Angel Hired for Thursdays

Cassiel Lim repairs watches and has never introduced a partner to his parents, yet a family dinner for a major Korean holiday pushes him to book a date through an app.

He took his own name as a child from the angel of temperance and time, and as an autistic adult he keeps his days quiet, orderly, and small enough to manage, even while his mother fears he will die alone.

May Huang washes dishes in Chinatown, handles a brain injury and ADHD with color-coded notebooks and phone alarms, and accepts the paid gig because he is easy with parents and needs the money.

They use one Thursday to invent a cover story and plan to stop after the dinner on the next.

The evenings continue anyway, through Christmas and into a new year, held up by money neither of them mentions and a past that was never true.

The hired arrangement begins to look like a real life, and neither man is prepared for what follows once it can no longer stay pretend.