Page 42 of Boyfriend of the Hour

I rolled my eyes. “Come on,Nathaniel. You saw what I have—or, you know,don’thave—down there. It’s a good investment.”

“An investment.”

“Yeah, an investment. You’re repeating yourself again. Why do you do that?”

He opened and closed his mouth several times before shoving his hand back through his hair. His other tell—one that seemed to be motivated more by aggravation than nerves. It made the curls bounce pleasantly and, for some reason, made him even more attractive.

“I do that when I’m trying to understand something difficult,” he said finally. “An investment in what?”

I sighed. “People—and by people, I mostly mean the ones with testicles—like to look while I serve them drinks. Bigger tits, bigger tips, or so I’ve been told. You follow?”

His brows were furrowed so hard they basically made one across his handsome forehead. “How much?”

“How much for what?” I replied, more than ready to leave. My knee was numb, and I was cold. I didn’t like the third degreefrom my own grandmother, and I sure as shit didn’t like it from a guy who thought rescuing me from a fall gave him the right to interrogate my life choices.

“How much more would you make with larger breasts?” Nathan’s full mouth twisted like he had eaten something sour. “Have you calculated a clear difference? How long would it take you to earn back the cost of the surgery? Is that number accounting for your other expenses?”

“I don’t know, all right! A while. Six months, probably. But it doesn’t matter because I need the extra money rightnow, and I wouldn’t have had to sell my life away to pay for the stupid surgery to begin with. It was a dead end, just like everything else.”

I turned my face toward Tom’s cluttered desk. Nathan didn’t need to know how horrible those questions made me feel.

“Why?”

It was so Nathan. Short and to the fucking point.

I swallowed. What did it matter if he knew the rest of it? No doubt he already thought I was pathetic. Just like everyone else.

“Because I’m basically homeless,” I finally admitted. “Five days ago, I had to move into the break room in my brother-in-law’s body shop until I can figure out something else.IfI can figure out something else.”

It was the first time I’d said it all out loud, just like that. And I’d never been more humiliated. Because it wasn’t like I was confessing to one of my dancer friends, people who also barely had their shit together and who could just as easily end up in a situation just like mine. Nathan was a doctor. He lived in a fancy building on the river. He was clearly someone who’d hadhisshit together for years, probably his whole life.

“What do you mean,if?”

I sighed. There it was. The disbelief. Or maybe the realization. Everyone who knew me went through one stage or the other.

Usually, I was a good mimic. I had five siblings to learn from, after all. I knew the expressions Matthew wore when he was figuring something out, or how Marie, the consummate wallflower, appeared when she was listening really hard. I’d heard Frankie jabber on about books enough that I could nod along when people mentioned titles that I knew. I could generally pretend to be competent in polite conversation, at least to the point where people didn’t generally know the truth.

But when anyone took the time to peek behind the curtain of my daily performances, they would always find the same thing.

Frenzy.

Chaos.

A complete and total mess.

I didn’t know why I hated more than anything for this doctor I hardly knew to discover what everyone else already had, but I did. I really did.

Two fingers slipped under my chin, forcing me to look up. But when I finally managed to drag my gaze back up to meet his, there were none of the emotions I had feared. He didn’t tell me I was an idiot or spoiled or that I needed to focus or grow up finally or any of the other things I’d been hearing for days and weeks and honestly my entire life. There was no pity. No disgust. Just open curiosity while he listened and then considered my story.

“I don’t believe the word isifyou find a solution to your problems,” Nathan said with his particular brand of steady, no-nonsense factuality. “It’s when. It’s how. I don’t know you well, but I believe in you.”

I blinked. And stared. And wondered how in thehellI’d never heard anyone say those things before to me, but the reality was, I hadn’t.

And so I did the only thing that made sense in my addled, confused brain.

I blinked at the handsome doctor who said I was perfect, who said I was worth believing in.

And I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him.