Rent a Boyfriend

by Gloria Chao

  “Drew, you are so smart.”

  And the tears spilled over. How had she known that was my biggest hang-up?

  “You know why you’re such a good operative?” she asked.

  “Because of the training?”

  She tilted her head and peered at me. “You think Hongbo could get enough training to make him even a smidge like you?” I laughed. “You’re a great operative because of how empathetic you are, naturally, and because you’re so damn quick. Your brain is constantly working faster than others, and you notice things and process them and sort through so much data”—she had no idea just how much data—“before others have even blinked.”

  I didn’t know how to tell her what her words meant to me.

  “And before you say they taught you those skills,” she continued, “you can’t train something like that. Drew… you’re so damn smart.” Her eyes bored into mine, willing me to see what she saw.

  “I dropped out of college,” I told her, finally revealing the weight that was perpetually dragging me down. Even though my application was printed out and waiting for her on the other side of the roof, I couldn’t hold it in anymore. And this was better, it coming directly from me, out loud, even though saying the words hurt like a fresh wound.

  “Really?” Her expression wasn’t my worst nightmare, but it wasn’t comforting, either. She looked… shocked but not shocked. And confused.

  Fuck.

  “Does it matter?” I asked, more harshly than I meant (or maybe not—maybe I meant it).

  “No! I mean, yes! I mean…” She trailed off.

  I waited with a semblance of patience (somehow), while my insides twisted and maybe even died a little.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I don’t want to say the wrong thing.”

  This was a Huge Fucking Deal in my own head, but she wasn’t supposed to think so too. She was supposed to assure me it didn’t matter. That society got it wrong, not me. That she despised how her parents and community equated education with human worth.

  She wasn’t supposed to be choosing her words carefully and needing extra time to process the information like I’d just told her I hated puppies.

  Chloe

  I had kind of assumed he was in school for art and doing Rent for Your ’Rents on the side to support himself, especially with his parents out of the picture. But I had also been acutely aware that he hadn’t offered that information readily, and what that implied.

  I felt shock. Confusion. And so much shame.

  Because it did surprise me. It caught me off guard and I didn’t know how to react. My whole life, I had run from my community’s ideals, but apparently I hadn’t run fast enough and they had already sunk their toxic claws into me.

  I took a breath. “I’m sorry. I’m just surprised because I meant it—you’re so smart.”

  He frowned. “Not all smart people get degrees, and not all people with degrees are smart, as hard as that might be for you and your community to accept.”

  I couldn’t let Drew know what was going on in my head. The value I’d assigned to college education was ingrained in me, not how I wanted to feel. Not how I truly felt, deep down. Right?

  I refused to drag him into this shit. My shit.

  “I’m just sad that it might’ve been something you wanted but weren’t given the opportunity,” I said carefully. Truthfully.

  He sighed. “At the time I wanted it because it felt like… like I would be dooming my future if I didn’t, because that’s what society tells us. But then we didn’t have the money and I was scared of all the loans that would accrue, and given that there was something else I loved and wanted to do more…”

  “Did you want to go to art school?”

  A shadow crossed his face. “Why, because everyone needs higher education?”

  I mentally kicked myself. Hard. Why did I keep making things worse? He was trying to show me who he really was, trying to take a huge step and share his work with me like I’d asked, and I was turning it into a minefield.

  “No, of course not. I’m sorry,” I said, because that was safest.

  He squeezed his eyes shut briefly. When he opened them, his face relaxed a hair, and he answered my previous question. “Art school had crossed my mind, but I never considered it seriously. I didn’t have the time or resources. My parents kicked me out, and my greatest concern was figuring out how to feed myself and get a roof over my head.”

  I thought about telling him he could dream, and if he wanted to have those art opportunities, he should, but it would also sound like I was telling him he needed more education.

  I was stuck between a shítóu and a hard place.

  So I focused on the reason we were here: the amazing step he was about to take if he was still willing.

  “I am in awe of you, Drew Chan,” I said. Then I tilted my head in the direction of the nearest towel-covered chair. “Do you still want to?”

  I held my hand out, palm up.

  Drew CHAPTER 42

  CHÁNG’É

  I took her hand. And told myself to put that conversation behind us. She had reacted… okay… and, well, okay.

  Part of me wanted to wait to show her my work because this moment felt tainted now, but I also didn’t know if I’d be able to do it later. The confidence I’d felt earlier when I’d texted Marshall seemed like a dream. One I might never have again.

  But she was already leading me to the first painting. My palm pooled with so much sweat I worried she’d slip out.

  “Here we have a light blue terry cloth, much too old and probably should’ve been thrown out years ago,” I joked, gesturing to the embarrassing towel covering the first painting. I wiped my sweaty hands on it because, why not try to own the nervousness? And then I whipped it off with a flourish (Type C.2–style) to reveal a full moon in hues of blue, purple, and red, partly hidden behind dark clouds but managing to shine through even at the covered parts. Tree branches peeked out from the bottom, reaching for the light at first but then withering and giving up.

  She gasped. I may have breathed a sigh of relief. And maybe melted a little.

  Marshall had affixed the paper to the chair back with putty. It was the first time I’d ever seen my paintings purposefully displayed, and this less-than-classy presentation on a splintering chair felt very me. Raw, down-to-earth, and a little broken.

  Chloe was staring intently, her head flitting around with sharp hummingbird movements to take in all the details. Her smile grew so wide I could see most of her beautiful, very white teeth (which was my favorite smile of hers).

  Because I’m me, I jabbered to fill the silence. (Why couldn’t I just let her xīnshǎng in peace?) “So, have you ever written or painted with máobǐ?”

  “In Chinese school,” she answered. I could tell from her expression that she hated it—the máobǐ, not my painting (phew).

  “Well, I use máobǐ and rice paper. At first it was because my parents had it lying around, but then I got really attached to the combination, especially after I started playing with the paper to get different textures.” I pointed to the painting in a spot where it was especially three-dimensional. “I want the moon to feel completely present, to be the focal point even though it’s not the largest object on the page, you know? So I scrape, fold, and crinkle the paper until it creates—”

  “Magic,” Chloe finished with a whisper.

  She pulled her phone out and shined the flashlight directly on the moon for a better view. Then she examined every fiber of that paper (it felt like), murmuring here, whispering “oh” and “wow” there, and almost seeming to forget I was present.

  I felt like I was about to soar up into the sky like Cháng’é.

  Chloe looked from the moon to me. “Did you actually used to go moon-gazing with your mother? Or was that just part of your cover story?”

  My heart skipped a beat. Not only had she remembered that detail from Thanksgiving, but… that was exactly why I painted moons.

  I held
it together and said, “No, that was real.” A thousand percent, knife-to-the-heart real. I glanced at my painting and the spindly, lonely branches reaching for the moon. “My mom used to take me for a walk every evening when I was little. She’d give me a red-bean Popsicle, we’d circle the neighborhood waving to everyone, and then we’d sit on the lawn atop a ratty blanket, watching the moon come up as the last of my Popsicle turned my hands and the blanket sticky.”

  There were too many emotions starting to bubble up (ones I’d bottled for a reason), and I didn’t want to face them right now. I couldn’t. So I went to the next chair and pulled off the towel (with less of a flourish than last time).

  “Spoiler: they’re all moons,” I told her.

  As Chloe xīnshǎng-ed with all her admiration displayed on her face, I hovered in the background (stealthily, if I do say so myself) while remaining on high alert so I wouldn’t miss a single sound or extra pause.

  Chloe

  He was hovering behind me like an awkward, adorable weirdo.

  I took my time with each painting, not because he seemed to need me to, but because they really were that breathtaking. I wanted to know each brushstroke and paper crease, and as I stared into the beauty, I tried to imagine him creating these masterpieces. What did he think about? How did he know what to do next?

  In my economics classes, there was right and wrong, a definitive solution and an objective path. Clear-cut steps. But with this, while there were obviously better paths than others—my moons would come out looking like blocks of cheese—I couldn’t wrap my head around the creative subjectivity of it.

  “I’d love to watch you work,” I said quietly, when actually I meant, I wish I could see into your mind.

  He blushed. “You’re just being kind.”

  I shook my head. “No, I want to see these come to life before me. I can’t believe you start with blank space and turn it into this. Art.”

  His face shone brighter than his moons.

  I tried to find a way to convey how blown away I was. To be honest, I’d never really understood art before, but I had also never truly looked.

  “They make me feel hopeful,” I realized. “They remind me that there’s beauty and greatness out there, even in the darkness, and that I need to look for it.” I turned from the painting to him. “I feel like I finally see what you see.” It was that same perspective that had helped him follow his dream, helped him show his parents who he was. Maybe if I looked at his creations long enough, I could be transported there too.

  So I continued to the next past-its-prime towel. And I sucked in a breath when I saw what lay beneath. “It’s Moon Rabbit,” I whispered as my eyes traced the outline of a rabbit pounding a mortar with a pestle to make the elixir of life for Cháng’é. Just like in real life, Moon Rabbit’s shape was made up by the peaks and valleys of the moon’s surface. I looked up at him. “You really do let Chinese culture influence your work.”

  “I’ve always seen the rabbit in the moon ever since my mother told me the story when I was a child.” He pointed to a woman’s silhouette beside the rabbit, partly ensconced in clouds but clear once I focused on that portion of the painting. Her hair was half up in two tall loops and half flowing behind her back. I could almost see the wind rippling through the ribbons on her dress.

  “Cháng’é,” I said, then reached into my pocket and clutched the drawing I’d done of Cháng’é the sheep and Mr. Twinkie. With a grin I told him, “I named the sheep with antigravity boots Cháng’é.”

  He stared at me with wide eyes, then walked over to the last painting. With a flick of the wrist, he pulled the towel off.

  I gasped. Very loudly. I was lucky I didn’t swallow a bug. I looked from one Cháng’é to the next, the latter being a sheep dressed as a mooncake with antigravity boots, floating past a gorgeous, textured moon. A short laugh escaped my lips. “It’s perfect.”

  The fact that we’d drawn the same thing for each other was adorable, unsurprising, and a reminder that we were indeed starting from square 5.2 as he’d said yesterday.

  I sheepishly—pun intended—handed him my drawing. “Yours is much better than mine.”

  Instead of laughing like I thought he would, he smiled. “I can’t believe you thought to do this. You have to sign it for me.”

  I glanced at the bottom right corner of his nearest painting and saw that he had signed it in both English and Mandarin, the latter hand-drawn but resembling a printed name seal with its square outline, crisp Chinese characters, and red ink.

  Before, I would have just signed Chloe Wang, but I did both, just to try it on. And when I formed each sun character in my Chinese name, I couldn’t help thinking how fitting it was that I was three suns and he painted moons.

  He held my horrible drawing to his heart, and I was maximally embarrassed—why had I shown that to him? Especially after I’d seen what he was capable of?

  He gestured to his sheep Cháng’é. “I painted it for you,” he said shyly.

  I had given him Frankensheep and he was shy to give me this work of art he’d created specifically for me?

  I didn’t know what to say. None of my words felt enough. “This is the most beautiful and personal present I’ve ever received. I’m going to cherish this.” I wanted to hug sheep Cháng’é to my chest, but obviously I couldn’t without crumpling her.

  “Drew,” I said, then paused, because I needed him to know that I truly and completely meant these next words. “I believe that one day the world will thank you for the sacrifice you made to paint these.”

  He looked away, then back at me, blinking quickly. I reached a hand up and caught the tear that had escaped.

  “I’m—I’m speechless,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. He closed the distance between us, stopping when our faces were inches apart.

  My stomach was somersaulting—or was it filling with butterflies? Or just struggling to digest all that hot pot? No, definitely a romantic thing. I felt a… hunger for him.

  “Thank you for sharing your work with me,” I said, hoping he knew I was trying to acknowledge the huge step he’d taken without making it too big of a deal. “And thank you for my very own original Drew Chan. You’re quite the charmer, you know that? I’m glad there isn’t a Rent for You company, or else you’d be out there using this charm to woo girls, not their parents.”

  He leaned down and touched his forehead to mine. “My charm is very specifically catered to you, I think.”

  “That it is,” I murmured.

  We kissed—soft, slow, and sweet as pure honey. The inner hunger grew. He tasted a little like the gum he’d chewed after dinner, but more like him—this indescribable sweetness enhanced by his pheromones. His mouth gently pressed against mine, and then his tongue parted my lips and caressed me with just enough pressure to ignite all my nerve endings. His movements were soft and slow, tender, but I needed more and dove in, throwing self-consciousness to the wind and following my heart for once. I couldn’t kiss him hard enough, inhale him enough, or taste him enough.

  I stopped thinking about what I looked like or whether I was doing anything that could be considered weird and just sank into the moment. And when I say sank, I mean the opposite, because as I kissed him, my left leg wrapped around his side, and then he grasped my thighs, and before I knew it, I was in the air, straddling him, pushing my body against his with so much fervor I had no idea how he didn’t fall over.

  Then he did stumble, and we chuckled as we tumbled forward, but he caught me in his arms.

  Everything felt so easy and safe that my brain somehow turned off, finally not worrying about what my parents were doing in that moment, how I was going to untangle this web, what was wrong with my father. Because all that could wait. Like I said earlier, this was my night off, and right now, I deserved to be happy.

  Chloe CHAPTER 43

  ANSWERS

  We kissed in every nook and cranny—against surfaces, on the floor, in an extra chair that held no paint
ing. After an hour or two—I lost track of time—we came up for air. I didn’t know about Drew, but I’d worked off enough lamb and fish balls to make room for whatever literal dessert was coming.

  Drew led me to a table on the far side of the roof with lit candles, slices of chocolate cake, and a pile of papers, which he gestured to first.

  “Earlier, when you said you wished I had an application you could just read…” He picked up the stack. “Well, your wish is my command.”

  “What?” It took my brain a second to register what he’d just said. “How?”

  “This… is my application. To be an operative.” He handed me the packet, then tugged on his shirt collar. “I want you to have it. So we can be on square fifty together.”

  Oh my God. I didn’t have any words for a second.

  “We didn’t exactly have a meet-cute—” I started.

  “Meet-purpose?” he suggested.

  “More like a meet-weird.”

  We laughed.

  “But this?” I placed an appreciative hand on the papers. “This takes the mooncake.”

  His shoulders relaxed and he grinned so wide I could see his first molars. He helped me with my folding chair—and good thing, because his application already had my full attention, and without him, my butt might have ended up missing the seat.

  I skimmed, reading too fast because it all felt so urgent and overdue, but then I missed so much I had to go back and reread anyway.

  “Your answers are, like, a sixth of the length of mine,” I teased, sneaking a bite of chocolate cake. Yum. Thick and dark, the way I preferred my chocolate. Just as I’d told him in my application.

  He poured hot water from a travel thermos into my teacup, which was already loaded with a teabag. When the steam curls reached my nose and I smelled the familiar aroma of jasmine and oolong, I let out an embarrassing noise resembling aww.

  He beamed. “All your favorites.”

  I’d soon have that power too. Maybe not for his favorite kind of tea and dessert—I doubted Rent for Your ’Rents cared about those details—but I’d know other, more important facts. And the more surface-level ones, I could ask.