The Free Rent Boyfriend

Are you finished?

Seb's voice cut across the whole table.

Ten seconds earlier, the one that got away had leaned into my face and laughed that his Instagram didn't have a single photo of me on it.

So I pulled out my phone. Opened the post he'd hidden from her. Held it up in front of her eyes.

That's when he broke.

Not one person in that room knew what he actually was to me. He was just the guy I picked to check something off a list.

And now it was time for the next thing on it.

Chapter 1

At my boyfriend's birthday party, his first love came at me in front of everyone.

"Josie, honey, how come there's not one picture of you on Seb's Instagram?"

She let that sit for a second.

"If a person didn't know better, they'd think he was single."

I gave her the sad little smile of a girl who loves a man who doesn't love her back.

"Maybe he just doesn't like me that much."

The table went quiet. One of Seb's friends jumped in to patch it.

"Come on. He's crazy about you. Couple weeks ago he was asking us what to get you for your birthday."

I blinked at him. "Really? My birthday was two days ago. He forgot."

Seb's jaw set. He put his glass down and it made more noise than he wanted it to.

"I got you something after. Didn't I?"

"And I've explained the Instagram thing. I've got all kinds of people on there. Strangers don't need to see my private life."

Serena tipped her head. "Weird. In high school he posted his girlfriend constantly."

"I was a kid," Seb said. "You grow out of that."

"Huh. And here I thought growing up just meant caring less."

Back and forth, sharp as knives. Nobody at that table was fighting.

Every person at that table had known all night, and every one of them let me sit there and eat my cake.

I'd have to be blind now to miss it. They'd dated.

He threw himself a birthday party and put the girlfriend who loved him at the same table as the ex who still did. Bold move.

Serena looked over at me.

"Josie, honey, if my boyfriend made excuses like that, it'd eat me alive. Why don't you call him on it?"

I smiled, sweet as pie. Then I opened his Instagram and turned the screen toward her.

"See? He did post a photo of us."

"Half the people at this table liked it. So he hid it from you."

"You're probably one of the girls he keeps on the hook."

Serena's mouth opened. Nothing came out of it.

Seb's chair scraped back an inch. "Josie. Are you done?"

"You don't have to yell at me. Everything I said was true." I widened my eyes for him.

I used to be out of my mind about Sebastian Ashcroft.

The first time I saw him, he was dropping his younger cousin off at my physics session. That face stopped me where I stood.

How does a guy my own age get to look like that?

Six foot two. Lashes for days. A nose so straight you could ski off it, and a way of smiling that made a hallway feel warm.

It wasn't like I hadn't seen men before. Fifty people in my college program and forty-seven of them were guys.

But put him in a plain white T-shirt next to my classmates in their plain white T-shirts, and my classmates looked like a row of potatoes.

The kid got the full interrogation. "What's your cousin's name? Send me his number. Any chance he drops you off again next week?"

"You're the third tutor who's asked me that."

"He's that involved with you? He's going to make a great dad someday."

The kid stared at his worksheet.

So that's how it started. I chased. He let himself be caught.

I still don't know why he said yes. He obviously didn't like me all that much.

Maybe he was bored. Maybe nobody had ever come at him that hard for that long. Or maybe he just didn't want to lose the tutor who'd finally dragged his cousin to a passing grade in physics.

Chapter 2

The day I kissed him, I decided the universe had been saving something good for me. I'd finally landed the lead role in every teen drama I watched growing up.

The day I slept with him, I swore that the second I had real money, I'd give a million dollars to kids who needed it.

Mom. The world loves me.

My family said he wasn't good to me. My friends said it louder.

So what?

An ordinary woman who wants a beautiful man pays for him somehow. Some pay in money. I paid by managing a grown man's moods like a part-time job.

I didn't have money to give him, so I paid in feelings. Seemed fair. My luck was running so hot that year, I kept waiting for the bill to come due some other way.

He never took a picture with me. Never let me post one of him.

My best friend heard I was dating someone and asked to meet him. He said no.

On Valentine's Day, everybody at the agency was angling to leave early. They all wanted to know my plans.

"Nothing. Go home, catch up on sleep."

"You have a boyfriend, don't you? Did you two fight?"

I didn't tell them I'd been looking forward to that night since November. Around me they were splitting dinner reservations and arguing about parking.

Four years of college on my own, watching other girls carry flowers across campus.

I'd booked the restaurant. I'd wrapped the gift. Then I asked him if he was free.

He said he didn't like holidays. Wasn't in the mood.

He said girls who need everything to be a big production wear him out, and could I please not do this again.

The gift stayed in my closet with the ribbon on it until I moved out.

Chicago summers come with storms. My mom used to pull up my forecast on her phone and call right when I got off work.

"Is he coming to get you?"

"No. I'll get a car."

"Doesn't he have a car?"

After that happened a few times, she stopped asking and started telling.

"This one's no good, Josie. He won't show up for you. That's the whole test and he fails it."

"I'm not building anything on him, Mom. I'm not marrying him. Relax."

"Once I've saved enough, I'm gone anyway. If a boyfriend treated me really well, I'd feel guilty about leaving. Seb doesn't like me that much. Makes it easy."

My best friend had her own version.

"I have never seen you make yourself this small for a person. What man is worth that?"

He was worth it. I'd have paid more.

And it wasn't only the face. He was extremely good at the rest of it, and he knew it.

People say one perfect night is worth a fortune. I got mine for free, over and over, and it was worth every penny I never spent.

A few sessions in, his cousin decided to level with me.

"My cousin's first love is named Serena Voss. She's coming back in September. You should watch out for her."

That surprised me enough to laugh.

"Thank you for the loyalty. You wouldn't even give me his number a month ago and now you're on my side?"

He looked at me the way you look at someone who keeps touching a hot stove.

"I'm watching you struggle out here! You checked your phone eighteen times in one break and he still didn't text back. You explain physics fine. How are you this bad at men?"

I propped my chin on my hand and made an excuse for him. Or for myself.

"He's gorgeous. Gorgeous people are busy."

The kid sat straight up, ready to fight the world.

"So he's hot. So what? You're not exactly nothing. You went to Caltech. You're the smartest person in this building. And you make money! Four hundred bucks an hour, one on one. Do you know what that adds up to in a month?"

Chapter 3

"You two work, you know? You're the brains, he's the face. My parents and I are rooting for you."

That got a real laugh out of me. "Thank you, thank you. Way too generous."

My savings account climbed all summer. Serena's flight home got closer at exactly the same speed.

Her flight landed in September. Every week the balance went up and September got closer.

I knew how this ended. Best-looking year of my life, with an expiration date printed on it from day one.

Seb's face had gone flat and cold.

"Josie, I don't know what your problem is lately."

"I didn't beg you for this relationship. If you want to be in it, be in it. If you don't, we can end it."

Everybody at that table expected me to fold. Apologize, smooth it over, talk him down. That was my job, and I'd always been good at it.

But I'd hit my number.

I dropped my head. The tears came easy, and my voice broke on his name.

"Seb. I liked you from the second I saw you."

"And I've always known you don't like me back the same way. I'm never going to beat the girl who came first."

"I'm done playing a game I can't win."

"Let's break up."

He froze.

Then he laughed. "Fine. Don't come crying about it later."

I picked up my bag, wiped my face, and walked out looking like a woman who'd just lost everything.

Nobody followed me out.

The rest of it got back to me later, in pieces.

The room stayed dead quiet for a while. Then somebody tried.

"Seb, man. Go after her."

"Go after what? She's the one throwing a fit."

"Serena made one joke. Did she have to come at everybody like that?"

"But"

"But Serena wasn't wrong!" Seb's voice came up over the table. "I'm not going to feel about anybody the way I felt at seventeen. That's just true. Why can't she hear one true thing? If Josie wants to be that thin-skinned, what am I supposed to do about it?"

Somebody else took a run at it. "She's crazy about you. Of course she got jealous, meeting your ex out of nowhere."

Seb's laugh had no warmth in it.

"She should think about who she's talking to. Do I like her that much? Does she have the standing to make a scene?"

Serena smiled into her drink.

"She's already regretting it," another friend said. "I'd bet money. She hit the sidewalk and started drafting her apology. Go get her, man. Don't let a fight sit overnight."

That's when Serena put her glass down.

"What is wrong with all of you? I'm the one who grew up with you. I'm sitting right here. Nobody's asked how I feel about any of this. What did she put in your drinks?"

The guy next to her didn't even look up.

"They're a couple having a fight. Josie's his girlfriend. You want us to talk him into dumping her for you? That's a garbage thing to do. My girlfriend would end me."

"Yeah, no."

Serena shut her mouth after that.

Seb sat there with all of it. Somewhere along the line, every friend he had started taking my side, and he'd never once seen it happen.

I can guess what he told himself. Something along the lines of: she worked them, she's been working them for a year, and she still doesn't understand that he never liked her that much.

I let myself into his place. Dot was waiting at the door.

She was a scruffy little mutt, soft everywhere, with bright eyes and a personality that lived to please people.

We'd picked her up hiking, back when things were good. The guy who ran the farm stay said his dog had a litter and we could take one if we wanted.

I said no on the spot.

I didn't own a place. I was leaving for grad school. What was I going to do with a puppy?

Chapter 4

My mouth said no. The rest of me played with that dog in the yard from breakfast until dark, and in the morning I was still crouched on the gravel, hanging onto her paws, not leaving.

"You sure you don't want her?" the guy asked.

"We'll take her," Seb said.

My hands went still on the dog's ears.

"You're sure?" I asked him. "You're ready to be responsible for her for the rest of her life?"

He gave me a look with half a smile in it. "You make it sound like a proposal."

"I mean I don't own a place in Chicago. If we break up, I can't keep her. Can you keep her? For good?"

He looked at me for a long moment. He didn't answer. Then he scooped up the puppy and got in the car.

I fed Dot and took her out for a walk.

While I packed, she wove circles around my feet.

I rubbed her ears and let myself feel it for a second.

"I'm sorry, baby. I have to go."

"You're your dad's kid at the end of the day. Your dad and I were a summer thing. You and I aren't technically related."

She wagged at me like she almost understood, then trotted a few more laps.

A minute later she came back from the living room with a ball in her mouth and dropped it on my shoe.

I didn't own much. It fit in one suitcase.

When the bag was zipped, I sat on the floor and played with her until she wore herself out. Then I used up every sheet of film left in the Polaroid on her face and scrubbed a hand over her head.

"Dot. I'm going now."

"You be a happy, healthy dog for the rest of your life, okay?"

I checked into a hotel, ordered an iced boba tea, and opened an old notebook.

The first page was written on my twentieth birthday.

100 THINGS TO DO BEFORE THIRTY

1. Work on a fusion research project

2. Get my PhD at MIT

3. Buy my parents a big house back home

4. Learn to surf

5. See the world

6. Date an absolutely unreasonably hot man

7. TBD, crossed out

7. Save $200,000, crossed out

7. Save $275,000

I'd ordered them by how hard I thought they'd be.

The first one came fast. Junior year I finished second in my class, got funding for a summer program in plasma physics in Switzerland, and came home with a letter from a name everyone in the field knows.

That year I could not be told anything. I had the whole map.

Number two was supposed to be next.

Then life happened, and the road I'd drawn for myself kept getting farther away.

Somehow the one I'd written down as impossible, number six, was the first one I crossed off.

Number seven came later. I rewrote it twice.

I was about four thousand dollars away.

Time to get back on the road.

I texted a guy who did his physics degree at Caltech and teaches at MIT now