THE $50,000 GIRLFRIEND

I got dumped for being too ugly — by the guy I'd been dating online. Except I'd just taken first place for looks in the poll on my school's anonymous page — by a landslide.

So the only conclusion I could reach was that he had a thing for ugly.

Not long after, I said yes to the guy everyone at the school across town talked about, and became his girlfriend.

Until I ran into him and all his roommates heading out to dinner, and the silverhaired one stared at my face, turned, and threw a punch at my boyfriend. "I sent you to her door pretending to be the delivery guy just to see what she looked like, and you told me she was frumpy and ugly — so this whole time you were stealing my girl?" "Wilder Hollis, give me my girlfriend back!" Chapter 1 "Order for cheesefoampeach?" The sun outside was blazing.

The guy standing there with the insulated delivery bag was tall. Baseball cap pulled low, hood up over it, neck gaiter tugged to the bridge of his nose.

He was covered head to toe, nothing showing but a pair of very black eyes.

When he looked up and saw me, his eyes caught for a second. "You're cheesefoampeach?" cheesefoampeach was my username. The boba had to be from the guy I was dating online.

I nodded. "That's me." His outstretched hand stopped in midair. Confused, I said, "Hello?" His eyes stayed on my face.

Then he came back to himself and slowly held out the order. "Oh. Sorry." I glanced past him at the hot glare of the sun.

Was the heat getting to him? "Hang on a second." Thinking that, I turned and got a Coke out of the vending machine. Icecold.

Good for the heat. "Here." He seemed to freeze again for a couple of seconds. Then he took it quietly, his glove brushing my fingers. "Thanks." "No problem.

Thanks for hauling it out here in this heat." His eyes narrowed. His lashes were long, and the corners curved like he was smiling.

Just as I turned to go, he spoke up. "Oh — one thing." He lifted his phone in his other hand and tipped his head. "Can I get your number?" "For the drink.

I'll send you the money." "You don't have to." I thought about it and put it gently. "And I have a boyfriend.

Sorry." Boba in hand, I went back to my dorm and messaged cloudbreaker. [Got it. Thanks, Baby.] For once he didn't fire something back within seconds. I grumbled a little.

Didn't think much of it, and went back to my own stuff. I was the student speaker for my incoming class. That morning I'd gotten through my convocation speech.

By the afternoon, a bunch of people had taken pictures of me and put them up on my school's anonymous page. I blew up out of nowhere. [Freshmen look like this now?

She could get signed by an agency with a bare face.] [No way a face like that is real.

How gorgeous can a person get?] [What are talent scouts even doing anymore!] I'd just washed up and dropped into my chair when my roommate started excitedly telling me to go look at the page. "Is it really that dramatic?" I laughed, drying my hair with one hand and opening my phone with the other.

Right alongside all of that came a breakup message from cloudbreaker. [Let's break up. I care about looks.] Me: [?] The towel slapped out of my hand onto the floor.

Without thinking, I went and looked at the flood of compliments on that page. Then switched back and stared at that message. Chapter 2 I felt a little split in two.

A voice message came back fast. Nothing like his usual gentle tone.

There was a scoff in it, an edge of distaste. [I made a point of asking the delivery guy today what you look like.] [Completely different from what I pictured.

Just — pretty bad.] [No wonder you wouldn't video chat with me.] He and I had never sent each other pictures. There was a reason I wouldn't video chat. I had nothing to say.

One, I didn't like putting my face online for no reason. I was afraid someone would do something with it. Two, it was day three of us being official. It was moving too fast.

The only reason we were together at all was that I'd scrolled past a long Reddit post about meeting an online boyfriend in person. The girl who wrote it could really write.

She painted her guy as gentle, thoughtful, endlessly giving, and built like a god. It pulled me right into that sweet haze.

Caught up in it, I left a comment. [If there are guys like this out there, feel free to add me~] cloudbreaker dropped a period under it.

By the time I found out his finger had slipped and he'd hit the wrong thing, the two of us had already blundered into being Discord friends. And then, unexpectedly, we clicked.

He said my voice was nice, soft. I thought he was ridiculously good at games and was always making him carry me. Until one day he suddenly asked if we wanted to try being together.

It was late and I was fried from staying up. On impulse, I said yes. By the next day I regretted it to death.

After those first days with him, being friends felt more comfortable than being his girlfriend. But I couldn't just go back on my word.

So I figured I'd let the feelings grow slowly, and once things had time to run their course it would sort itself out.

Which was why, right then, the part I couldn't get my head around wasn't the breakup. Me: [Am I that ugly?] cloudbreaker was blunt. [I saw the picture. Yikes.] [Not ugly.

Really ugly. The kind of ugly that should be a felony.] [Why didn't you tell me sooner that you looked like that?] [Forget it. My bad luck.

All that time and feeling, wasted.] What a sharp little knife of a sentence.

I sat with it a moment, then tried to salvage things. [Is there any chance you have the wrong person?] [Not a lot of people tell me I'm badlooking.] cloudbreaker huffed. [White dress, little mole on the right cheek, SpongeBob phone case.

That's you, right?] [Maybe they're being kind, maybe their taste is different from mine. At least in my eyes, you don't make the cut.] He'd gotten every detail right.

Me: […] When I didn't answer, his patience ran out. [Enough.] [We did date, so I'll spare you the worse stuff.

Delete and block each other, ok?] He removed me as a friend faster than I could. Like he was terrified I'd cling. I sat there with my head down, questioning my life for a while.

Then I gripped my phone and turned to my roommates. "Am I actually ugly?" They all rolled their eyes. "What year is it?

People are still out here humblebragging." "The line of people who want your number would run into the next state, honey!" That settled it. The guy's taste had to be upside down.

He was in it for ugly. So I'd been dumped. What I felt for cloudbreaker had never gotten to the crying stage. But habit is a terrifying thing.

Without his call every day, there was an empty spot inside, and it really did take some getting used to. A couple of days before, one of my roommates had moved out.

The girl who moved in was rich, designer from head to toe. "Ingrid, I hear you broke up with someone?" She'd caught me slumped there with no energy again.

Chapter 3 The rich girl's eyes flicked back and forth, and she pushed a check across to me. "Good timing. There's a favor I need. That's fifty thousand dollars.

Go chase my cousin for me." My head snapped up. "You said how much?" Dollars? As in actual dollars? She lifted her chin. "Yeah.

You heard me." "I've had a problem with him for a long time.

He's always sneering at how sappy I get about my relationship, so I need somebody to seduce him into falling in love, and then I finally get to enjoy some payback." "So?

What do you say?" It took me a second to catch up. She started to secondguess herself. "Is it not enough?" Fifty dollars, I'd say no. Five hundred, I'd hesitate.

Five thousand, I'd waver. But this was fifty thousand— Every bit of the moping I'd been doing vanished.

I said yes on the spot. "Of course it's enough!" Broken home, and nobody there who cared whether I lived or died. It took me zero seconds to accept the job.

I tucked the check away, very pleased with myself, thought for a second, and asked. "Who's your cousin, though?" Fiona — the rich girl — sent his profile over on her phone while she answered. "Wilder Hollis.

Pinehurst, right across town." She watched me add Wilder, which was what she'd wanted. Then she looked away and got up for the bathroom.

The second she was inside she locked the door, leaned back against it, and typed. [ok, Ingrid said yes.] [So the next step is getting her to land you, right? Got it.

I'll be her wingman.] She typed something into the box, deleted it, typed it again, and in the end she couldn't bring herself to ask it. Was all this really necessary?

Fifty thousand dollars to play some game about a girl chasing a guy. Fiona showed me a picture of Wilder. He had a cat in his arms, eyes lowered. Long pale fingers.

Goodlooking enough to be a problem. He was famous over at his school. I'd heard a little about him. Tall, rich, gorgeous, impossible to get.

And he turned out to be exactly as cold as the rumors said. My friend request sat for a day before he accepted.

He ran lukewarm, and most of the time all I got back was "mm" or "sure." I couldn't find anywhere to start. In the end Fiona had to pull some strings to get him to agree to meet me.

I geared up like it was a battle — washed my hair, did my makeup.

Just before I left, dressed up and ready, Fiona gave me a loaded look. "My cousin doesn't like girls who are too easy.

You have to go after him seriously, take it seriously, or he won't look at you twice." I stopped walking and hesitated. "What if he sees through me?" I didn't actually like him, after all. "Should I skip today?

Give myself more time to work on my acting." The words were barely out before she cut in. "No — that's not what I meant." She paused, her eyes flicking to my face. "You look like that, what are you scared of?

He might like you the second he sees you. You're going today. I was just giving you a headsup." "Fine, okay…" First meeting. Wilder picked the place.

We sat down in the restaurant on the top floor of the tallest building downtown.

He propped his chin on one hand, his voice lazy, the question sounding like an afterthought. "Why did you want to meet me?" My head stopped halfway to my plate.

I set down my knife and fork and sat up straight. I met his eyes and went at it headon. "Because I saw your picture and liked you from the first second.

Completely my type." Chapter 4 When you're telling someone you've never met that you like him with a straight face, love at first sight — wanting him for his face — is the best excuse there is.

Plenty of people in real life get together over looks and nothing else. He laughed once, lightly. No way to tell if he bought it.

What I did hear in it was something bored, like he'd gotten an answer that didn't satisfy him. Difficult, all right. Just like they said.

The internet said that with a guy like this, going straight at him might work wonders. So I added, "Obviously looks are surface. What I really want is to know what's underneath.

So can I go after you?" He looked back into my eyes. "Do what you want." That threw me, and I kept testing. "Then can I ask you out again tomorrow?" "Sure." "The day after?" "Fine." No way.

It was actually working.

My eyes crinkled and I smiled at him. "Wilder Hollis, you're so good to me." "If I could be with you, I'd be the happiest person in the world!" "Mm." He looked like he enjoyed that.

Halfway through the meal I got up for the restroom.

On my way back out, walking with my head down over my phone, about to report my progress to Fiona, I walked straight into someone. "Sorry." I took two steps back, apologizing over and over, backing hastily out of his arms.

He raised his eyes, annoyed, and then went still. I'd just tipped my face up, close enough to catch his reflection in my eyes. Loud silver hair.

Strong features, high contrast, handsome in a way that came at you. "It's you?" he said. I blinked slowly. That voice… Why did it sound familiar?

He came a step closer, carrying a cool, bittercitrus cologne.

His pitch went up, something like a pleasant surprise in it. "I know who you are." "You are…?" I dug through everything in my head and came up sure I'd never seen him before, and it left me looking blank. "You haven't seen me." There was an amused interest in his eyes. "But I've seen you on that anonymous page of yours.

You're Ingrid Brennan.

From the school across town, right?" He was so friendly about it that I almost took him for some old classmate crawling out of a corner of my past. "How do you know my name?" He pressed his lips together, the tips of his ears going red. "I asked around.

On purpose." "You look better in person than online, and you're good with words. Could I—" As he said it, he reached into his pocket. "Leandro