Page 91 of Modern Romance September 2026 Books 5-8

“I was never enough of a motivation for them. So I became enough of one for myself. I didn’t want to live that way. I didn’t want to be hopeless. That is your biggest enemy. The lack of hope. If you don’t think you can change things, then you simply won’t, and in my opinion the entire system is set up to make you feel that way. Oh, they don’t want people to be like my parents, wasting away in their addiction, but I do believe that they want people to feel disempowered. So that they’ll continue to work jobs that eat at their souls, continue to prop up the economy.”

“Are you a socialist?”

I shake my head. “I’m actively working to participate in capitalism, so I don’t suppose. But I also recognize where the system fails people. Anyway, that’s on a good day. On a bad day I just think they’re selfish and lazy, and they gave in to that selfishness, that laziness, rather than raise me. And I hate them for it.”

“Is today a good day or a bad day?”

“It’s a good day. But that’s mainly because I’ve been lounging by the pool in paradise reading a romance novel, and I find that has put me in a better mood than usual.”

I feel something heavy settle over my shoulders. This isn’t reality. And I have to remember that.

This isn’t my life.

This is just a detour. Just a pit stop until I get back to my regular life. Until I get back to the struggle of trying to make something out of very little.

“Do you have even one good memory of your childhood?”

I don’t know why I ask him that. I don’t wait for him to respond.

“I do,” I say. “It’s getting up early on Saturday morning and watching cartoons. With the house dark and quiet, and no one bothering me. My parents always slept in really late. So it was like this sacred time. Sometimes we had cereal, and I would make myself a bowl, and sit there, watching just silly things. But I think I like the commercials best.”

“Commercials?”

“Yes. Because they were like little blips in two different worlds. Different lives. People with two-story houses that had these large lawns. People who were glamorous, people who were regular, kids with lots of toys, and grocery stores filled with food. It was just a look at all these normal things that everybody takes for granted. I couldn’t buy any of them. But it was like window shopping on my living room floor. It gave me things to think about. Things to hope for. To idolize and aspire to. Like I said, everybody needs hope. And if I got some of mine from seeing an athlete on a cereal commercial, then… I don’t know, it worked for me.”

It’s sobering, maybe, that my nicest memory is me by myself. Imagining, dreaming. Being given all the space to imagine what I could be if I could just get away.

“My favorite ones were the Christmas commercials,” I say. “Toys and different houses all decorated. Happy families sitting around tables full of food. We never did Christmas.”

“Neither did we,” he says.

“I didn’t want to either. Not with my parents. Because I knew they would only ruin it. Is that terrible? I knew it wouldn’t be like it was in those ads. Or like it was in a cartoon Christmas special. Because they weren’t those parents. They just never could be.”

“I never thought about it. But yes, I suppose you’re right. A Merry Christmas would never have been possible with my father.”

He laughs then, and the sound is strange. Deep and rusty. Like something unused, and I cling to it. I’ve forgotten my own game. I’ve forgotten the reason that I started talking to him in the first place.

I just want to talk to him. The sun is sinking low in the sky, and the golden light is exceptionally flattering on his beautiful face. I notice that the tattoo on the right side of his neck is a snake. Slithering down beneath his shirt collar.

“What is that?” I ask.

“What?”

I lean in, and without thinking, I touch his neck, right on the black scales. The contact jolts through my body like electricity. And I draw away.

“Sorry. I… It’s a really interesting tattoo.”

“You probably don’t want to know the meaning behind them.”

“I’m curious.”

“The snake is a reminder. A reminder not to trust anyone. Not too dearly.”

“Oh.”

“Anyone can betray you. It’s a good reminder.”

“You have a loyal band of men.”