“He was a fake boyfriend. I hired him for the wedding and again for the funeral.”
I laugh and shake my head in utter disbelief. This is nothing like Beau. “Why the hell would you do that?”
Beau stands up again, anxiously running his hand over his head. He paces a little in the kitchen, then turns his heartsick gaze back to me. “Dad was so sick, and Mom was worried shitless, and I wanted them to think I was happy. I wanted Dad to die thinking I was happy.”
“Oh, Beau.”
My heart simultaneously aches for him and me. Both of us are so torn apart by grief for very different reasons. Beau sends me a sad, miserable sort of smile before grabbing his beer to finish it off in just a few gulps. He places the empty beer on the island, aiming a narrow-eyed, serious look at me.
“I think you should do it.”
“Do what?”
“Hire a fake boyfriend. You got that week off in early July because you close the firm.” I go to stop him, but Beau holds out a hand for me to keep listening. “Take that week off and play boyfriend, feel alive again. Maybe it’ll help you get out of your funk, move on a little bit. Not that I’m telling you to move on from Marcus after a week playing boyfriend, but you know what I mean. We all loved him, but we love you too.”
I think those are the most words I’ve ever heard Beau say at once. I nod at him, taking his argument into serious consideration. He claps my shoulder in his large hand, squeezes firmly once, then leaves without another word. Which is just so Beau.
I watch him slowly disappear up my driveway. Beau easily jumps over the fence, finally vanishing out of my sight towards his own property.
Whiskey looks up at me begging for another treat, so I give her one because she’s the best girl. My mind whirs with thoughts about what Beau just told me. A fake boyfriend? Trevor had seemed so in love with Beau, it had seemed so real. My phone vibrates in my pocket. I pull my phone out to find a text from Beau with the contact information for the agency.
The Boyfriend Experience.
I finish my Sunday night chores around the house with an anxious heart. Cook dinner for myself, get ready for the week ahead. All the usual things that keep me busy and my mind elsewhere.
Once I’m in bed for the night with Whiskey curled up at my feet, I stare at my phone like it could catch on fire.
Do I dare do it? Do I hire a fake boyfriend for a week? I pull up a photo of me and Marcus from our last vacation. Our last bit of joy before everything went to shit. I can basically hear Marcus in my head telling me to do it. Hear him teasing me for even waiting so long. That familiar teasing voice is all the confirmation I need.
The business is sleek, I’ll give them that. The owner, a young curly-haired blonde, talks about how she started the business with her best friend during college. He was the fake boyfriend and she ran behind the scenes. It goes on and on for a bit about the level of professional boyfriend they aim to provide from wedding dates, to work outings, to just for the weekend. My heart beats wildly in my chest as I realize I’m really going to do this. I’m going to hire a fake boyfriend.
The website has a survey to fill out. It’s very thorough, not just for what I expect in a boyfriend, but what the boyfriend can expect from me. The survey even goes as far as to ask aboutkinks and preferences. Maybe I can also explore some of the kinks I haven’t explored in years, ones that Marcus didn’t love, so I easily abandoned them. We experimented a lot, but there were things I left behind when we got together. It was never a hardship, because I loved Marcus. But it could be exhilarating to try them again after so many years.
The whole process doesn’t take as long as I expected. However, typing out just a few sentences zaps all the energy from me. I turn onto my side to stare at the wall of my bedroom. Sleep comes for me, but it takes a while. Thoughts of my future fake boyfriend filter into my dreams that night. The promise of something unexpected on my horizon. Maybe something great.
1
ELI
An annoying buzz wakes me up from a deep, peaceful sleep. I appear to have fallen asleep at my desk. Again. For the millionth time. A groan escapes me as I roughly rub at my stupidly numb cheek. How am I twenty-eight but still fall asleep within moments of sitting down at my desk? The soft blue light of a computer screen might as well be a damn night-light for me.
The annoying buzzing gets angrier. I blink the lingering, hazy sleep from my eyes. Somehow my phone is always at the scene of the crime. My phone screen flashes in the darkness of my office and I let out a loud sigh at the sight of Trevor’s name. He’s a fellow boyfriend and also one of my best friends, so this call could go either way. Is it work related or is he coming out of a late evening showing of a movie and needs me to chaperone him on his walk home?
“Trevor.”
“Eli,” Trevor whispers, an edge of urgency in his sweet voice. “I need a huge favor.”
Trevor sounds breathless, voice a little shakier than I’m used to hearing it. He might be the youngest of us all, but he’snotoriously made of steel. Nothing shakes Trevor. Never a client and not much else.
“What’s up?”
Trevor lets out a loud, tired breath. “I need you to take a job for me.”
My frown deepens because thisneverhappens. We take the jobs we’re assigned because the agency carefully pairs us up with boyfriends. If Trevor is handing someone off to me, then he either knows them in a good way … or a bad way. I want to pry, but knowing Trevor, I won’t like the answer I get anyway.
“I just forwarded you an email the service got earlier today. Claire initially thought of me, but she’s wrong. There is literally no one else on the team besides you that could take this job.”
Claire is the hard-ass owner of The Boyfriend Experience, the agency that I—in very loose terms—freelance for once in a while. The job pays enough that I can focus on completing my PhD program eighty percent of the time and there’s no other job like that on earth. Plus, it helps that I’m pretty good at being a boyfriend. A fake one at least. I like sex too, so it’s a win-win for me most of the time.
