Up the stairs, left at the top, first door on the left. Those had been the directions given to Alexa by Angie Young. The door in question was open, she saw as she reached the landing. It was time to meet Darren, who hopefully was expecting her. If not, things were about to get awkward.

Reaching the open doorway, Alexa saw Darren over on the other side of the bedroom. He was wearing dark blue suit pants and a smart grey shirt, giving himself a once over in a mirror. He wasn't aware of her presence until he turned around and saw her standing there.

"Oh, hi. You must be Alexa," he said, not sounding particularly shy. In fact he sounded calm, polite, but not all that excited to meet her.

"That's right, Alexa Bliss. Nice to meet you," she said, walking into the room.

"Nice to meet you. I must say, this is going to be a strange evening for me. My parents paying a woman to go on a date with me. This is clown world stuff."

Alexa couldn't help but smile, despite her confusion. She didn't detect shyness, and Darren was quite a handsome man. How he was such a flop on the dating scene was beyond her at the moment.

"It is one of my more unusual bookings," she lied smoothly. "I'll do my best not to make it seem like clown world. Do you have an idea where you'd like to go?"

"Do you like pizza?"

"I love pizza!" Alexa exclaimed.

"Then I know where I'd like to go. There's a family run Italian place not all that far away. You will have never eaten pizza like it."

"Sounds great," Alexa said, giving him one of her sweetest smiles. It didn't seem to have the effect on him that her smiles had on a lot of guys.

Darren checked his pockets. Happy with what he found, he picked up his phone from the bed and gestured towards the door. "After you."

Alexa led the way out of the door and down the stairs. "I'll drive," she offered. "That way you can have a drink if you like."

"Thanks. I could use a beer."

"Have a good night!" Angie called out from the kitchen, hearing them walking down the stairs.

"Thanks, mom, we will," Darren called back. Tolerance was the best way to describe his tone. It told Alexa that he was going along with this date rather than intending to enjoy it. That left her with an uphill struggle ahead of her.

They were soon in Alexa's BMW, cruising through the neighbourhood, with Darren directing her to his chosen restaurant.

"Take a left here," he said as they approached a stoplight.

"Close game last night, wasn't it?" Alexa asked, recalling that Angie had said Darren loved baseball.

"Look, Alexa, I'm sure you're not really going to mind because I'm sure you've already been paid, but this is going to be a waste of your time."

Since the car was stationary at the stoplight, Alexa was free to look at him. "It is?"

Darren sighed. "Don't get me wrong, you're a strikingly beautiful woman. You're just not..." He paused before changing his mind on what to say. "I'm gay, Alexa."

Of course, she thought, immediately wondering how she hadn't put two and two together herself. The question that she now had was whether his parents were oblivious to his sexuality or in denial of it.

"Your parents don't know?" she asked, hoping that was the case. She certainly was not going to be pleased if she had essentially been hired to try and fuck the gay out of Angie and Joe's son.

Darren shook his head and let out a frustrated sigh. "No. I've never been able to convince myself that they would understand. And then yesterday I found out they had hired you to come this evening and go on a date with me. You have no idea how embarrassed I am right now. No offense, I know you're doing your job, but I obviously don't want to go on a date with you."

Behind Alexa's car, a truck blasted it's horn. She realised the light had gone green. Holding her hand up to apologise to the truck driver, she pulled away and made the left turn. "Of course you don't want to go on a date," she said in an understanding voice. "We're still going to the restaurant though. We're going to share the biggest, nicest pizza we can get, and we're going to talk."

"Again, no offense, but you don't understand what it's like," Darren said, looking out of the window on his side of the car.

"You don't have to keep saying no offense, Darren. You're not going to offend me. And you're actually wrong, I do understand because while I am an escort for a living, I'm still a person with a personal life. I'm engaged to a woman, so I do understand what it's like to come out. I know how hard it can be."

Now Darren had a look of surprise on his face as he turned to her. He took a moment to process what he had heard, before making a decision. "Okay, thank you, I'd like to talk to you about it. God knows I need some help."

It's not the kind of help I usually provide, but let's do it, Alexa thought.

Fifteen minutes later, Alexa accompanied Darren into a tiny little restaurant that had maybe ten tables at most, she estimated. Luckily, a couple of them were free, and they were seated over in a back corner.

Picking up a menu, Alexa discovered that it was actually in Italian, leaving her not understanding a word of it.

"I can translate if you need me to?" Darren asked with some amusement, having caught the expression on her face.

"Just get me something with lots of meat on it," Alexa requested with a chuckle.

"Deal. I like meaty pizzas too."

"Well, this isn't how I expected tonight to go," Alexa said a few minutes later, once they had their drinks in front of them and their pizza order in.

"No, me either," Darren agreed, obviously happy to be able to say it. "I was mortified when my parents told me about this last night. I told them I didn't want to go through with it, but dad said they had already paid and there were no refunds on cancellations with less than seven days notice. All night I was lying there like, 'How am I going to tell this girl that I'm gay?' I didn't think I'd manage to do it."

"But you did. You came right out with it back there in the car," Alexa said in an encouraging tone.

"It was weird. I picked up on something that told me I could trust you. Trust you with something I can't even tell my parents."

"Why can't you tell them? Is it that you don't think they'll understand? Or is it worse than that?" she asked carefully, alluding to the possibility of Angie and Joe being homophobic. Religion was one possible reason why they might take that attitude.

"I'm afraid it could be a bit of both," Darren mumbled, clearly upset by the admission. "I've heard my dad make what he would probably call gay jokes with his friends. I picture myself coming out to my dad and him getting this look of disgust on his face. Alexa, it's awful."

He sounded so dejected that Alexa reached across the table and took his hand. "As a gay or bi person, coming out is the hardest challenge you'll face in your life. For some people, I'm sorry to say, acceptance never comes. My parents are quite conservative. They kicked me out of the house when I told them I was dating a girl. They didn't want to accept that their daughter would do such a thing."

"Oh god, how appalling," Darren said. "I'm so sorry to hear that."

"Thank you, but this is where the good news comes in. In time, after I spent a while living at a friend's place, my mom called me and asked me to come home. As you can imagine, I told her where she could stick her home, but she said she and my dad wanted to talk."

"You went round there?" Darren asked.

"Yes. I decided to give them a chance, prepared to walk out for the last time if they started into me again. It didn't go like that. They gave me this whole talk about, 'You're our daughter and we love you. We were worried you were making rash decisions.' There were loads of justifications they wanted to come with. I told them I was bi, that I liked women and that I was in love with my girlfriend. I said if they didn't want to accept that then they didn't love me the way parents should, and I would leave."

"Wow. What did they say?"

"They were shocked by how forceful I was, I think. Maybe they thought I was going through some kind of phase with my girlfriend. That night they realised how serious I was. From there, we started to repair the damage that had been done. It took a while, but we got there."

Their young female server approached the table with their pizza, causing an interruption in the conversation. Darren served a couple of slices onto Alexa's plate, followed by a couple onto his own.

"So you're saying I should come out, and it will be okay?" he asked after they tucked into their first slices.

"I'm saying you should come out. Having to hide who you are, or even worse having to pretend to be something you're not, that's an awful way to live. But if I sat here a promised you it will be okay, I wouldn't be being honest with you. I can't make that promise. I don't know your parents. I haven't even met your dad."

Darren said nothing for a couple of minutes, thoughtfully chewing one of his pizza slices. "Maybe you're right," he said eventually. "I am sick of living a lie. I've had enough of my mom asking me when I'm going to go out with a nice girl. Coming out would put an end to that, one way or another."

"Are you seeing anyone right now? Someone who might be there with you when you talk to your parents? Moral support can be a huge help."

"I don't, not at the moment," Darren said with a shake of his head. He paused for a moment before adding, "I've almost done it before, you know? Come out, I mean. I nearly did it last night when I found out you were coming tonight. It was so tempting to just shout out, 'I'm gay, damn it!' At least it would have been over with. Talking to you about it has made me see that the whole thing is ridiculous. I need to tell them who I am and hope that they'll respect it because I'm their son."

His use of the word hope was painful for Alexa, even though it sadly was the right word to use. Even in this day and age there was way too much judgement of people and not enough acceptance that everyone was different.

"I think I'm going to do it," Darren said. "This whole thing with them hiring you could be a blessing in disguise, not only because of your advice and guidance, which I'm most grateful for, it could be something for me to use to bring up the subject."

"How so?" Alexa asked, trying her best not to get burning hot pizza cheese on her chin.

"What if I went home and said I didn't enjoy the date with you – totally not true by the way – and I had no intention of sleeping with you? Mom will want to know why, so I'll give her an honest answer. It might be a good idea tonight while dad's at work, too. Tackling them one at a time might make it easier."

"That makes sense," Alexa nodded. "Do you have a friend or family member you can stay with if the worst comes to the worst? I'm not saying it will, just that you should have something lined up if you can."

"I have a friend I could crash with if I have to. Do you really think it will come to that?"

"I'd certainly like to hope not. You know your mom better than me. How do you think she'll react?"

Darren grunted a laugh that had no humour in it. "I don't know. That's the worst thing about it."

They continued chatting away over the delicious pizza until it was all gone, then Darren asked to be taken home. He even refused point blank to allow Alexa to pay for the meal.

Way less than two hours into her six hour booking, Alexa pulled her BMW up outside the Young house for the second time. It was time to say goodbye, and to wish Darren good luck.

"I hope it goes well, I really do," she said warmly. "I'm happy to come in with you if it would make it easier?"

Darren smiled appreciatively. "No, thank you. This is for me to deal with. But chatting to you tonight has helped me more than you know."

"I'm glad. Please let me know how it goes." Alexa proceeded to give him her business phone number.

"I will," Darren promised as he entered the number into his phone. He then leaned over to give her a peck on the cheek. "Goodnight, Alexa."

"Goodnight," she said as he got out. "And good luck. I'll be driving with my fingers crossed."

"Don't crash," Darren said with a smile. With that, he closed the door.

Alexa waited for a moment before pulling away. She saw him take a deep breath, then walk towards the front door.

A/N: Many thanks to everyone who left a review last time.

How do you think Darren's talk with his parents will go? Will Alexa find out?

Next time, the booking I know people have been waiting for. For President McMahon, a visit from the goddess is on the agenda.