Chapter Two #2
My fingers move across the keyboard. Girlfriend duties. Minimum requirements. Duration of arrangement. Attendance at work functions. Social media presence. Believable affection in public settings.
I pause, cursor blinking.
Twelve hundred is the top of her budget. She said it herself—her entire financial future is riding on a cookbook deadline. If she signs this and finds the girlfriend clause later, she’ll feel trapped.
Which, she will be. But still.
I scroll back up to the rent section and change the number. Nine-fifty a month.
It’s not guilt. It’s strategy. Lower rent means she’s more likely to stay. More likely to go along with things.
I bury the clause on page fifteen, sandwiched between the cleaning schedule and maintenance request procedures. Easy to miss if you’re skimming.
She’ll skim. Everyone skims.
My conscience stirs, a quiet voice that sounds annoyingly like Dr. Reyes. This is manipulative. You’re taking advantage of her desperation.
I silence it.
This is survival. She needs a place to live; I need a reason to stay in Dallas. The discounted rent balances the scales. That’s fair.
I print the document, tap the pages into a neat stack, and head back to the living room.
Emmie’s on the couch, Murphy in her lap. The cat—my cat, the one who hisses at strangers and once drew blood from a delivery guy—is purring like a motorboat while she scratches behind his ears. It took him months to warm up to Foster. Hell, it took him months to warm up to me.
“I hope this is okay,” she says when she sees me. “He just jumped up here and started rubbing against me, and I didn’t want to be rude—”
“He doesn’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Like people.”
She looks down at Murphy, who’s now kneading her thigh with his paws, eyes half-closed in contentment. “Really? He seems pretty friendly to me.”
Traitor.
I hand her the agreement. “Standard roommate contract. Take your time reading it.”
“Wow. This is…” She flips through the first few pages, eyebrows rising. “Thorough.”
“I like to be clear about expectations.”
“No, I get it. I appreciate it, actually. My last roommate didn’t have any rules, and look how that turned out.” She keeps flipping, scanning the headers. Noise compliance. Kitchen usage. Shared spaces. “This is really organized. You must be, like, super Type A.”
“Something like that.”
She pauses on page three, frowning. “Wait. This says nine-fifty a month.”
“Yes.”
“You said twelve hundred.” Her eyebrows push together adorably.
“I adjusted it.”
Her eyes narrow on mine, suspicious. “Why?”
Because I’m about to trick you into fake-dating me and I need to be able to sleep at night. “You mentioned you’re on a deadline. Figured the lower rent might help take some pressure off.”
She stares at me for a long moment, like she’s waiting for the catch. “You’re just… giving me a two-hundred-fifty-dollar discount. Out of the goodness of your heart?”
“Uh, seemed like the decent thing to do.”
She’s smiling now, some of the tension leaving her shoulders. “Thank you. That’s… really nice of you.”
The gratitude in her voice makes my stomach twist. I ignore it.
“Don’t thank me yet. You haven’t read the rest.”
She laughs like I’m joking and keeps flipping. Page ten, her reading slows. By page twelve, she’s barely skimming. On page fourteen, she flips to the end.
“So I just sign here?”
My heart does something uncomfortable in my chest. “If you agree to the terms.”
“I mean, it all seems reasonable. Quiet hours, cleaning schedule, no unauthorized guests…” She pulls a pen from her bag—purple ink, because of course—and signs her name with a flourish. “There. It’s official.”
She hands it back, smiling.
I take it, and look down at her signature. Emmie Marshall, written in loopy, cheerful script right above the line that binds her to Section 7, Subsection C, Paragraph 3.
The Girlfriend Clause.
“Welcome to the apartment,” I say.
She beams. “This is going to be great. I can feel it.”
I fold the contract and slide it into the envelope I prepared.
“When are you wanting to move in?”
“Is this weekend too soon? I know that’s fast, but Sadie’s couch is killing my back. I really need to get my kitchen stuff set up so I can start testing recipes again, and—”
“This weekend is fine.”
“Really?” Her entire face lights up again, and something about it makes my chest tight in a way I don’t want to examine. “Oh my gosh, thank you. You won’t regret this, I promise. I’m going to be the best roommate you’ve ever had.”
She stands, nearly dislodging Murphy, and extends her hand.
I shake it. Her palm is warm and soft—and she holds on a beat longer than necessary before letting go.
“See you Saturday,” she says, gathering her things in the same chaotic whirlwind she arrived in: bag, purse, phone, keys. She’s halfway out the door when she turns back. “Oh, the cookies! Keep them. Consider it a, um, gift.” And then she’s gone.
A gift. The word sticks in my brain, rattling around like it doesn’t quite fit.
I can count on one hand the number of gifts I’ve received in my life: birthday cards from social workers who spelled my name wrong, a secondhand baseball glove from one of the group homes.
There was Mrs. Placket in foster home number six—she tried.
She knitted me a sweater for Christmas, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her that wool made me break out in hives.
I shoved it in the back of the closet. I got moved three weeks later anyway.
I stare at the Tupperware.
It’s still warm.
Murphy meows at the closed door, a look of betrayal evident.
I stand in my living room, holding a signed contract that she didn’t read, and wait for the guilt to hit.
It doesn’t.
What hits instead is something worse: the image of her smile, the strands of honey-colored hair framing her face, the way she’d looked at me like I was safe.
This is a business arrangement, I remind myself. Nothing more.
But as I file the contract in my office and start preparing for Saturday, I can’t quite shake the feeling that I’ve just set something in motion I won’t be able to control.