I Had to Simp for Him for 1,095 Days—So I Started Slacking

The System gave me exactly one job: simp for the male lead. The female lead doesn't show up for three years.

Which means three years, no days off, and points docked every day I skip. Today I decided to start slacking. I missed one day. One.

He was messaging me before noon, wanting to know where I was. Me: [Wage slaves get Monday to Friday. I take one day off and the world ends?] Him: [That's an absence.

I write names down.] Help. Since when does the villainess have to pass calculus? Worse. I called him a smug bastard. In my head. I never said it out loud.

He didn't even look up. "You done? Class is starting." Chapter 1 I dragged myself out of bed, grabbed my textbook, and speedwalked to class. The System hired me to simp.

Nobody said anything about homework. System: [Host, today's checkin points have not posted.] Me: [Shove the points.

Let me survive this class first.] Up front, Julian Langford's hand stopped on the page. Half a second. Then he looked up, straight at me.

In my last life I failed a class because of math. Now here I was, doing math again. Math and I have unfinished business. Julian had his wirerimmed glasses on.

He gave me a sideways look, and his voice came out flat. "Rosalind Holloway. You're late. Fourteen minutes." I pulled up a fake smile. "Sorry, sir.

I thought class was canceled." He let it go and pointed at the empty seat right under the podium. Front row. So much for slacking.

My first day inside this book, the System let me choose: simp second lead, or villain. I skimmed the plot. The villain had way too many scenes. Simp it was.

Me: [Simp one day, off the next. One on, one off. That's a pretty light schedule.] I loved this job. Genuinely. Best gig anybody ever handed me.

Turns out what the System actually meant was that every single day the female lead isn't around, I show up next to the male lead and do something humiliating.

The female lead wasn't due for three years. Three years. That is 1,095 days. Not one of them off. Miss one and points come out.

And for all 1,095 of them, rain or shine, I had to be standing next to Julian Langford. Three years with no time off. I wanted a raise.

The longer I worked this job, the more the resentment stacked up. Nobody likes the guy teaching the class they're failing. Not even the sub.

Julian came down the aisle and knocked his textbook against my desk twice. Pay attention. His hands were long and pale, all knuckle and tendon. I have a thing about hands.

My eyes tracked them the whole way back to the front. Then he dropped the book on the podium, put both hands in his pockets, and left. Cheap. After class I got called to his office.

Obviously. He held up my test and asked me what this was supposed to be. Please. Did he think I scored a 38 to get his attention?

If I were smart I would have been dropped into one of those geniusprodigy books as the lead. I would not be stuck in a romance novel working as a simp.

I looked at the floor and said nothing. That set him off. "Spacing out again?

What is going on in your head all day?" "I'm thinking your mouth runs a lot," I said. "And that I'd like to kiss it shut." He laughed, and it wasn't a nice laugh. "Then come do it." Help.

The male lead had a spine. He almost cured me of talking trash. I put both hands on his desk and kissed him. Soft. Honestly, not bad at all.

Before he could move, I grinned at him. "You know what? You're not bad at all either." Then I ran. I stayed out of his sight for the next few days. I'd known him for years.

I knew exactly what he was like. Polite and softspoken where people could see. In private, a man who paid back every single thing. Somehow, after that kiss, my balance jumped.

Today I finally sat down and did the math. Show up and check in, one point. Don't show up, points come out. Kissing him was worth twenty days.

I stared at that number, and a very bad idea started to take shape. My phone lit up right then. Julian.

Him: [Done hiding yet?] Chapter 2 One point a day used to be the entire economy. Then twenty points dropped into my account out of nowhere, and I coasted.

At this rate I'd be working one day and taking three off. Ten days indoors later, the balance was nearly gone. I lay in bed, sighed, and scrolled through my messages.

Someone in our circle was having a birthday and had invited me. Time to go clock in. I showed up late. Julian was already there with people packed around him.

The second they saw me, the whole booth started up. "Jules, your shadow's here." "Told you. Where Jules is, Roz Holloway is. I win.

Everybody drinks." Somebody elbowed him. "Must be nice, Jules." I was famous in that circle. As his simp. Not the kind of famous you put on a resume.

I took a second to get into character, pulled up a small brave smile with a crack in it, and sat down at the far edge of the VIP booth. Pathetic girl who wants what she can't have.

Nailed it. Today's objective: collect my checkin points. System: [Go over there. At this rate you will never hit quota.] I took a sip.

Me: [There are 1,080 days left on the timesheet. Relax.] Somewhere in there, somebody brought up the one that got away. The girl Jules supposedly never recovered from.

The whole table groaned in unison. Everybody had details. The only person who never said a word about her was him. Half that room was hung up on her too.

Something was sitting on Julian that night, or that was how it read from where I sat. Anyone who raised a glass at him, he drank. Another guy toasted him.

I cheered them on from the side. Halfway through the cheering: System: [Have we forgotten who we simp for.] Simping is a fulltime job and it comes with no benefits.

I walked over and took the glass out of his hand. What I meant to say was that Julian's stomach couldn't handle it, so I'd drink for him. What came out was: "Julian can't perform.

I'll do it for him." I took the glass and drained it. Julian tilted his head at me. Not quite smiling. "I can't perform?" System: [HOST. You meant his STOMACH.] Me: [Shut up.

I'm acting.] Julian tapped one knuckle against the side of the glass. Like he was waiting for somebody to finish a sentence. I don't know about Julian.

I was definitely not going to perform. The table lost it, but nobody had the nerve to run the joke at Julian's expense, so they went after the drink instead. "Roz is insane.

Put away a whole Four Loko like it was nothing." Four Loko has a reputation for dropping people where they stand. Perfect prop. I turned my head very slowly. "Four Loko? Who's loco?

I am extremely sober." Then I went facefirst into Julian's chest. The booth quieted. Someone muttered, "Thought she could drink." Another guy said it lower. "You don't get it.

Roz put away a whole bottle of whiskey once. By herself." He said it quietly enough that nobody picked it up. Julian's hands hovered over me, not sure whether to hold on or let go.

He sighed. "I'm taking her home." He carried me out on his back. Behind us, somebody said, "Does this count?

Simp long enough and you get it all?" "You ever seen Jules carry anybody?" He carried me down to the parking garage. I was faking it, at first.

But his back was solid, and I'd been up most of the night before reading. I was tired. I let go and fell asleep. I overslept the next morning and missed class.

Julian marked me absent. I dug out my grudge list and wrote it down. Just wait until I start tripping you up in your love life. Wait. Tripping him up?

Chapter 3 I rolled my eyes around the room, then pulled out the Polaroid I'd taken of myself the day before. The plan was to slip it into one of the books in his study.

Someday the female lead would open that book. She would lose her mind. I put on my most evil grin.

Stumbling blocks have feelings too. "What are you standing there grinning about?" Julian's voice, right behind me. Nothing came out of my mouth. I turned around, slow and wooden.

He had both hands in his pockets and was looking at me the way you look at something the dog dragged in. I laughed, dry. "You're off early." "Didn't you say you were starving?

That I should come home early and collect the body?" I pushed my luck. "And when I asked you not to mark me absent, did you listen?" "Two different things." "I knew it.

A girl glues herself to your side for years and you don't value her at all. Fine. I'm leaving right now." He sighed. "Don't start. There's lo mein downstairs.

Go eat." "Okay," I said, delighted. Simping really is the best job. I simp when I feel like it, and when I don't, I simp again in a few days.

Something about my face annoyed him all over again.

His jaw set, and he smiled with nothing behind it. "So we're just moving on from you assaulting me?" I was shocked. "What, are you planning to kiss me back?" If that was on the table, I'd take it.

I pushed my face toward him. He looked at me with open disgust and clicked his tongue. "This isn't Paris. Around here we shake hands." He paused.

His voice dropped lower. "Do that again and you can go back to the family that didn't want you." He froze first. Before I did.

It was the first time Julian had ever come at me like that. It was also the first time it landed on me that I was only ever the simp.

I bent down, pulled off a flipflop, and threw it at him. Smug bastard. Big deal. I never got the noodles. I took a car back to the dorms. Simp in her feelings.

Julian had agreed to tutor me. I didn't want to look at him for a while. So I hired an upperclassman instead. He was not what I ordered.

My listing said honor roll, six feet or over, hot. He technically hit all three. Technically. My tutor showed up late with a beatup backpack.

Heavy bangs and thick black frames covered most of his face. The overall effect was, and I want to be precise about this, deeply uncool. Hot and uncool at the same time.

Does that make sense to anybody? "Hi. I'm Rafael Ortiz. Sorry I'm late. The bus broke down." Also cold. His sentences came out refrigerated. Wait. Rafael Ortiz?

Wasn't that the name of the final boss? I looked at this broke, blankfaced college guy, and my silence got very loud. The System had mentioned it once.

The obsessive, twisted villain only ever wanted one person, and that person was the sweet, simple female lead. And my last assignment as the simp was to help him kidnap her.

After the kidnapping I would be free. I looked at the villain's flat poker face and cracked my knuckles on the inside. Me: [Female lead.

We're waiting on you.] In novels the villain always laughs like mwahaha. Help. How do you physically do a mwahaha?

The villain sat down across from me with a complicated look on his face. "Are you unhappy with the price? I can add hours. I'm not going lower on the rate." I had nothing.

Rafael became my tutor. He was not the villain I had been promised. He was cheap, petty, and cold. I looked at the field of red X's on my worksheet, then at Rafael's poker face.

The darkest, most obsessive villain in this entire book was currently docking me five dollars off the session because I had dropped a minus sign.

And I couldn't stop thinking about one thing. So I sat there doing a different kind of math. How much it would cost to pull a man like that off the road he was already on.

Chapter 4 The villain's delivery was genuinely freezing. As the paying client, I had notes. "Could you sound a little less like a refrigerator?

Throw in a friendly word once in a while." Flatly: "You've done this problem three times and still can't do it.

Maybe your brain is just a teeny bit slow." "No wonder you never get the girl." "What girl?" He turned his head, and I caught a flicker of real confusion. No glasses today.

He had shaved, and cut his hair short. He looked… all right, he looked good. Sharp bones, deepset eyes, good mouth, good teeth. Not one blackhead on the man.

If Julian was a prepschool prince, Rafael was a horse nobody had ever broken.

I looked at the faded Tshirt and the jeans washed down to nothing. "You look like that and you're broke? Why aren't you modeling?" "Thank you for the suggestion. I'll consider it.

Can we do the problem now? My time is expensive and I'm driving for Uber after this." Oh. I finished the corrections and rubbed the back of my neck.

When I looked up, Julian was standing a little way off with a study guide in his hand, watching me. The back of my neck started to itch.

For one second I felt like a cheating wife who had just been caught. We looked at each other for a while. Then he shoved the book back on the shelf and turned to go.

At the end of the aisle he stopped. He looked back at me over two rows of books and mouthed something. No sound. Three words. My first thought was that he was angry.

Angry about what? What right did he have? Rafael finished writing out the formula and glanced up. "Hot guys are nice to look at.

Calculus is worth more of your attention. "What you memorize belongs to you. "The hot guy doesn't." I didn't hear a word of it. All I had in my head was that mouth moving.

Three words. I read them. Reading them was the problem. The three words Julian had mouthed at me, over two rows of books, were these