He shrugged off his suit coat, laying it and his briefcase on the kitchen island. “It’s because of all the people who want to meet with me from the charity event. The appointments were set up to start a couple of weeks from now but today my assistant made phone calls to reschedule and I’m going to start talking to people tomorrow. Apparently not being able to get in with me made me seem even more valuable.”
That was definitely how rich people worked. He’d accidentally turned himself into an unobtainable, precious commodity and it had made everyone want him more.
It had certainly worked on me. “That’s fantastic! Your boss must be thrilled.”
“He is.” Tyler sat down in the chair across from me. “And I don’t have any other trips scheduled until the new year, so I’m going to be around.”
This was also fantastic. I could only smile.
“Although I will confess to being a little worried about what I’m going to say to these people when it comes to my love life.”
He was really putting too much thought into this. Even if these potential clients were meeting with him in hopes of setting him up, that wasn’t why they would sign with him. “Tell them you’re living with someone. Because technically, you are.”
“I don’t want to lie.”
Just like my mother’s gift-wrapping room was weird to other people, it was weird to me that regular humans hadn’t been raised in a world where white lies and half truths were necessary for your survival. “I don’t think it is. I live here, you live here. I am someone. Hence, you are living with someone.”
“Right. But the implication is that you are my girlfriend.”
And would that be so bad? I swallowed the words back, trying to calm down my racing heart. Because all it had heard was you and my girlfriend. “Your personal life is nobody’s business and if they’re intrusive enough to demand answers about it, then they deserve to be shut down. But I’m not too worried about the whole thing because I know you’ll win them over.”
“How do you know that?” I loved that smile, the one that said he was amused and enjoyed what I was saying.
How did I know? Besides the fact that he was charming enough to convince a rattler not to bite? “I saw you schmoozing people at Bitsie Fernley’s event. You’re good at it. And you’ll be good at it at work, too.”
He thumped his hand against the table and then leaned forward, as if declaring the matter over. He gestured toward my laptop. “What are you up to?”
“Before I begin my nightly indentured servitude of molding tissue paper into a somewhat recognizable decoration, I’ve been working on a couple of things. The first is trying to figure out some good ways of working with that little boy in my class, the one who’s been misbehaving. His dad emailed me and said that his wife left and that’s why his son’s been acting out. Second, I’m trying to figure out how to budget because no matter what I do, I never seem to have any money.”
“I can help you with both of those things.”
“Oh yeah, Superman? And how are you going to do that?”
“Your first problem, I called my stepsister. She’s an elementary school teacher, too. I asked her for some advice about your situation.”
“You . . . you talked to your stepsister? About me?” Why did that make my breath catch?
“Yes, and she said to try really utilizing positive reinforcement. Because right now he’s learned that if he misbehaves, you’ll respond, even if it is negatively. Catch this little boy being good and verbally reward him for it. Do the same for other kids so that he sees positive behavior getting praised. She was guessing that it’s all about the attention. Which I understand. I kind of went through something similar when my dad . . . when he left us. My mom basically checked out and I wanted the attention of my teacher at school. Just to know that there was some adult in my life who still cared about me.”
It was the most personal thing he’d ever told me, and my chest felt tight. I wanted to cry for him, for the little boy who had felt unloved by his parents.
Because I had grown up feeling exactly the same way.
I wanted to ask him about his family but was afraid of being shot down. “It sounds like you had a really good teacher.”
“Ms. Sparr. I put her through a lot, but she stuck with me. She used to give me these little assignments in class like cleaning the chalkboard or sharpening her pencil. She used to let me be the line leader a lot, too. Small things but they made me feel special. I really needed that attention.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, maybe you could give it a shot. Because if she had looked like you, I can only imagine it would have been a lot worse.”
“Um, thanks?” I asked it as a question because I didn’t know what in the crap he was talking about.
Was his implication that my face would scare small children into being bad? Or that he thought I was pretty and that would have made him want my attention more? I was so confused.
“I’m going to go change and then I’ll come back and help you with your second problem. Because that just happens to be my area of expertise.”
Then, heaven help me, the man winked at me. Actually winked at me and it was one of the sexiest things I’d ever been a part of. My blood pressure spiked and I grabbed my phone.
I texted Shay and Delia. We needed to parse out every possible meaning of what he’d said.
Shay instantly responded:
Shaking my head, I texted:
I really couldn’t fault her logic there.
Delia didn’t answer, and I was disappointed. Also, a little concerned because she usually responded to texts quickly, and recently, the past few times I’d texted, she’d stayed silent. Had she bewitched the new substi-cute teacher into going on a date with her? I made a mental note to check in with her and see how she was doing.
I also wanted her more objective opinion on this. Shay was a bit unreliable when it came to this situation because she wanted Tyler and me to get together, given that he was incredible looking.
Which, again, no faulting that logic.
Tyler came back in the room and I hid my phone under my leg, as if he could read it from six feet away. Pigeon followed him but came over to lie down on the floor next to my feet. I reached down to scratch behind her ears.
“I am going to order some takeout. Do you want some?” he asked. “My treat.”
“While I know my answer is supposed to be ‘no thank you,’ because of dignity or pride or whatever, I’m going to say absolutely yes.”
He grinned. “I do like how you speak your mind. What should we get?”
Inspiration struck. “Oh, remember how we were talking about getting you some culture? One of the ways of doing that is to eat foods from different countries. And we’ve got so many different international restaurants nearby to choose from. Maybe Korean? Vietnamese? Thai? Turkish? Indian? Egyptian?”
He thought about it and then said, “Let’s do Thai. What do you recommend?”
“I’ll look it up and see what’s close.” I did an online search and found a restaurant half a mile away. I showed the menu to Tyler, who read it over my shoulder. I could feel the heat from his chest next to my neck, making my skin tingle. He braced his arm on the table as he read it and the screen in front of me started to swirl and swim, so that I couldn’t focus. I noticed that he had such strong, nicely formed forearms.
I sighed. I was truly pathetic.
We decided on a few different dishes, like pad thai, noodle soup, and green-curry chicken. More accurately, he decided and I nodded, as I was so distracted by him that I couldn’t have said words even if I wanted to. It was both a relief and a disappointment when he moved away to call in the order.
When he hung up, he sat back down at the table with me. “We should go over your budget while we wait. Why don’t you show me your last month’s expenses?”
I quickly and mentally ran through what I had bought and whether it would show up on my account. Most of the replacement stuff I’d done through Amaz
on and Violet had paid for the shoes. I didn’t think there was anything too embarrassing.
After I logged in to my bank account, I pushed my laptop toward him.
“Do you mind if I download some software for budgeting?”
“Sure.”
He mentioned one by name that was free and would sync up with my bank account. After a few minutes, he angled my laptop so that we could both see it. “So it seems like your biggest expenses fall in this miscellaneous category. Part of setting a budget is figuring out how much you should be spending and then discipline yourself to stay under that amount. You should also be looking at monthly expenditures that maybe are unnecessary. Like . . .” He scrolled down a bit and said, “Do you really need Netflix?”
That was like asking me if I needed my firstborn child. “Uh, yes. I need it. That’s nonnegotiable. If for no other reason than it allows me to consume television the same way I do ice cream and alcohol.”
He laughed and said, “Okay, okay. You win. Netflix stays. What about this expense for Sephora? A hundred and thirty-two dollars?”
While I’d had to downgrade my hair dye, makeup, cleanser, and toner, I was not willing to give this up. “That’s for my moisturizer.”
He blinked at me a couple of times, as if he hadn’t heard me correctly. “You paid a hundred and thirty-two dollars for lotion for your face?”
“It’s not lotion. It’s moisturizer.”
“For one bottle? What’s in it? Dragon’s blood and the scraping of a unicorn’s horn?”
I wasn’t about to tell him it wasn’t for a whole bottle, but for like two ounces. “Ha-ha. I need it. My face needs it.”
“You don’t need it. You’re beautiful.”
“It’s why I’m beautiful!” I was caught between sheer delight and disbelief at his words, and partial terror that he was going to make me stop using it. But then I started thinking about the way he’d complimented me—he’d said it so matter-of-factly, like it wasn’t his personal opinion, just a truth he happened to agree with.
I wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
While I was trying to figure out his deeper meaning, he chuckled and shook his head. “Come on, you’re easily the hottest girl in this apartment.”
If I thought I’d been thrilled before, it was nothing compared to what I was feeling now. A flush started at the top of my scalp and went down to my toes—unpainted because I couldn’t afford to get a pedicure. Then I realized that Tyler was quoting back to me what I’d said about him at the charity event. Did that mean . . . it was a joke? A callback and he didn’t really mean anything by it? Or was he trying to butter me up so that he could pry my moisturizer out of my cold, soon-to-be dehydrated hands?
Not willing to be taken in, I said, “You’re not going to flatter me to get me to change my mind. I’ll remind you that I’m the only girl in this apartment.”
“That’s not true. Pidge is here and she’s gorgeous. Aren’t you?” he asked his dog, bending over to pet her. She licked his cheek and I had never felt more of a kinship to her, ever. He turned his attention back to me. “Do you really need it?”
“The only time I get a facial now is when I open the dishwasher midcycle and the steam hits me in my face. I don’t buy the moisturizer every month. I’m really careful with how much I use on a daily basis. But I’ve had to give up so many other things. Let me have this one.”
“All right, all right.” He threw his hands up, as if I’d defeated him. “But there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. If your parents are super wealthy, don’t you have a trust fund?”
“My trust fund is gone.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “Not because I spent it all on moisturizer. My parents took it back.”
“Revocable or irrevocable?”
“My understanding was irrevocable for the tax benefits.” I’d overheard Violet and Vanessa discussing their trusts in the past.
“That means they can’t take it away just because they’re mad at you.”
I shrugged. “They employ attorneys by weight and volume, and as you can clearly see, I’m in no financial position to fight them.”
“That sucks.”
I nodded. It did, indeed, suck.
He turned back to the screen. “What about your gym membership? Do you go enough to make that worthwhile?”
“I don’t have a gym membership. I used to, but when I left my parents’ house I called them and canceled.”
“That’s not what your bank account says.”
I’d never really been a going-to-the-gym kind of girl. I’d always preferred my exercising to be things like yoga at a feminine and relaxing studio. Not lifting weights or running on treadmills. I’d joined only because Brad had insisted so we could work out together.
We never had.
And as I thought about when I’d initially signed up, solely to make him happy, I remembered something. “They told me they preferred a debit card.”
“Yeah. So they could keep pulling the money directly from your banking account. It’s harder to prevent than a credit card charge.”
“Those . . . fiends. I am going to cancel it right now.” I couldn’t believe I’d been paying a monthly fee for something I wasn’t even using. It was like they were stealing my hard-earned money from me.
There was a buzz from our intercom and Tyler got up to answer. It was our food. “I’ll go grab it,” he said.
I was intent on calling the gym, but couldn’t help but text Shay first.
It felt like her answer arrived only a second after I’d pressed send.
I sent her some laughing emojis and put myself back on track. I was going to get rid of this useless membership and then go over my checking account again to see where else I might be hemorrhaging money pointlessly.
Somebody at the gym picked up on the third ring. It was a young woman with a bubbly and high-pitched voice. “Standford Fitness and Training, this is Kiki. How may I help you?”
What kind of made-up Barbie-sounding name was Kiki? “This is Madison Huntington, and I want to cancel my membership with you. I called several months ago and canceled my membership, but you guys are still taking money out of my checking account and I would like that to stop.”
“Do you know who you spoke with?”
“No.” It wasn’t Kiki. Because I was pretty sure I would have remembered. “But I know I did because I lost all my money and I couldn’t afford it anymore.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. But we don’t cancel memberships over the phone. Whoever you talked to must not have known that.”
Wasn’t it the phone answerer’s job to know things like that? How to cancel a membership seemed like first-day training material. “Okay, well, I need to cancel it now. How do I do that?”
“You can do it one of two ways.”
Two ways? Like I was being sent on a quest in Lord of the Rings? “Okay, Gandalf the Grey, what are my options?”
“Um, no, it’s Kiki?” She sounded like it was a question and I could hear her chewing gum while she paused. “The first way is to send in a certified letter.”
“A letter?” I repeated. Why? I hadn’t signed up for my membership during the American Revolution. And I didn’t know if I was even sure what a certified letter actually was, having never sent nor received one. “Then what? I carry it to Mount Doom and throw it into the fires?”
“No, you mail it to us. You need to include all your personal information, name, address, phone number, Social Security number, birth date, along with your membership identification number and your agreement number listed on your contract. Once we have all that information, then it takes us about eight weeks to get everything processed.”
Did they want my measurements and shoe size, too? Sheesh. And two more months of them robbing me blind? No thanks. “What’s the other way?”
“You would need to come to the gym in person and do it manually.”
Manually? What did that even mean? “I will be there tomorrow during
my lunch break to cancel.” Then I hung up the phone before I could counsel Kiki to make better life choices and stop working for places that took money away from completely broke teachers.
Tyler returned with the food, putting it on the table. I moved my laptop to the side to make room and then got up to grab some plates and forks.
When I sat back down, he had already opened all the containers, and he asked me, “What are your plans for later tonight?”
I looked down at my outfit. “I have my Netflix pants on. That means I’m planning on being in for the night.”
“I was thinking we could go to that art exhibit after we eat. The one you were talking about with Walter Loveless. You want to come with?”
My heart raced and I had to swallow a couple of times before I did my best nonchalant response. “Sure.”
“Cool. Then it’s a date.”
Was he serious? Teasing? Was it a date? I felt like I didn’t have enough information to suss out whether he was serious or just saying “it’s a date” because in all other ways it would seem like a date only we both understood that it wasn’t really because we were only friends so ha-ha, it was just a joke?
Boys were the worst.
My phone buzzed with a text from Shay.
What was wrong with the two of us? Why did my and Shay’s brains keep trying to turn this into something it wasn’t? It sometimes felt like I was so caught up in my imagination that I had practically started hallucinating things that weren’t there. Looks, lingering touches, feelings.
I’d always been a dreamer. I liked hoping for a better world and doing what I could to make it happen. But in this situation? The reality was pretty clear, even if I kept resisting it.
My reply was short and to the point.
Something both of us needed to remember.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“So what’s the verdict?” I asked. Tyler had gone through most of the exhibit with me. He carefully followed my instructions to read the titles of the artwork, along with any wall text that would further explain the piece, and to just let himself absorb each painting, see if he had any kind of emotional response to one.
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