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9: Pay back the Twin Bridges Scholarship.
This had been a recent addition. They had given me the money to attend Columbia—tuition, books, room and board—all because I’d written an essay on what I hoped to accomplish with my education. Without the scholarship, I never could have gone to Columbia, and I might have even stopped after high school. They saw potential in me that, at the time, even I wasn’t sure I had, and had allowed me the chance to complete one of my early goals in life. I’d recently decided paying back the scholarship would be a way to pay it forward and allow another deserving person to achieve their potential.
4: Graduate from a four-year college.
I’d been the first in my family to achieve that milestone, and all on my own.
Here I was, scratching off what I’d thought was my hardest goal, and I all I had to celebrate was boxed wine. Maybe tomorrow I’d splurge on one of those four-packs of individual champagne bottles.
One goal, two lines above number eight in my little book, was an ongoing one that I’d never complete, but I didn’t mind.
6: Tell Rachel every week that I love her.
I’d added that goal after visiting in her in the cancer ward when we thought we might lose her. She was asleep, and it mortified me to realize my sister might die without knowing how much I loved her. My dad had felt terrible that he’d canceled our health insurance to save a few dollars, and forgiving him had been the hardest decision of my life.
He’d leveraged everything to make the Evergreen project happen, and in the end, his gamble had cost us everything—almost Rachel as well. The experience had lead to my seventh goal. It had gone into my book even before we got Rachel’s diagnosis.
5: Get a CPA
The way I figured, if Dad had gotten competent financial advice, we wouldn’t have faced bankruptcy. No self-respecting CPA would have let Dad cancel the insurance either. Brooklyn, and our neighborhood in particular, needed a CPA people could trust.
Finishing my glass, I got up and added some more from the fridge. After slumping into the couch again, I considered calling Chelsea, but decided against it.
We had our normal Saturday morning brunch with Gwen scheduled tomorrow, and I wanted to surprise them with the news. But maybe a short text would be the respectful thing to do, so she didn’t worry. I reached for my battered phone again.
ME: Dinner went well. Got a commitment for a cash gift - more tomorrow.
Sipping the wine more slowly now, I pondered the other side of what had happened tonight, the trade-off that allowed me to achieve my goal.
I was now Evan McAllister’s girlfriend—scratch that,fakegirlfriend. I didn’t like putting it either way. Both made it sound like I belonged to him, and I was not a woman to be owned by any man.
Thefakepart of my new title was the most important part. It was easy enough to convince myself I’d been forced and had only done it to scratch this goal off my list. But now I realized I might actually be looking forward to this. A fake girlfriend could get away with things a real girlfriend wouldn’t attempt.
I sipped more wine for inspiration and decided to mess with Evan one more time.
ME: Thinking of you. I hope it’s not hard getting to sleep.
I powered down so I wouldn’t see if he responded to start a texting duel.
After getting in bed, I tossed and turned, unable to get my situation out of my head. Everything was backwards. For money, which wouldn’t belong to me, I’d agreed to be a fake girlfriend who wouldn’t have sex with the man, and also wouldn’t date anyone else. So, I was getting fake paid to be fake promiscuous but required to be celibate.
Worse than that, when I thought of how Evan had looked tonight, and how he’d been concerned for my safety, I couldn’t deny I felt a certain tingle. I pulled Thor out of my nightstand drawer. At least my mechanical boyfriend was real. And he didn’t ask anything in return.
I flipped the switch and nothing happened—he was still broken.
* * *
Evan
I laidin bed after getting home. With images of Alexa running through my head, sleep had been impossible for the last hour.
I gave in, slipped my hand south, and grabbed my achingly hard cock. Instead of morning wood, I had evening wood as I wondered why I hadn’t at least walked her to her door this evening. It wouldn’t have been hard to lean in and maybe… No. A kiss would not have been on the agenda. No way.
Her clothes tonight hadn’t been very sexy, but as I stroked, my imagination did the heavy lifting regarding what lay beneath them.
I came in record time, and panting, I cleaned up with tissue from the nightstand. She might hate me, but my dick didn’t understand anything except how alluring I found her. My little brain was simple that way, and I wasn’t going to be able to argue with it.
After my agreement with Charlie that I wouldn’t date, I would have to get used to this way of relieving my tension for the foreseeable future. It wasn’t as satisfying as having Alexa as a real girlfriend would be, but that wasn’t happening. Her hatred ran deep.
