Rent a Boyfriend - Gloria Chao Page 0,5

price tag on top, the awkwardness notched up. To eleven.

My father cleared his throat, then gestured to the sheets stacked on the couch. “We’re traditional, Andrew. We assume there’s no…” He blushed.

“Hanky-panky,” my mother supplied with a completely straight face. I wondered where she’d learned that phrase.

Andrew turned red as well, and, given the flush I felt in my cheeks, I guessed we were a pod of lobsters in that moment, minus Mom.

“Of course, Wang Ǎyí, Shǔshú,” he said, seemingly fighting the urge to take a step away from me. You and me both, buddy.

I bid everyone good night and made a quick exit. As I padded up the stairs to my childhood bedroom, my parents’ gaze followed me, something foreign gleaming at the edges of their crow’s-feet. Pride, I realized. Oh, if only they knew the truth.

I put on pajamas and brushed my teeth in a haze. When I walked by the circular mirror that I’d picked out in first grade, I cowered. I didn’t want to see myself. Because what if I no longer recognized who that was?

I flopped onto the bed and squeezed my eyes shut. But the vision of my parents looking at Andrew and me with so much hope was burned into the backs of my eyelids.

How did I get here? I mean, I knew how I’d gotten here—with desperate lies that fed off one another and grew until I couldn’t contain them anymore. So I’d hired a ringer: nerdy Asian James Bond. James Bong. Banh. The name is Banh. James Banh Mi, the best thing since sliced baguette with seasoned meat, cilantro, and pickled veggies.

Once I ran out of Bond puns, my mind wandered back to the web of lies I’d spun myself into.

The only way to distract myself was to focus on something equally horrifying but less painful. So I thought about every weird thing I’d said and done my entire life, like that time I met a cute guy in game theory and at the end of our conversation couldn’t decide whether to say “Lovely chatting” or “See you,” and I instead said, “Love you.” God. Whenever that memory replayed in my head and I heard “Love you” in my sad, squeaky voice, I let out a whimper. Could I be any more pathetic?

Yes, by hiring a fake boyfriend.

I was my own worst enemy.

Eventually, around two in the morning, I threw the sheets off and went in search of some cold pumpkin pie.

Drew CHAPTER 4

JUST ANOTHER NIGHT

I’m helping her I’m helping her I’m helping her…

Without fail, I always needed to chant those three words to fall asleep during a job. At night, alone with my thoughts, I always felt a tiny bit disgusting, maybe even a little cheap, despite the fact that I was anything but (now that I’d had dozens of perfect reviews, my prices were blush-worthy).

During the course of every assignment, there were always things that poked at my insecurities. In this case, Jing-Jing’s mother speaking as if dropping out of college was the worst move ever (even if you had a million-dollar company to run) had made my college-dropout ears burn like hell. And Jing-Jing’s response, though not the worst, hadn’t soothed me any. Not that it was her job or anything. It just sucked. I already judged myself enough for a lifetime’s worth, so did I need everyone else judging me too?

To fall asleep, I usually had to remind myself of the bolded section on the client’s form, the one I always memorized. The answer to Why do you need our services?

I had never met the suitor Jing-Jing had written about, but now that I’d had one dinner with her, I could see her punching out her answer with forceful keystrokes, a little sideways purse to her lips. Amazing what you could learn about someone in a short time when your meal ticket depended on it. As with almost every single one of her answers, she’d gone all out, detailing how her parents and Hongbo’s parents wanted them to be together for “all the wrong reasons,” which revolved around their families having been friends for decades and believing their children would be a fantastic match despite them having nothing in common. Not to mention Jing-Jing’s obvious disgust for him, which she had sort of tried to hide at first (“he’s just not quite right for me, personally”) but also not really, especially by the fourth paragraph (“I think even his mustache is evil—it twitches every time he mentions