what if the suggestion was being offered to someone who wasn’t you but someone like... Alec?” He'd ran with the first name he could think of, which wasn’t the best. Not that Alec wasn’t a great guy and fun co-worker but he was well, Alec.

Beck's brows pinched. “Alec? Then they’re fucking with him.” Disappointment swelled in the back of Spencer’s stomach. “Unless, they ask him to do something for them in return, then that was the motive from the start.”

Relief submerged. That was sounding closer to his situation with Izzy. “Yeah?”

Beck nodded. “Depending on the girl, she could be sneaky about it which is normally what happens. If they’re upfront, they’re way too used to getting what they want or borderline psychopath. Maybe both.”

Huh. Izzy a psychopath? That wasn’t sounding so far off.

“By the way,” Beck started. “Jules got tickets to this play thing and wanted to ask if you would be cool coming?” His dark brown eyes peeled off the screen to meet Spencer’s this time.

Spencer didn’t know what to say for a second. Him and Julie broke up recently but it had really died much further than that. He would’ve thought it was a mutual feeling but if  she was getting Beck to be an intermediate just to ask to hang out then he was the only one assuming everything would go back to normal so easily.

“Uh, yeah. Sure,” Spencer said.
Beck had a look of scrutiny on. “You sure? You really don’t have to force yourself.”

He'd been the least supportive about them getting together, mostly on the fact he worried things would end badly. In actuality, it was a very anticlimactic 'talk' in the middle of helping her move her shit into her new apartment. Spencer hadn’t been to visit it once, neither had Beck which he wondered was out of concern.

Spencer felt foolish every time he thought about all the signs he should’ve seen; besides the absence of intimacy, they’d never been in a room alone since that concert back in December, she always wanted to stay out late even if he was tired from work and wanted to have a quiet night in. Their constant argument was always on her harping on about him wasting any chance of getting a better paying job since he didn’t have a degree. Or just the minor fact she didn’t like when Spencer called her Jules like Beck did.

He was a complete idiot. And he wanted nothing more than to get past that and move on, for it all to be forgotten. The shame, the regret— just everything.

“I’m not,” Spencer insisted. “Got nothing else better to do, anyway.”

Ever so slowly, Beck resigned from his stare and focused back on the screen. There was a sliver of relief noticeable now. He'd made the right choice. Good.

Of all the times, it was then his phone had started to ring. Spencer’s mind was fixed on how not to make this outing involving his ex weird, he didn’t give a second thought to checking the caller ID.

“Hello?”

“It’s me.”

The placid voice of Izzy had his muscles stiffening, the controller slipping right out of his hands. Beck threw him a wryly look. Spencer couldn’t be too sure what he'd said as he hastily got up from the couch, he heard Beck asking for an ice pack as he was sprinting to a recluse corner to take the call.

**

The plan was that on the very small chance Izzy did call, Spencer would make it clear that what he said was all careless talk. He hadn’t been in the right state of mind, insist she take the truck once more and that would be the end of it.

Except, hearing her voice so suddenly had him thrown off. He'd stammered over every few words that he hadn’t had time to get it all out before Izzy brought up STI tests. Spencer went blank for several seconds, mutely listening to her delve into how it would be best they’d take check ups at the clinic before they got into anything.

She was serious. One hundred percent fucking serious about this. He could barely believe it, that when he recalled what he was meant to be saying, he paused and contemplated. If he were to back out now, after what she’d said, would it not sound too coincidental? As if he had something in his records to hide?

Just the mere thought of Izzy possibly suspecting he had gonorrhea or something made him tense. Which was stupid, he knew that but still.

So in came the new plan.

He'd get tested, DM the results to her and calmly state he wasn’t going to go through with the deal. That way, it was all dealt with and no lurking suspicious behaviour to track back. Simple yet effective. Hell, he could get lucky that her results turned up with something and the deal would be off on her notice.

No such 'luck' happened when the following day, Spencer received an email with an attached image. Test results— everything was negative.
His own results arrived in his email several hours after and during that time, Spencer learnt the play he agreed to attend was an opera in complete French or German. Either way, he wasn’t going to understand jack shit and the be the only shmuck in the audience and amongst his highly intellectual friend and artistic ex girlfriend sat through it.

It wasn’t like Spencer ever thought Beck would ridicule him for something like that but after the last time he attended an artsy performance with Julie, he had felt utterly stupid. He wasn’t sure how to make it all natural without that pesky game of endurance he played alone. How he'd put on smiles, avoid any topics reflecting the relationship and pretending to laugh off what he didn’t understand— he just couldn’t do that shit right now.

So once his results were in, he'd sent it to Izzy. It was the fastest he had ever gotten a reply from the girl, might he add, asking for what day he was free. To make the returns on the rides, of course. Instead of going with the plan, he'd gone and called Beck to say he couldn’t attend the play, then messaged Izzy a time and address to his apartment.

Leaving him to where he was now. A chill, Saturday evening, cleaning up his place from head to toe and frantically checking his phone for her response. He offered to pick her up, but she’d declined. He wondered if it was because she hated the idea that he would add it into the compensation rate, or if it meant she lived quite close by?

Spencer paced around the living room, rearranging cushions and fiddling with the collar of his shirt. He had never checked the mirror so many times and changed his clothes in all his life. Excluding his first date with Audrey back in tenth grade. Julie always advised him what to wear, which he was grateful for.

Though, those were dates. His arrangement with Izzy wasn’t a date, it was just physical terms to return his favour.

God, that sounded so fucked up.

He groaned into his hands, sitting on the couch. Why was he putting himself through this if he was freaking out so badly? Did he really have any reason to doubt Izzy was still pulling some trick at this point? How much more could he tell himself it was just curiosity and not that somewhere deep inside of himself, he—

Buzz.

The vibration of his phone against his leg was like a small grenade going off. He calmed himself, briefed the message and soldiered to the door.