“So, when you say almost naked… how almost naked are we talking about?” Jane asks. She’s sitting on her bed while I’m sitting at my desk on my laptop.
“Almost everything,” I say. “I saw his ass.”
“And?”
“He looked like he was carved out of marble. Broad shoulders, bulging muscles, and abs for days. He has so many abs I’m convinced even his dick has abs.”
Jane laughs.
“Seriously,” I say. “He was perfect. Guys like that don’t exist.”
“Sometimes they do. It’s a good thing I wasn’t there,” she says. “I would’ve jumped that.”
“Trust me, I almost did.” I sigh. “Why can’t I stop thinking about him?”
“Because he’s hot.”
That’s an understatement, I think to myself. And he was kind of flirting with me, I think? Even though he kinda-sorta rejected me? I’m still so confused but I keep it to myself. There’s no need to get Jane riled up and have her convince me to become another notch on his bedpost. Besides, a professional athlete like Logan Drake wouldn’t date a nerd like me for very long. He never dates anyone for very long.
“Remind me to interview him next week,” Jane says. “I want to see these dick-abs in person.”
A pang of jealousy shoots through my belly. “What about your boyfriend?”
“Fake boyfriend. As long as I’m discreet, he doesn’t care.”
“Right… Just watch out with Logan.”
“Why?”
“Well, for one, I think he hates the school’s journalism team now.”
“Great. Well, there goes that option.”
“And… well, just listen to the files I sent you. He’s not the most accommodating interviewee. There’s like one and a half sentences of content, if that.” I think back to the painful interview and cringe.
“That’s fine,” Jane says. “I did a whole report on two words once.”
“Did you really?”
“They don’t call me Janey Journalism for nothing.”
There’s a knock on the door.
She furrows her brow. “Expecting anyone?”
“No.” I answer the door. A lanky guy with patches of facial hair stands in front of me. “Oh… it’s you.”
“Who is it?” Jane calls out.
“Keith,” I say.
“Ugh.”
Keith leans his lanky body into our room, peeking inside.
“Damn, I was hoping you’d both be naked. There go my fantasies!”
Jane and I exchange an annoyed look.
“Hi Keith,” we both say in bored voices. I sigh. “What do you want, Keith?”
“I want you, baby.” His gaze lands on me. A sick feeling turns in my stomach.
“Ugh.” I close the door but he puts his foot out, blocking my attempt to close it.
“Actually…” He sticks his head into our dorm. “Jane, did you finish your blog for media class?”
“Yeah, I finished yesterday.”
“Can I look at it?” He asks.
“Seriously?” Jane raises her brow. “You’re just going to steal my ideas? No thanks.”
“Do you want the answers for next week’s quiz?”
Jane’s eyes grow wide. “You have those?”
“In exchange for a peek at your blog.”
“Absolutely not! Do your own work.”
He rolls his eyes. “Fine. I’ll go bug someone else then.”
“Please do!”
I try to close the door again but his foot is still in the way.
“But seriously,” he says, “I have the whole night off and I’m looking for someone to Netflix and Chill with. Mostly chill, if you catch my drift.”
“No!” I try to close the door again.
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a string of condoms. “I’ve got twenty of these bad boys and I’m ready to use them.”
“Ew—” Jane squeals.
“Can you please leave?” I push him out into the hallway and join him out there, closing the door behind me so that Jane can’t hear. “Can you stop bugging me?”
“I thought we had something good going on.”
“No, we don’t. We discussed it, remember? What we did was a one-time thing.”
“Well, if we’re not gonna do it again then maybe I should tell everyone what we did.” He gives me a smarmy smile.
“What?” I wrinkle my nose in disgust. “Okay, well, if you do that, then I’ll tell everyone it only lasted six seconds.”
His eyes grow wide. “You wouldn’t!”
“I really would though.”
“But then you’d admit to everyone that we did it, that you like me.” He smirks again.
“Not because I liked you, but because you were…”
He raises his eyebrows and smirks. “Sexy?”
“Easy,” I blurt out.
“Oh.” He seems hurt for all of two seconds before shrugging it off and leaning in. “Well, if you want something easy tonight—”
I put my hand up. “That won’t be happening. I don’t owe you anything and you don’t owe me anything. This is over, okay? Go be easy with someone else.”
He rolls his eyes. “Whatever. You’re not even that hot anyway.” He pulls away.
“You didn’t think that ten seconds ago,” I call out as he walks away. He disappears around the corner and I shake my head. Why did I ever let myself sleep with that guy? Because I don’t date, I remind myself. A girl’s gotta get off somehow, right? Swallowing back the regret, I go back into my dorm room.
“What was that about?” Jane asks.
“Nothing, just telling him to leave us alone.”
“Good. What a creep.”
“Yeah,” I mumble. I sit at my desk and continue with my homework.
“I gotta go.” Jane jumps off her bed and grabs her purse. “Manhattalyn and I are going to have coffee together.”
“Manhattalyn?” I hold my tongue.
“Brooklyn’s sister.”
“Err… right.”
“See you later tonight?” Jane checks her hair in the mirror.
“I’ll be right here, working away as usual.” I look at the tower of homework.
“You’ve gotta get out more, girl.”
“Don’t I know it,” I mumble.
She disappears and I work until the sun starts to set. When I finally take a break, I pull my phone out to browse the internet for a bit. When my home screen flashes on, I see the Green Light app. I open it again and stare at the profile that I started filling out the previous day.
It’d be absolutely insane to make someone pay to go on a date with me. But on the other hand, if what Jane says is true, I’d only have to go on a handful of dates to pay off my entire student loan debt. Besides, my fake date can’t be worse than Keith, right?
I’d be crazy to…
My finger lingers over the ‘edit profile’ button.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Clicking the button, I fill out the rest of my profile and select my preferences. Willing to travel? I select the Seattle area only. PDA? I look up the acronym—public displays of affection. I set that preference to ‘mild’, which includes hand-holding and public hugs. Price range? Now, this is a weird one. I’ve never had to put a price on myself before. Considering for a moment, I set the price unreasonably high, hoping that the exorbitant amount will make this all worth it.
Biting my lip as I stare at the bright green ‘ACCEPT’ button, I think about what I’m about to do.
I can’t believe I’m considering this.
I can still back out… But I see the dollar signs shining bright, dancing naked in front of my eyes, taunting me. This is the only way I’ll pay off all that debt.
Just one night, I tell myself. I can do this for one night and I’ll have ten grand to put toward my student debt. That’s a huge chunk of money. After that, I can cancel the app and I’ll focus on graduating and applying for jobs to pay off the rest of my debt. Taking a huge breath, I push ‘ACCEPT’. As I stare at the screen, I feel my heart racing in my chest.
Low-key freaking out, I throw my phone onto my bed and rub my face.
“What the fuck did I just do?”
Panicking, I spring across the room and grab my phone but before I have a chance to push ‘CANCEL’, a notification pops up saying I’ve been matched for Saturday night.
