Rent a Boyfriend Read online

  She shrugged. “Not much. Just dinner at home, maybe a game—you’ve already had a full tour of a Wang holiday. Our whole lives revolve around food and when and what our next meal is.”

  That I related to. “So I’m guessing there’s food in the fridge we could make if you want,” I suggested. But, seeing the pain on her face, I kept going in the hopes that I could smooth the dimple on her forehead. “Or if you need a break—which would be more than okay and quite frankly, very understandable—I’d love to take you out.”

  The pain (and dimple) disappeared, replaced by a spark of excitement. “For real?”

  “For reals.”

  She beamed at me.

  Man, did I want to sweep her off her feet.

  “Let’s plan to get going in an hour,” I told her, checking my watch.

  I had some arranging to do.

  Chloe CHAPTER 40

  FISH BALLS

  Okay, I was really excited.

  Since I wasn’t sure what we’d be doing, I showered, then dressed for cute comfort: baggy but semi-flattering boatneck red sweater plus stretchy black pants. I planned to pair the outfit with my purple knee-length puffy jacket and gray padded boots.

  So that took twenty minutes. I swiped on some mascara but left it at that since I wasn’t my mother’s daughter: any more makeup and I’d be dealing with smudge city later from accidentally rubbing my eyes.

  Thirty-five minutes to go. And I was not someone who should be left alone with her thoughts.

  I sat down at my desk and doodled, trying to draw a sheep in a tuxedo pajama, but, um, it ended up looking like a donkey stuffed into a Twinkie with filling spilling out the sides. I tried drawing another sheep with antigravity boots above Mr. Twinkie. She fared a little better, but not by much. She was sheep-adjacent at least, but also part donkey.

  I slipped Frankensheep into my pocket anyway, because why not, but I folded the paper six times because it was truly that bad.

  I still had thirty minutes until we left. Yes, that was how fast—I mean, bad—that drawing was. My thoughts wandered to all the places I hated: the stickiness of the situation I’d inadvertently created; the shame, guilt, and disgust at what I’d done to my parents and what they’d done to me; and all the secrets we were still keeping.

  I needed to know what was going on with my father. By the time I stood and made my way downstairs to find Drew, I’d come up with a plan about as risky and desperate as my rent-a-boyfriend one. And it was a good thing I had that horrible sheep drawing as a bargaining chip, because I would need Drew’s help. Again.

  * * *

  When I reached the living room, I paused, wanting to run back upstairs.

  “I didn’t know you were dressing up,” I said, embarrassed by my casual outfit. Drew had paired an ivory shirt and red tie with the navy suit from yesterday, which still had a little grass stain on the sleeve.

  Before I could turn around, Drew peeled off the jacket and yanked the tie over his head with such speed he got slightly caught. It was so adorable I couldn’t help a small chuckle.

  “Ready?” he asked, throwing the jacket and tie on the couch and grabbing his more casual dark gray coat from the rack by the door.

  “Yeah.” I looked up toward my parents’ bedroom. “Apparently, they’re not coming out until we leave, so…”

  His sympathetic eyes met mine. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, I’m sorry. I don’t want to talk about them the whole time. I don’t even want to think about them. I’ve been doing that my whole life, and this is my night off.”

  “Whatever you wish,” he said, and even though I used to hear his training behind those kinds of words, I now smiled.

  “Whatever you wish.”

  His face lit up, and it briefly made me sad that it took so little. That he was so walked-on and forgotten that words, which could be empty, could make him shine so bright.

  Mine will not be empty, I promised both him and myself.

  * * *

  As we took our seats for hot pot, I was especially glad I hadn’t dressed up.

  I closed my eyes and inhaled the familiar, savory scent. “Oh man, good choice. One of my favorites.” Which of course he knew.

  I left out that hot pot reminded me of my parents, and that it somehow felt blasphemous to enjoy it without them, though we usually did hot pot at home with our little portable tabletop cooker.

  Drew smiled. “Dinner is straightforward—I know you love hot pot and this is one of my favorite places—but I’m hoping dessert will be more memorable. Shit, and I don’t mean that in a sleazy way.”

  “I know.” I laughed. “In some ways, you’re the perfect one to charm the parents, huh? So innocent you don’t even realize those innuendos until after.”

  He chuckled with me, but when our laughs subsided, an uneasy quiet set in. Maybe because we both realized this was a real date, and it was kind of weird.

  Except that what he was really thinking was even weirder. “Sorry… I just remembered that your parents like to do hot pot—actually, didn’t you guys used to have it at Thanksgiving? We didn’t this year, though, huh. Should we not have come here? I didn’t think of it until—”

  “You know so much,” I interrupted. “It’s like you’ve read my diary or something.”

  “Oh God, that’s creepy. I’m so sorry.”

  I sighed. “It’s not your fault. Obviously. It’s just… a little awkward, I guess.”

  He leaned toward me. “What would help?”

  I thought about it. “The more I get to know you, the better it will be. It just feels a little… uneven right now.” I let out a forced laugh. “Too bad you don’t have an application I can just read, right?”

  But even as I said it, I knew that the parts that were missing were not the important things. I might not know his favorite color or book or anything else they might ask on The Newlywed Game, but I knew his character. His pain. His dreams. His gigantic bleeding heart.

  Not knowing how to say all that out loud, I focused on the menu.

  Drew

  After she made the joke about the application, I had an inner tug-of-war.

  I actually had one I could show her: my Rent for Your ’Rents operative application, with questions as probing as the ones she’d answered. I could give her exactly what she wanted, and it would put us on even footing.

  But (and this was a huge, Sir-Mix-a-Lot-size but) then she would know I dropped out of college. I assumed she already suspected it since it hadn’t come up, but the fact that she hadn’t asked both comforted and bothered me. Was it not coming up because it was no big deal? Or because it was a Big Deal with capital letters? Maybe she didn’t want to know because it would change things. How could it not, when she was surrounded by people who pinned worth on degrees?

  Maybe it’s okay if you’ve already raised a million dollars for your company, she had said in response to her mother’s Dropping out of college is never okay. Maybe she’d been defending Jeffrey and didn’t think a college education was necessary. Or maybe she thought that dropping out was only okay if you had a major company to run.

  I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, but I’d seen her community. If I hadn’t moved past my shame yet (and I’d had years!), how was she going to react?

  But I also didn’t want to be with someone who didn’t know me. I was able to be somebody else daily, but not with the people I cared about, regardless of the cost.

  As Chloe checked off boxes to order our dinner, I discreetly pulled my phone just far enough out of my pocket to send Marshall one more text message. He was helping me set up dessert since Jason was on a job, and I had spent most of my planning hour figuring out details with him.

  Okay. Balls in.

  Fish balls too. Because Chloe finished looking over the menu and slid it between us.

  “Let’s get at least two orders of lamb—it’s amazing,” I said, my mouth already watering.

  She grinned. “Glad your usual rules are out
the window tonight.”

  “This lamb is worth any intestinal issues that may arise, which, for the record, is just as bad on a date as it is on a job.”

  “Well, I’m eating it too,” she pointed out.

  “Maybe we should get three servings.”

  After we passed our order to the waiter, I basked in Chloe’s smile, the smell of broth in the air, the fact that I was, for once, spending Christmas with someone I cared about.

  “Merry Christmas,” I said, raising my cup of tea.

  “Merry Christmas,” she said, her smile tinged with sadness.

  “I wish I could take your pain away,” I said as we clinked cups.

  “Actually… I have an idea,” she started. “A way to maybe find out what’s going on with my dad.”

  “I’m already in.”

  She’d barely explained anything before I confirmed that I was still in, adding, “Doctor’s office tomorrow, no sweat. We’re already pros at cons.”

  “Great pun!” she complimented me, and we chuckled together.

  By the time Chloe had obtained the doctor’s phone number from her mother and left a message to make an appointment, our uncooked food had arrived.

  * * *

  “Does your family use gōng kuài too?” she asked, picking up the spare chopsticks she’d asked the server for.

  “Nah, we just use our own chopsticks to pick up the raw meat, and then we sterilize the tips in the boiling water for a couple seconds.”

  She shuddered. “I need these for peace of mind.” She picked up a slice of lamb, cooked it for five seconds in the bubbling part of the broth, then dropped it on my plate. “Isn’t it weird that we’re paying to cook our own food?”

  “Not any weirder than Korean barbecue,” I said in a strange voice because I’d (sigh) taken a bite of the still-boiling lamb and was chewing with my mouth open to let the steam out. Hot hot hot but yum yum yum. I took a swig of ice water. “At least with hot pot you get to finish your meal by drinking the broth you’ve created.”

  She cooked a second slice of lamb for herself, blowing on it before popping it in her mouth.

  She groaned. “Okay, you were right: the lamb is fantastic. Are three orders enough?”

  “We can always get more. But here, try this.” I lāo-ed her a fish ball with the gold netted scooper. “It’s the best I’ve ever had.”

  “I’m not really a fan of fish balls,” she confessed.

  “This one has a meatball inside. And this”—I plucked her a different fish ball with a pointed top like a gnome’s hat—“is filled with fish roe.”

  She went for the fish-roe one, biting in way too fast. “Oh my God. So freaking good. Even worth burning my palate for.”

  “I know, right?”

  With the meatball one, she took the time to dip it in shāchá sauce before chomping down. After another groan she concluded, “Okay, I take back what I said; I guess I just never met the right fish ball before.” She paused. “It’s different when it’s right, isn’t it?”

  “Totally.”

  She couldn’t meet my gaze, but I found that even more endearing. I was seemingly the first person she’d felt this way about. And, well, she was my first too.

  Drew CHAPTER 41

  BETWEEN A SHÍTÓU AND A HARD PLACE

  “I ate waaaay too much,” I said. We had gotten a fourth order of lamb, because, duh.

  She groaned. “Me too. But it was worth it.”

  “I should’ve left more room,” I complained as I slurped up the last of my glass noodles. “But I can’t not eat these—they’re my favorite part of hot pot.” They soaked up the aromatic soup and summed up the meal in one perfect, flavorful bite.

  The check came, and we fought like good children of Chinese immigrants—meaning we tussled, but, unlike our parents, we kept it verbal, no one caused harm to others while rushing their credit card to the server first, and no one had called the restaurant in advance to prepay.

  “Is this just instinct?” I asked as we both threw cards on top of the receipt. I grabbed hers and pushed it back into her hand. She started to resist, but then we dissolved into giggles as a play fight broke out (one that mimicked our candy-cane duel from the other night).

  After a minute she paused, and the card went limp in her hand. “You know, sometimes I have these weird, vaguely Asian instincts I can’t explain. Like when I’m at a buffet, I have to eat until I’m so stuffed I can’t move—”

  “And you have to eat the most expensive dishes, right?” I added.

  “Steak or sashimi all the way,” she said with a laugh. “And I overthink every purchase and don’t buy things I need because of my urge to—”

  “Shěng qián,” I supplied.

  She nodded. “Yup. Saving money trumps everything else. Well, almost everything.” She poked my card with hers again. “Everything except fighting for the check and renting boyfriends, apparently.”

  I pushed her card away. “Well, give in to your shěng qián instincts for dinner. Besides, look.” I flipped the check over so she could see how cheap it had been (yay, holes in the wall!). “And,” I added, “I feel so guilty I’m on the clock right now. I’ve been meaning to tell you—I want to return a chunk of the money you’re paying.”

  She refused (of course, pointing out that I still had to be Andrew in front of her parents), and after a few back-and-forths (both verbally and play jabbing with our cards) she relented on the check, but only if I would agree to stop bringing up the rental payment in the future. Which, to be honest, brought some relief. I hated constantly thinking about how I rented myself out for a living (especially now, with our dynamic shifted).

  We inched our way into our coats and out of the restaurant, groaning every now and then.

  “I know I’m moving as slow as a sloth right now,” she said as we neared the door, “but really, I’m so excited to see what’s coming next.”

  Thank goodness I’d eaten so much it was distracting me from the nerves that were trying to take over.

  “I really hope you like it.”

  Because if you don’t, it could destroy me. Not really, but sorta. Am I too dramatic?

  * * *

  I led Chloe up to the spacious but rundown roof-deck of my cozy and quaint apartment building.

  Marshall was finishing up stringing lights around the perimeter. I introduced them, and Marshall pulled Chloe into a hug.

  “You must be really special,” he told her, and I coughed.

  “All right,” I said, my voice wavering with embarrassment. Then, sincerely, I added, “Thanks, buddy. You really outdid yourself here.”

  We clapped hands and patted each other’s backs.

  “Hey, anytime, man. Thanks for never complaining that I practically live in your place without paying rent.”

  I grinned at Marshall, glad he was here instead of Jason because he left it at that.

  I hurried to take over the last of the setup.

  Right before he took off, Marshall leaned over and whispered, “They’re really good. Really fucking out-of-this-world good.”

  I had to hold back a sob.

  After Marshall scooted out, I flipped the light switch.

  Chloe’s face glowed when she saw the towel-covered chairs set up around the perimeter. Some of my paintings fit under their towel cover, but others were so large the bottoms peeked out. It wasn’t a glamorous art gallery, but it might as well have been, given how nervous I felt.

  I turned to Chloe and took a deep breath.

  “I haven’t been able to show others my work before today.”

  I paused, unable to say more because suddenly I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I wanted to do this. Marshall’s comment had been encouraging, but Chloe’s opinion meant so much to me it felt like bet-everything-on-red to show her.

  “Your family never saw?” she asked. “Before the rift?”

  I shook my head. “My parents refused to look. They disapproved before they’d even seen, and once their
mind was made up, they didn’t want to know more. I didn’t want to involve Jordan in that mess so I hid everything I made. One person did see, but not because I showed her: my wàipó would snoop around my room, looking for what I’d last created just so she could tell me it was lèsè, like me and my wàigōng.”

  Chloe gasped, then pulled me into a hug.

  Long-buried emotions seeped back in, but in her arms I could tell her about it. All of it. Everything from how I was scared to break that last wooden plank on the bridge to my parents, to how I worried I wasn’t good enough, to how she had inspired me to try harder.

  She listened to every word, holding me close for some parts, and stroking my back, my hair, my arm for others.

  I’d never felt so supported. Fittingly, her first words were “I’m in awe that you pushed forward even though you’ve never had anyone on your side.”

  Tears welled in my eyes. “It’s no big deal.”

  “It is a big deal.” She pulled away and cupped my cheek with her hand. “It’s really brave of you.”

  I sighed. “It never felt like the brave choice. I saw myself as the coward who took the easy road by choosing what made me happy.”

  She stroked my cheek with her thumb. “Is that really how you see it?”

  I hesitated. You failed, I heard my parents tell me in my head. How could you not do what all your other classmates could? They finished college and got jobs—real ones with a future and money.

  “There’s always a closed door when you switch paths, and that’s all I could see,” I told her, simplifying it because that was all I could manage.

  “Have you ever considered how many people want to take the other road and pursue their passions, but are too scared to?”

  “Or maybe they’re just smarter than me.”

  “Drew…”

  And I leaned forward and kissed her, because hearing my name from her lips, in her sweet voice, did things to me, and I felt safe and cared for—two things I hadn’t felt in a long time.