Chapter 12
BEN
“You realize this is ridiculous, right?” Freya says, holding up the bright orange golf ball they handed her at the counter. “Billionaire CEO plays mini golf for date night. Your shareholders are going to think you’ve lost your mind.”
“That’s exactly the point,” I reply, selecting a red ball and testing the weight of my putter. “Relatable billionaire enjoys simple pleasures with his fiancée. Carson thinks it’s perfect for humanizing my image.”
We’re standing at the first hole of FunTimes Mini Golf, a family-friendly course in the suburbs that Carson specifically chose for its “authentic, down-to-earth appeal.” There are plastic dinosaurs, a miniature windmill, and what appears to be a pirate ship on hole seven.
It’s about as far from my usual Saturday night activities as possible.
Which is probably why I’m enjoying it more than I expected.
“When’s the last time you actually played mini golf?” Freya asks as we wait for the family ahead of us to finish.
“Honestly? Probably when I was twelve and my parents took me to that resort in Florida. Even then, my father spent the entire time on business calls.”
“Of course he did.” Freya lines up her shot, her red hair catching the early evening light. “Well, prepare to get destroyed. I was mini golf champion of summer camp three years running.”
“That’s right. How could I forget?”
She takes her shot, and the ball curves perfectly around a small obstacle and rolls to a stop two inches from the hole. “I was very competitive about it.”
I watch her sink the easy putt, and something in my chest loosens.
This is the most relaxed I’ve seen Freya in days.
She’s been distant since we signed the contracts, returning my calls hours late and giving one-word answers to my texts.
When I finally cornered her into agreeing to this date, she seemed reluctant, like spending time with me had become a chore.
But now, watching her celebrate a mini golf victory with a little fist pump, she looks like herself again.
“Your turn, hotshot,” she says, stepping aside with a grin.
I line up my shot, trying to remember the last time I played any kind of game just for fun. In my world, everything is competitive, but the competition is always serious. There are deals worth millions, contracts that can make or break careers.
This is different. The stakes are imaginary, the rules are simple, and the worst thing that can happen is I lose to my fake fiancée at mini golf.
My ball bounces off the edge of the course and rolls into the rough.
“Oh, that’s tragic,” Freya says with mock sympathy. “Maybe you should stick to renewable energy.”
“It’s been a while since I’ve done anything that doesn’t involve spreadsheets.”
“When’s the last time you took a weekend off? Like, actually off, not working from home or taking calls?”
I have to think about this. “I honestly can’t remember.”
“Ben.” She gives me a look that’s part concerned, part exasperated. “That’s not normal.”
“It’s necessary. You don’t build a billion-dollar company by taking weekends off.”
“But you did build it. It’s built. Don’t you think you’ve earned the right to play mini golf on a Saturday evening?”
I retrieve my ball and take another shot, this time managing to get it on the green. “This is work, remember? We’re here for the photos.”
“Right now, at this moment, are you thinking about photos or are you thinking about getting your ball in that hole?”
She’s right. For the past ten minutes, I haven’t thought once about social media or image management or business deals. I’ve been focused on two things: the simple challenge of getting a small red ball around absurd obstacles, and the way Freya’s face lights up when she makes a good shot.
“The hole,” I admit.
“Good. That’s progress.”
We move through the course slowly, and I find myself genuinely invested in the game.
Freya is indeed excellent at mini golf, but I’m improving with each hole.
More importantly, we’re talking the way we used to—easy conversation about nothing important, the kind of comfortable back-and-forth that used to fill our study sessions in high school.
“Remember when you tried to teach me to play pool?” Freya asks as we approach the windmill hole.
“You were terrible at it.”
“I was not terrible. I was strategically challenged.”
“What does that even mean?” I laugh. “You spent more time trying to figure out the physics of the shots than actually taking them.”
“That’s because I’m an artist, not a mathematician. I think visually, not… trajectory-ly.”
“Trajectory-ly isn’t a word.”
“It is now.” She lines up her shot at the windmill, waiting for the blades to create an opening. “God, we spent so many hours in your basement rec room.”
I remember those afternoons clearly. Freya sprawled on the couch, sketching or watching a movie while I studied at the small table, both of us comfortable in the silence but always aware of each other.
Sometimes she’d get stuck on a concept and start talking through it out loud, and I’d find myself listening to her explain color theory or composition instead of focusing on calculus.
Those were some of the happiest hours of my teenage years, though I never would have admitted it at the time.
“You always had paint under your fingernails,” I say without thinking.
“I still do, half the time.” She shows me her hands, and sure enough, there’s a small streak of blue on her thumb. “Some things never change.”
But everything has changed, I want to say. We’ve changed. This thing between us has changed from innocent friendship to complicated performance, and I’m not sure we can ever find our way back to those simple afternoons in my parents’ basement.
“Shot!” Freya calls, and I realize I’ve been staring at her hands for too long.
I take my turn at the windmill, managing to time it perfectly. The ball rolls through the opening and stops near the hole.
“Nice!” she says, and the genuine enthusiasm in her voice makes me ridiculously happy.
We finish the course with Freya winning by eight strokes, a victory she celebrates by taking a selfie with both of us and the plastic trophy they give to winners. For Carson’s social media purposes, of course, but her smile in the photo is real.
“Ice cream?” I suggest, noting the small stand near the parking lot.
“You’re really committing to this whole ‘normal couple’ thing.”
“Carson said we should milk the location for content.”
But that’s not why I suggest it. I suggest it because I don’t want this evening to end. For two hours, I’ve felt like a normal person doing normal things with someone I care about. The weight of work and deals and responsibilities has lifted, replaced by something lighter and more immediate.
We get ice cream and sit on a bench overlooking the course, watching other couples and families make their way through the holes we just completed. The sun is setting, painting the sky in shades of pink and gold.
“This was fun,” I say, and I mean it.
“You sound surprised.”
“I am surprised. I don’t usually enjoy activities that don’t have a clear professional purpose.”
“Maybe you should try it more often.”
“Maybe.” I take a bite of my ice cream, vanilla with hot fudge, because apparently I’m basic when it comes to dessert. “Hey, are you okay? You’ve seemed… distant this week.”
She doesn’t answer immediately, focusing intently on her strawberry cone.
“I’m fine,” she says finally. “Just adjusting to everything. The attention, the planning, all of it. It’s a lot.”
“If it’s too much…”
“It’s not too much. I said I’d do this, and I’m going to do it.”
But there’s something in her voice that doesn’t match her words. A resignation that makes me think she’s doing this out of obligation rather than choice.
“Yeah, but… If you…” Why can’t I find my words?
“We should probably head back,” she interrupts, standing up and throwing away her napkin. “I have an early client meeting tomorrow.”
The drive back to her apartment is quieter than the drive to mini golf. Freya stares out the window, lost in thoughts she apparently doesn’t want to share. I try to recapture the easy mood from the course, but something has shifted, and I can’t figure out what.
“Thank you for tonight,” I say as I pull up in front of her building.
“Thank you for the ice cream and mini golf victory.” She unbuckles her seatbelt but doesn’t immediately get out. “Ben?”
“Yeah?”
“This is what you want, right? All of this? The publicity, the wedding, the whole production?”
The question catches me off guard. “It’s what I need. For the business.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
I look at her, trying to read her expression in the dim light from the street lamps. “Why are you asking?”
“I want to make sure we’re both still on the same page.”
“We are. Aren’t we?”
She nods, but it doesn’t look convincing. “Good. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
She gets out of the car and heads into her building without looking back, leaving me sitting alone wondering what just happened. Twenty minutes ago we were laughing about mini golf and sharing ice cream. Now she’s acting like this is all some burden she has to bear.
My phone buzzes with a text from Carson as I’m pulling away from Freya’s building: “Call me. We have a problem.”
I call him from my car, using the hands-free system.
“What’s the problem?”
“There are some posts online,” he says without preamble. “YouTube videos, TikToks, Twitter threads. People are questioning whether your engagement is real.”
My blood goes cold. “What kind of posts?”
“Body language analysis. Timeline speculation. Someone did a whole video about how you two don’t touch each other naturally, how your engagement photos look staged. There’s a thread on Reddit with like three thousand comments debating whether this is a publicity stunt.”
I pull over to the side of the road, needing to focus entirely on this conversation. “How bad is it?”
“Right now it’s mostly confined to social media conspiracy theorists, but it’s gaining traction. If it hits mainstream media…”
“It could destroy everything.” I finish the thought he doesn’t want to say out loud.
“Exactly. Ben, if people start seriously questioning this engagement, it’s not just about the Red Dawson deal anymore. Your entire reputation is on the line. If this comes out as fake, you’ll be seen as dishonest, manipulative—”
“I get it, Carson.”
“The good news is that we can still control this. We need to flood the narrative with evidence of your relationship. More public appearances, more intimate moments, more proof that this is real.”
More intimate moments. More performance. More of whatever was bothering Freya tonight.
“What are you suggesting?”
“I’m suggesting that you and Freya need to start acting like a couple who are genuinely in love. Not just for staged photos, but all the time. Every public appearance, every interaction where someone might be watching. You need to be inseparable.”
“Carson.”
“I’m serious, Ben. These people are looking for cracks in the story. If they find them, this whole thing comes crashing down.”
After Carson hangs up, I sit in my car for a long time, watching Freya’s building, noting that her studio light is on.
I drive home to my empty penthouse, where I can see the city spread out below me like a board game. From up here, everything looks manageable, controllable.
But I’m starting to realize that some things, like internet conspiracy theories and Freya’s growing distance and my own confused feelings, are completely beyond my control.