She makes you a deal

"I'm just so worried about Jason." She says, looking at you with soft concern.

"What's wrong?" You ask. Jason always seemed to have things together, you can't imagine him being in any kind of trouble that his mom would feel the need to bring you in to help.

"It's nothing really, more just me worrying." She says, sipping her wine. "It's just that he's at that school all by himself."

"Last time I talked to him, he was doing fine, seemed to be making friends." You confirm.

"Girlfriends?" She asks sharply.

You don't know where to draw the line in this conversation. He hadn't told you about any girls he was dating, but knew that he was very excited to, as he said "Get some college ass!"

"He didn't say, but I didn't really ask." You respond, not sure exactly what answer she's looking for.

"I would think you would be more interested. You two were always so close." She says.

It's true that the two of you have drifted a bit, but that kind of thing was never something you thought to get updates on.

"I'm just so worried about him." Alice says, with a genuine look of concern. "He's up there all by himself with no supervision, and all of those girls. Don't get me wrong, I want him to have fun, but he has so much potential, I don't want him to throw it all away for the first bimbo that flashes him her tits."

You're a bit thrown off by what she just said, never expecting those words to come out of her mouth.

"Well... ugh... he's pretty responsible." You say, though when you think about it, it's not something out of the realm of possibility. "If it makes you feel better though, I can check in more often, make sure he's focusing on school." You figuring that's the kind of thing she was hoping to hear you say.

"That's so nice of you, you're such a good friend." She says with a smile. "but I was actually hoping that you could help out even more."

"How so?" You ask, having no idea what that might entail.

"Well, I was thinking, if you were living with him at his dorm, you could help direct his focus." She says.

"Oh... well I didn't get into that school." You say sheepishly. You're not going to lie, you had always thought it would be fun for the two of you to get into the same school, but he was always took school more seriously than you, and it paid off for him.

"Oh, that wouldn't be a problem. We got him a private dorm, no one would ask questions, and if they did, I could just throw some more money at them to calm them down." Alice says, going for another bottle of wine.

You're surprised by how much thought she's put into this, almost as surprised as the fact that she's serious about all this.

"Oh... well I don't know." You say. "I've got a job here..."

"Well of course I'd pay you, Dear." She interrupts, pouring more wine into your glass. "More than any part time gig a college kid could get. And you wouldn't have any kind of living expenses, so if you save it all up for four years, you'll have plenty of options."

You drink your wine as you attempt to process everything she's saying.

"So you want to pay me to live with Jason, to make sure he doesn't let any girls distract him from his studies?" Saying the words out loud doesn't make it sound any less weird.

"That's kind of the idea, but not exactly." Alice says as she steps away from the table. "Don't worry, I've put allot of thought into this, I think this plan will work out wonderfully for both Jason and you." She comes back to the table with a small stack of papers and plops them down on the table. "Everything's in this contract, along with the starting rate I'd be paying you, including opportunities for increase."

You glance down at the top paper, all the words seem to be slathered in legal jargon, but what you can easily transcribe is the financial amount. You pause, almost gasping, as it's an amount far beyond any that you would realistically conceive.

"This can't be right." You say looking at the number again. "This is so much money."

Alice simply smiles.

"I had a really good lawyer in my divorce." She says flipping the stack of papers to the side, revealing the last page with a blank signature line. "It's all yours if you just sign!"

You can't believe this is happening, so many thoughts fly through your head as you attempt to think of something to say or more importantly what to do.