Page 87 of Playboy For Hire

But life goes on. Heartbroken though I was, I still had to get up and go to work. Put in eight hours, pay attention in interminable meetings, respond to hundreds of emails, and pretend to care about any of the cases I was working on. It all seemed so inconsequential, so monumentally pointless, compared to the hurt in my heart.

When I got off work, I went home and sank into a fugue state before I had to get up and do it all over again. At least in my apartment, I was alone, and didn’t have to put on a happy face. At least alone, I didn’t have to worry about someone seeing me cry.

Which I hated. Why the hell did I want to cry when I thought about Ryder? Surely he wasn’t crying over me. He’d never cared enough to bother. He was just a good actor, nothing more.

I was still stewing about this when my doorbell rang on the Thursday after everything fell apart. I ignored it, sinking deeper into the couch cushions. My fingers were stained Dorito-orange, and my head throbbed from lack of water and sleep and food that didn’t come out of a crinkly package. The bell rang again. And again. And again.

I screamed into a cushion in frustration, though it didn’t help anything. The noise wouldn’t go away. Finally, I stood up and walked over to the intercom, ready to chew out whoever it was who wanted to talk to me so badly.

For a brief moment, I entertained the thought that it could be Ryder, coming here to tell me it was all a mistake, that he was in love with me and took it all back. He’d be down there on the street, and it would be raining, and his hair would be all slicked to the sides of his face, and he’d be begging for forgiveness as I flew down the stairs and flung myself into his arms.

I punched the intercom button. “Hello?”

“Quinn, finally! Jesus, that took long enough.”

It was Jae-won.

My heart sank, and I berated myself for being even more of a fool. Ryder had told me it was over. Who was I to think a twenty-two-year-old was going to rush over here and declare his love for a nerd with a weird face who had to hire a fake boyfriend? It wasn’t even raining. It was a disgustingly golden April evening.

“What do you want?” I said into the intercom.

“For you to stop avoiding me. You haven’t returned any of my messages. You won’t answer my calls. And you flaked out on meeting up last night. I’m glad you’re not dead, but now that you’ve confirmed that, will you let me up so I can yell at you?”

“You flake on hanging out all the time,” I said, feeling tired and about a million years old. “Look, can we just…not? I don’t have the energy for this right now.”

“Then let me up, bro. Because I’m not going to stop ringing your bell until you do.”

I sighed. I wasn’t in the mood for a talk, but I really didn’t want to listen to my damn doorbell anymore, and Jae was a man of his word. So I buzzed him in, then unlocked my front door and walked to the bathroom. I took some aspirin and a big gulp of water, and when I came back to the living room, Jae had let himself in.

“Dude, we need to talk,” he said, giving me a level look.

I shuddered at the repeat of what Ryder had said. “Can’t we just sit here in silence and skip the lecture?”

I wandered over to the couch and sat back down, hugging a cushion to my chest. Jae didn’t sit. He stood in front of me, hands on his hips.

“You mean can I let you crawl back into your depression cave and pretend it’s normal for you to have five empty bags of chips and I don’t want to count how many empty bottles of Mountain Dew scattered around you? Doesn’t that shit lower your sperm count?”

“Doesn’t matter. I’ll be keeping my sperm to myself for the rest of time.”

“Okay, that? Right there? That’s the kind of shit I’m talking about. I’m worried about you, man. What’s up? What’s wrong?”

“I’m a hollowed-out husk of a person who’s too tired to explain it to you.”

He reached out and flicked my arm with his thumb and index finger. “Try again.”

“I’m an idiot who thought things might actually work out for a change, forgetting that I’m cursed to wither and die alone?”

That earned me another flick.

“Ow. That hurts.”

“Tell me what’s wrong without the melodramatic pronouncements, and maybe I’ll stop.”

I closed my eyes. Somehow it was easier to say it when I didn’t have to look at him.

“Ryder dumped me. We weren’t even together, but somehow, he still managed to dump me. And now everything sucks.” I looked back up at Jae-won. “You can tell me you told me so now.”

“I would, but there’s no fun in it when you look like this.” He sat down on the edge of my coffee table and gave me a small smile. “Come on, tell me what happened. I want all the details.”

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