“It was just a thank you,” I mumble. “He was being nice, you know. He—he didn’t make me feel pathetic. And more importantly, he took the whole thing seriously. Even after I gave him a list about how to be a rich guy—even though he’s obviously super rich.”
“And?”
“And he smelled really good. Like cedar and old books. Which is a weird combination, but it so worked.”
Sage grins. “You’re screwed.”
“I’m not screwed. I’m going to a destination wedding with a professional fake boyfriend. That’s all.”
“A professional fake boyfriend you want to kiss for real.”
“I kissed his cheek.”
“This time.”
I drain my wine glass. Sage refills it without being asked.
“Okay,” she says. “Let’s game this out. Best case scenario: he’s exactly what he seems. Rich, handsome, albeit a little eccentric. You survive the wedding, Preston chokes on his own jealousy, you part ways with your dignity intact.”
“That’s the plan.”
“Worst case scenario?”
I think about the stillness. The slips. The way he looked at me like I was a puzzle he was trying to solve.
“He’s hiding something,” I say. “Something big. And I get in over my head.”
“And the secret third option?”
“What’s the secret third option?”
Sage smiles. “He’s hiding something, and you get in over your head, and you like it.”
“That’s not—”
“Four days in the Bahamas with a mysterious hot rich guy who looks at you like you’re interesting and makes you forget about your dirtbag ex?” She raises her glass. “Some people would call that a vacation.”
I don’t respond. Because she’s not wrong. Something about Julian makes me want to dig deeper, even though every instinct tells me I won’t like what I find.
“Tell me about the dinner,” Sage says. “The actual conversation. Not the weird stuff.”
I think about it. The backstory we built—the art gallery, the three questions, the answer he gave about being afraid of being forgotten. The way he leaned forward when I talked about my work, genuinely curious. The way he called what I do remarkable without a trace of condescension.
“He listened,” I say. “Really listened. Not the way Preston listened, where you could tell he was just waiting for his turn totalk. Julian asked questions and then actually cared about the answers.”
“What kind of questions?”
“About my content. How I build connection with my audience. He called it ‘parasocial relationships at scale’ and made it sound like a compliment.”
“Parasocial relationships at scale,” Sage repeats. “That’s... um, very specific phrasing.”
“I told you. He talks like he’s studied humanity from the outside.”
“Or like he went to business school.”
“Maybe.” I pick at the label on the wine bottle. “He also said money becomes scenery after a while. When you have enough of it. Like he was talking about decades, not years.”
“Rich people have a different sense of time.”
