The flowers sat on my passenger seat, and I tried not to panic about the decision to give them to Rex. Were they too much? Was I too much? Would Rex give me the time of day if he didn’t need a fake boyfriend?
By the time I pulled into the park, I had worked myself into a state of nerves that made my hands shake. I sent Rex a text letting him know I was here, and he sent one back sayingI know, look to your left.
He was already there in the spot next to where I’d parked. I shot him a nervous smile before looking away and fiddling with my seatbelt. It was both a good and a bad thing that he was already here. Because he was here, I didn’t have time to overthink. But because he was here, I had no time to overthink. See, double-edged sword.
It wasn’t a real date, so that should have taken some of the pressure off, but I still vibrated so hard I was shocked I couldn’t hear my bones rattle as I reached for the flowers and got out of the car.
Was I dressed right? Were the flowers too much? Had I kept him waiting long? My mind was a cyclone of questions and worries. Then I turned and Rex was there in a crisp whitebutton-up under a dark blue blazer. He wore jeans and runners to complete the look. His hair was gently styled like he’d woken up this way. Slightly messy, but definitely stylish.
Rex looked at the bouquet of flowers in my hands, and he got a strange look on his face. My hands shook harder, but then he pulled out a nearly identical bouquet of flowers from behind his back.
Pink roses and baby’s breath. The only difference in our bouquets was the floral paper they were wrapped in. Rex had stopped somewhere that had black floral paper, making the pink roses pop against the dark backdrop.
“I got you flowers,” I said, not able to take my eyes off the ones Rex got for me. “I—no one has ever gotten me flowers before.”
It kind of sucked that they were real flowers from a fake boyfriend, but I’d take it. They still meant something to me because the mere sight of them had me swooning. I wanted to crush them to my chest and smash my face into them and inhale until their scent invaded my bloodstream.
“Great minds think alike,” Rex said as he traded bouquets with me. “They’re beautiful.”
I did, in fact, lower my face into the soft petals and breathe them in before forcing myself to abandon my flowers in the passenger seat and hope they’d survive long enough to be put into water.
The community center sat at the far end of the park from where we were. The walk would only take a few minutes, and I fell into step next to him, our arms brushing against each other every so often.
“Have you been to one of these before?” I asked Rex, who nodded.
“One of the vet techs has a nephew who came to live with her a few years ago. Things were pretty rocky for him for a whilebecause of his circumstances, and she’d been really worried about the kinds of people he was hanging out with. And then he found the community center arts programs.”
“Admittedly, I don’t know anything about the programs here.” I looped my arm through Rex’s as we walked, linking us together. He glanced at me and smiled. He seemed pleased by the little bit of contact I’d offered.
“They do a lot of outreach work with the high school and with at-risk youth. They try to foster a sense of belonging with these kids on a personal and a community level. Sometimes all these kids need is to feel seen.”
I understood that on a soul-deep level. Connection wasn’t the only reason I’d started working in the adult industry. Money was the first reason, but the connection was a bonus. The first few years of my career, when I was young and naive, had been the toughest. The industry was a whole different animal and until you learned the difference between who wanted to eat you alive and who wanted to eat your ass, it felt like it might destroy you completely.
Lucky for me, I’d found Lukas and men like him who didn’t try to sell people a found family dressed up as a porn studio daydream. Lukas really was family but not because he told you he was. He was family because he acted like you mattered. He treated people well, and he expected the same from everyone who worked for him.
Rex opened the door for me and ushered me inside. I’d never been here so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but right away I liked the place. Skylights and large windows made the open space practically glow with natural light. The wood floors were a touch on the dark side, but they contrasted nicely against the cream-colored walls.
A crowd had already gathered and was mingling around different pieces. The walls were lined with art of various sizesand color schemes. The larger pieces were in the center of the room. There were even a couple sculptures that looked like they’d been created with scrap materials.
“This is wild,” I said to Rex, pulling him to the left. “Let’s do the loop around the room and then hit up the center. I want to see everything.”
He slid his arm around me, and I tried to quell the butterflies that erupted inside me, dancing under my skin, making me feel jittery but not in an uncomfortable way. It was joy that made me squirmy and jittery. Joy just from being in a room with a good-looking man who might not want to get me naked but was happy to at least pretend to date me. Who wasn’t afraid to be seen in public with me.
If it seemed too good to be true, it was, I reminded myself. He was here because he didn’t want to tell his brother the truth.
But he was still here, I reminded myself. And that was the important thing. The thing I would focus on from now on. It might be fake, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t have fun. Though I’d been with a lot of guys, I hadn’t been on many actual dates, and I definitely hadn’t been taken anywhere as meaningful as this.
The art was fantastic, and even when it wasn’t objectively good, I could still see that it meant something to these people.
One of the last pieces we came across was a series of small canvases, each painting of a different cat. They were done portrait style, but the cats all had different, increasingly ridiculous facial expressions.
“That one looks just like Gumball,” I said, pointing at the long-haired black cat with the tongue sticking out. It was derpy. It was Gumball. “I think I might need to buy this one.” I paused and looked at Rex. “Can I do that? Are these even for sale? I’ve never been to something like this before.”
“Mister, if you have cash, I have art for sale.” The artist appeared out of nowhere like a fucking ghost and startled me. I jumped, knocking myself into Rex, who laughed gently and swept me close as if he’d planned it all along.
Pulling out my phone, I showed off a picture of Gumball. “I know he’s like a generic black cat with long hair, but the face, the expression. It’s a thousand percent my cat.”
“I’d give you the painting, but I really need the money.”
