Ficorpio
Chapter 1
The sign outside Harbor Scoops promised a free sundae, provided I could produce a boyfriend on demand.
I had twenty-three dollars in my checking account until payday, a grocery list that included coffee and laundry detergent, and exactly enough dignity to stand in a line full of couples without pretending I belonged to one of them.
The dignity was negotiable.
The sign was not subtle. TWO FOR ONE COUPLES’ SUNDAE. ONE DAY ONLY. MUST ARRIVE TOGETHER.
The sundae itself was displayed in a photograph beside the register: two scoops of vanilla, two scoops of chocolate, whipped cream, cherries, and a strip of caramel hardened over the top like amber glass. The regular price was fourteen dollars and ninety-eight cents. The promotional price was the same for two people, which meant that, technically, I could acquire seven dollars and forty-nine cents of dessert for free.
Seven dollars and forty-nine cents was not a life-changing amount of money. It was, however, a week’s worth of bus fare if I walked home twice. It was three breakfasts if I bought bananas instead of pastries. It was enough to make the difference between replacing my nearly empty bottle of shampoo this week or waiting until the bottle became a philosophical problem.
I did not need a boyfriend. I needed arithmetic.
The line moved forward by half a person. A woman in a yellow sundress leaned against her boyfriend’s shoulder. Behind me, someone laughed with the bright, helpless sound of people who had never had to calculate whether a free dessert justified social humiliation.
I looked at the man standing beside me.
He was alone, as far as I could tell. Tall. Immaculate dark suit despite the heat. His shirt was white, his tie charcoal, and not one strand of hair appeared to have surrendered to Harbor City’s oppressive summer humidity. He held his phone in one hand and wore the expression of a man who had been informed that the world was inefficient but had decided not to complain about it in public.
He looked expensive.
More importantly, he looked available.
I turned slightly. “Excuse me.”
His eyes moved from his phone to me.
They were gray. I remembered that before I remembered anything else.
The line shifted, and his shoulder came close enough that I caught the clean scent of cedar and rain. My mind supplied a different room, a different season, his coat thrown over the back of a kitchen chair in the Maple Court apartment. Six years had passed since I had last stood this close to Grant Sterling, and apparently my memory had been waiting nearby with a clipboard.
I did not let it interrupt the budget.
“Would you be willing to pretend to be my boyfriend for approximately three minutes?” I asked.
His expression did not change.
That was the first warning.
Chapter 2
The second was the silence around us. The couple ahead of us stopped whispering. The teenager behind the register glanced up from her screen. Somewhere near the freezer, a child dropped a spoon.
I kept my face neutral. “There is a couples-only promotion.”
“I can read.”
His voice was lower than I remembered. Or perhaps I remembered it from a time when every word had seemed directed only at me.
“Then you understand the proposal.”
“I understand that you have approached a stranger and asked him to impersonate your romantic partner for a frozen dessert.”
“Not a stranger. You look familiar.”
The words left my mouth before I could stop them.
His gaze sharpened.
I looked at his mouth. That was a mistake. I remembered it too. The crooked line when he was amused, the rare softness when he said my name in the dark, the way it had flattened when he asked why I had made him feel foolish for loving me.
Then recognition arrived in full, carrying six years of unpaid interest.
“Grant,” I said.
His phone disappeared into the pocket of his trousers. “Sophie.”
He said my name as if it had been waiting in his mouth for an inconveniently long time.
The woman in the yellow sundress glanced between us. Her boyfriend looked interested. Harbor Scoops had accidentally become a theater, and we were apparently the evening’s unscheduled entertainment.
I stepped away from Grant’s shoulder. “I didn’t recognize you.”
“You recognized my value as a promotional accessory.”
“I recognized a man standing alone in a line.”
“That is a more flattering description than accessory.”
I studied him. He had changed in the way buildings changed after a developer bought the block: taller, cleaner, more inaccessible. The boy I had known had been all sharp elbows and restless ambition. This man wore power as though it had been tailored into the lining of his jacket.
I had read about Grant in the business section of the Harbor City Ledger. Sterling Systems had become one of the most prominent technology companies in the city, and Grant Sterling, its founder and chief executive, had acquired the sort of status that made people stand straighter when he entered a room.
Apparently, it also made him suitable for discounted ice cream.
“The offer is worth seven dollars and forty-nine cents per person,” I said. “If you are concerned about compensation, I can transfer half the regular price to you.”
His eyebrows rose. “You are going to pay me to call you my girlfriend?”
“No. I am going to pay for your portion of the sundae. The title is temporary and has no continuing obligations.”
“You have thought this through.”
“I am a teacher. I think about costs.”
“You always did prefer costs to consequences.”
The line moved again. The employee at the register called for the next order.
Chapter 3
I should have left. The financially sensible action was to exit Harbor Scoops, buy a small coffee somewhere else, and accept that the universe had placed a seven-dollar dessert behind a former relationship for a reason.
Instead, I said, “Are you agreeing or not?”
Grant looked at me for a long moment. His face remained polished, but something underneath it had started to move.
“For three minutes,” he said. “I can tolerate almost anything for three minutes.”
“Good.”
“That was not an invitation to sound relieved.”
“I am not relieved. I am pleased with the efficiency of the arrangement.”
His mouth tightened. “Of course you are.”
We reached the counter.
The teenager smiled at us with professional enthusiasm. “Couples’ Sundae?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Together?”
Grant placed one hand lightly against the counter. “Painfully.”
I gave him a warning look.
He looked back at me, and for one suspended second the shop’s noise fell away: the blender, the refrigerator hum, the scrape of plastic chairs across tile. His eyes moved over my face with the precise attention of someone checking whether a familiar house had survived a fire.
The teenager waited.
I took Grant’s arm.
It was meant to be practical. A visible sign of connection. Nothing more. My fingers closed around the smooth sleeve of his jacket, and the contact sent an unwanted shock through me. He went still beneath my hand.
Six years ago, I had known exactly how his body responded to mine. I knew the slight pause before he touched me, the way his shoulders relaxed when he believed I was staying, the heat of his palm at the small of my back. I had spent six years building a life that did not require knowing any of that.
His gaze dropped to my hand.
“You can let go, Sophie,” he said quietly. “The cashier seems convinced.”
I released him. “I was making the arrangement credible.”
“You could have smiled.”
“I don’t smile on command.”
“No. You reserve it for emergencies.”
The teenager looked at the register. “Fourteen ninety-eight.”
I reached for my wallet.
Grant placed his card on the counter first.
“I can pay for my half,” I said.
“I know.”
“Then let me.”
“You asked me to participate. I am purchasing my own dessert.”
“That is not the same as paying for both of us.”
“The transaction is not complicated.”
I took out my card and set it beside his. “I dislike owing people.”
His eyes met mine. “You have never owed me anything, Sophie. That was the problem.”
The words landed softly. That made them worse.
The cashier handed us a number and pointed toward the pickup counter. Grant stepped aside to let me pass. In the narrow space between the register and the wall, our shoulders nearly touched. I could have gone around him. Instead, I walked through the gap, aware of his presence at my back and the careful restraint in the way he did not reach for me.