“Call him,” Roger insisted.
I wanted to. That was the problem.
“He could offer you a lot of money to do very little work. Maybe it would help with the road trip fund.”
Ooh, he had me there. I’d fantasized about road tripping across the country since I read Kerouac’s On the Road as a teenager. Not a likely choice, I know, but it inspired a love for road trip movies and books. Then, over the last few months, I’d grown restless and become attached to the idea that traveling would solve the problem. There was something about living life on the move, truly free of ties and commitments, that spoke to my bohemian soul.
“Don’t call him,” Jude cautioned.
Roger shook his head as he slid a hand over Jude’s thigh and squeezed it, as if in apology, before turning to me. “Call him.”
Staring into my friend’s eyes, hearing Jude’s wearied sigh, I contemplated it.
“You’re just going to obsess over it until you do,” Kendall threw in.
And she was absolutely right.
“Okay.” I grabbed my purse. “Order me another beer, will you? I’ll be right back.”
“We want to hear all the juicy details!” Roger yelled over the music.
I threw a hand over my shoulder to let him know I’d heard him and then slipped out through the crowded bar and onto the street. The bar was on the corner of a busy cross section, so I wandered away from it to hear better. It was around nine o’clock, so I hoped it wasn’t too late in the evening for Mr. Posh Vet. Pulling his card out of my purse, along with my cell, I quickly dialed his number.
He picked up on the third ring. “No, I do not want to buy what you’re selling.”
“Is that how you answer all of your calls?”
There was hesitation. Then he said, “Star?”
“You remembered,” I teased gaily.
I could practically hear him rolling his eyes. “Your number came up as unknown on my phone. Of course, I thought you were selling something. And you are, are you not?”
The overly correct way he talked should have annoyed me.
It did. But it also didn’t. Because it was kind of hot.
Damn him.
“That depends on your proposition. Warning, I will hang up if you insult me.”
“That depends. Does ten thousand dollars a month sound insulting?”
Ten. Thousand. Dollars. A. Month.
My mouth went dry.
I forced myself to be cool. “That depends. What will I be required to do for that significant amount of money?”
“I require a fake girlfriend for an indefinite period. The amount of money reflects the fact that I’d need you to be flexible with your time for a few months. I might require you for anything up to six months.”
A possible sixty thousand dollars? To be his fake girlfriend. But wait—
“Before you ask, I am not soliciting you for sex. For the last year, my mother and sister-in-law have become obsessed with finding me a wife. They’ve been throwing women at me and manipulating me into dates, and I am so beyond fucking exhausted by their attempts that I just need a break. If they think I’m seeing someone, it will get them off my back.”
Wow. And I’d thought being paid to wait in line for a cronut was ridiculous. “Seriously? It’s that bad?”
“You saw them at my niece’s party. That was just the tip of the iceberg. I’ve been set up on more dates I didn’t know I was walking into than I care to count. They have also sent women and their pets into my clinic with fake symptoms. They have encouraged women to buy a damn pet just to have an excuse to come to my clinic.”
Laughter bubbled on my lips.
“It’s not funny. It’s harassment.”
My laughter died at his tone and I felt a twinge of sympathy I didn’t want to feel for him. “Can’t you just tell them to back off?”
“They swallowed the ‘marriage makes everything better’ Kool-Aid a long time ago. There’s no convincing them otherwise, despite—” He cut off abruptly. “Look, are you interested or not?”
“Ten thousand dollars a month to pretend to be your girlfriend?”
“What? You want more?”
“No! I just . . .” The whole proposal baffled me.
“Are you interested or not?” he repeated. “I have an early surgery in the morning and need to go to bed soon.”
My lips twitched with laughter again. I so wanted to ruffle his uptight feathers.
Which was probably why agreeing to this was a bad idea. Moreover, what sane person offered someone ten thousand dollars a month to fake-date them?
As if he heard the thought he grumbled, “Look, I know it sounds erratic to pay someone thousands of dollars to pretend to date them, but the money is . . . an inheritance that I can’t . . . well . . . anyway, I just like the idea of spending it on something that seems wasteful but will actually benefit me and get them off my back.”
“Sounds like you all need family therapy.”
“We’re fine. We love each other. But we also drive each other mad. Like most families.”
That was very true.
But ten thousand dollars a month? While I’d never needed much in life, that would allow me to go on my road trip. I could make that money last and have the time of my life. Free as a bird. Moreover, I’d witnessed the intense matchmaking at his niece’s birthday party. I remembered thinking how trapped I’d have felt in that situation too. Despite his grumpiness, I experienced a twinge of sympathy again.
Plus, ten thousand dollars.
“I’m interested.”
“Fine. Come to my clinic tomorrow at noon.”
Bossy! “I’m line sitting tomorrow and have no idea how long I’ll be there.”
“If you take this job, it will have priority over your others. Are we clear?”
Bristling, I huffed, “Well, I haven’t accepted the job yet, so tomorrow I’m line sitting, and if I’m done at noon, I’ll be there. If I’m not going to be done at noon, I’ll text you and we’ll arrange a meeting time. Okay? Bye-bye.” I hung up before he could say anything that would absolutely change my mind about entertaining his proposal.
As I strode toward the bar, adrenaline surging through my body, excited to tell my friends about the proposition, my cell vibrated in my hand.
It was a text from the number I’d just dialed.
Don’t you know it’s rude to hang up on a person?