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“He looks thirty.”

She rolls her eyes. “Age doesn’t matter. You’ve got to ask the questions that I do. Like, is he rich? Does he have rich friends? Does he have a yacht? Does he know where his yacht is? You want a guy who doesn’t know where his yacht is.”

I swipe on her phone. “He says he’s just a laid-back guy trying to figure out his relationship style.”

“Gross.”

“Agreed.”

Tempest and I are looking for our future husbands. This is very serious business.

“We have to pick two who will get along so they can be friends and we can hang out together,” she says.

“Definitely,” I agree.

Tempest and I have agreed to be inseparable. We are going to get married six months apart and get pregnant together. We’re going to have houses in the same neighborhood at least, ideally next door. Our kids are going to grow up together. We have our whole lives planned out. We just need a couple of guys who don’t know it yet.

“There’s nobody here,” she says, pouting while her app shows five hundred likes. Tempest doesn’t need an app to meet anyone, and thanks to her, neither do I, really. She’s one of the most eligible bachelorettes in the city. Still, it’s fun to look through the menu sometimes. I like to help my super rich friend experience some of what it means to be a normal girl, and she likes to help me survive sometimes. It’s a great fucking deal for a girl who came from modest means.

The car sweeps up into the hills, navigating tight winding roads until we come to a big driveway guarded by a massive gate and a security guard who takes one look at the license plate and waves us through.

We are going to one of the biggest, fanciest houses I have ever seen, but I know Tempest considers it no more than a comfortable city bungalow.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you! You have to meet my dad’s best friend.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s looking for an intern, and you need money to pay off those fines.”

“Oh, my god, the fines,” I giggle. “There’s so many of them.”

I have five thousand dollars in parking and…other… fines from school, and they’re holding my degree in forfeit until I pay them.Seems unfair to me. I pay all my tuition with loans that I’m going to be paying for the rest of my life if the plan to land a rich husband doesn’t pan out, and then I have a few arguably not-even-my-fault damages from skirmishes with the Greek societies. So here we are.

Tempest is very rich, which is why she’s named Tempest. They have old money. The kind of money that stays no matter what you do. I once watched her spend the daily GDP of a small nation on handbags, hair, and hostilities with her ex-boyfriend.

I’m still not sure why she picked me to be her friend first day of college, at orientation. She’s a bombshell, an absolute whirlwind. I suppose the two of us make quite a team.

She got the same fines I did, and worse, but she paid them off with her spare change. She offered to pay mine too, but I’ve always refused to take money directly from her. I think that’s why we’ve stayed friends.

I will, however, come and stay at her home in the hills, which overlooks the entire city and has a massive pool and every other luxury you could possibly imagine being in a house, including an actual butler who will bring you whatever food you want.

“I think he’s here today,” she says. “Mr. Ornix. He’s hardly ever in town, but Daddy gets so excited when he is. It’s like Christmas for old rich guys.”

Tempest’s fourth stepmom, who is a sophomore in college, waves at us on her way out. She’s driving a hot pink convertible that matches her outfit. I wish I could say she matched the outfit to the car, but I know there are several cars she can pick from to match whatever she wants. Her hair. Her shoes. Her mood.

We go into the house, Tempest chatting away about her younger stepmom’s exploits while I mentally plan the quickest smooth way to see what they have in the refrigerator. The food that passes for leftovers here would grace a five-star restaurant table. They have a private chef, of course. Every bit of labor that can be outsourced has been.

“He’ll be in the business wing, I bet,” she says, shifting conversational gear without skipping a beat. “Mr. Ornix! Are you here?”

“Here.”

The word emanates from somewhere deep in the house, more like a deep bell tolling than a voice. I put it down to the echoes of the massive house that probably makes everyone sound like a monk performing in an old monastery.

Tempest leads me into the man’s presence before I’ve had a chance to make myself look presentable professionally. Our plan was to hang out by the pool, so I’m wearing a blue bikini top and a wraparound skirt with kitten heels. My hair is down and straightened, which means I won’t be getting in the water today.

“I would have brought a blazer if I was going to have some kind of business introduction,” I whisper to her.

“Don’t worry about it,” she giggles. “This will be so much more effective anyway, and you know it.”