Amanda has to work up the nerve to ask first

It only took a phone call for Amanda to track down her friends, and she met them in a small cafe next to a series of upper-class stores her friends loved to visit.

Amanda had spent a great deal of money pretending to be in their class, but the truth was that while they had rich parents Amanda's were poor and they knew it. Still, they felt it fun to have a 'street urchin' like her around. She could be so amusing at times.

"Mandy!" they cooed, waving her over to their window seat. They were watching a gym across the street, making comments on the guys going in and out, drinking exorbitantly expensive coffees between lewd comments and salacious gossip.

"Hi guys," she greeted, plopping into a chair, eyeing their drinks longingly, but knowing she couldn't really afford one herself.

"Fernando! Bring Mandy one of those drinks you brought me. She'll love it!" one of the girls, Lindsey, called to a waiter, before turning to Amanda. "You'll love it, it's perfection!"

"I, uh..." Amanda struggled with her desire to fit in versus her ever-shrinking budget, but the part of her that kept insisting that this was the lifestyle she was meant for won and she **** a smile and a nod, along with a not altogether-hearty, "Great!"

The girls turned briefly to the window again to ogle a muscle-bound hunk going into the gym, then waved at a slim girl going by.

"There's Christina, going back to work at the massage parlor next door," Suzy, a perky blonde, said. "You suppose Raoul's on duty?"

Lindsey laughed, "Oh you say that so casually when we all know the puddle you make when he's around."

"Lindsey!" Suzy squealed, earning a laugh from the girls as her face turned scarlet.

Amanda laughed along with them, and for a while she gossiped with the girls and commented on the guys, reluctantly letting them '****' her to order a second expensive cup.

"Uh, there was something I wanted to ask you guys," she said eventually, failing miserably at a casual tone. The girls' immediately turned to her, sharks sensing a juicy tidbit.

"Yes, Mandy?" Lindsey encouraged.

"Well, uh, we were together all last night, right?"

The girls nodded, ignoring a particularly buff guy in favor of the feast they sensed coming.

"I, uh, well, I guess I must have drank a lot more than I thought," Mandy continued with a laugh. "I mean, I got home and, well.... do you know who I scored with?" she blurted, turning red.

The girls looked at each other cluelessly, then back to her.

"I know I was with someone, I had the, uh, evidence in me."

Suzy's eyes widened, but before she could say a word the third girl, Brooke, spoke up.