Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Seventeen dollars and forty-two cents.

Shane stared at the glowing screen of his banking app, waiting for the numbers to miraculously rearrange themselves. He figured if he glared hard enough, the universe might glitch and shift the decimal point out of sheer pity.

It did not.

“Cool,” Shane whispered to his empty bedroom, letting his head fall back against the wall. “Awesome.”

The balance stayed stubbornly red.

Rent was due in five days. His mother’s latest prescription cost three times more than their insurance covered, and Aya’s soccer cleats were currently surviving on duct tape and prayer.

Meanwhile, Shane was functioning on caffeine, four hours of sleep, and whatever remained of his rapidly deteriorating sanity.

Between pre-PT classes, clinic shifts, and weekends at the coffee shop near campus, he barely had time to think anymore.

Which honestly should’ve made things easier.

His phone buzzed against his palm, dragging him out of his financial spiral.

Shane rolled his eyes and tossed the phone onto his mattress.

It was a ridiculous idea.

He was far too proud to let anyone buy him coffee, let alone fund his entire existence.

So he ignored the group chat.

Two hours later, after paying the electricity bill and watching his balance drop to four dollars, Shane’s pride quietly left him to die.

“Just to look,” he muttered, opening an incognito tab on his ancient laptop. “As a sociological experiment.”

Ten minutes into browsing EliteArrangements.com, Shane wanted to unplug the router and walk into the sea.

The profiles were a nightmare.

Men holding dead fish, posing beside sports cars they’d probably rented for the photo, demanding “submissive, grateful energy” like that was a completely normal sentence to type out and publish online.

Everything about the website felt artificial, manufactured, expensive in the most embarrassing way possible.

Shane should’ve closed the tab immediately.

Instead, he kept scrolling.

Which was probably why, he ended up creating an account.

The bio section stayed blank for almost a full minute while the cursor blinked back at him expectantly.

Need money. I know how to behave at a nice restaurant. I look good in a suit. Strictly business.

He hit submit.

The regret was immediate and violent.

“Fuck,” Shane muttered, slamming the laptop shut hard enough to make the plastic rattle against the kitchen table. He dropped his face into his hands, elbows digging into his knees while humiliation crashed over him in slow, miserable waves.

What the fuck was he doing?

He was already reaching for the laptop again, fully prepared to delete the account and pretend this entire humiliating fever dream had never happened, when his phone suddenly chimed against the mattress beside him.

He froze.

Slowly, cautiously, he picked it up.

New Message via

EliteArrangements:
Dinner tonight. 8 PM.
Le Petit Château.

Shane stared at the notification for a long second, genuinely convinced this had to be some kind of elaborate scam.

Nobody on that website had even seen his face for more than thirty seconds.

Every rational instinct in his body was screaming at him to say no.

Meeting a stranger from a sugar daddy website at a restaurant that sounded expensive enough to have a dress code and imported napkins was exactly how people ended up on true crime podcasts.

“Absolutely not,” Shane whispered immediately.

Then his eyes drifted toward the pile of bills still sitting on the kitchen table, the overdue prescription receipt and Aya’s soccer cleats.

Shane closed his eyes briefly.

“Fuck.”

──── ୨୧ ────

Le Petit Château was the kind of restaurant where the lighting was intentionally dim so nobody could fully process how much they were paying for asparagus.

Everything inside glowed gold.

Gold candles, accents, gold reflected against rows of crystal glasses that probably cost more than Shane’s monthly grocery budget. Even the air smelled expensive somehow, all butter and wine and polished wood.

Shane felt painfully out of place the second he stepped through the front doors.

He was wearing the only suit he owned: a navy two-piece he’d bought for his high school graduation after saving tips for almost five months straight. It still fit, barely, though the sleeves sat a little too short at his wrists now.

The hostess smiled at him politely enough to make him suspicious.

“Reservation name?”

Shane hesitated for half a second before giving the fake username from the website, immediately feeling like he was about to be arrested for fraud.

Instead, the hostess simply nodded and guided him toward a small corner table near the windows.

Shane sat down carefully, then opened the menu.

Bad idea.

There were no prices listed beside the wine. Or the food.

Shane stared at the page for a long second, genuinely unsettled enough that he barely noticed the waiter appearing beside the table until the man spoke.

“Would you like sparkling or still water tonight, sir?”

Shane had no idea what the correct answer was.

“Uh,” he said intelligently. “Regular?”

The waiter blinked once.

“Still,” Shane corrected quickly, heat crawling up the back of his neck. “Still is great.”

“Excellent choice, sir.” The waiter disappeared smoothly into the restaurant before Shane could embarrass himself any further.

He dropped his face into one hand briefly before glancing back toward the entrance again.

Every time the doors opened, his stomach tightened automatically before sinking again.

8:07, Shane told himself the guy was probably just late.

8:14, he started tearing apart bread rolls just to have something to do with his hands.

8:21, he checked his phone again despite already knowing there were no new messages waiting for him.

And by 8:30, the truth settled heavily in his chest.

Oh.

So this was really happening.

Shane had been stood up by a sugar daddy.

He stared down at the untouched glass of water in front of him, embarrassment settling hot beneath his skin. The account, the bio, the fact that he’d actually shown up.

Every decision suddenly felt catastrophic in retrospect.

A couple at the next table laughed softly and Shane immediately became convinced it was about him.

He grabbed his phone under the table instead, staring at the screen like he was in the middle of a very important conversation.

“I’m still waiting on someone,” Shane lied quickly when a waiter slowed near the table again.

The man smiled politely and moved on.

Shane wanted to crawl directly into the floor.

──── ୨୧ ────

“Ilya, are you even listening to me?” Scott demanded, tapping an fountain pen sharply against the table.

“No,” Ilya said honestly, swirling the ice in his drink.

Scott closed his eyes briefly like he was reconsidering every career decision that had led him here.

“Your public relations are a disaster,” he hissed, lowering his voice. “The board is furious, the gala is next month, and right now your public image is one bad headline away from cardiac arrest.”

“God,” Ilya muttered. “You make it sound terminal.”

“I am serious.”

“I know. That’s what makes it so depressing.”

Scott ignored him completely. “No more models. No influencers. No actresses trying to launch skincare brands. You need someone normal.”

Ilya stopped listening after that.

Instead, he let his gaze drift lazily across the restaurant, bored enough to physically feel it settling into his bones.

Then his eyes landed on table four.

Ilya blinked once, attention sharpening immediately.

The man sitting near the windows was beautiful. Dark hair falling over his forehead, sharp jawline, navy suit stretched across broad shoulders that looked wasted on whatever miserable evening he was having.

But it wasn’t the looks that caught Ilya’s attention.

It was the expression on his face.

The guy looked deeply offended by the entire restaurant.

Every few minutes, his eyes flicked toward the entrance before hardening all over again, patience visibly wearing thinner by the second.

Ilya leaned back slightly in his seat, watching as the stranger checked his phone again like he was debating arson.

“Oh no,” Scott said immediately. “I know that look.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It usually is.”

Ilya ignored him.

Before Scott could continue whatever PR-induced breakdown he was currently having, Ilya lifted a hand and caught the attention of a passing sommelier.

“Send a glass of the Bordeaux to table four,” he said smoothly. “The 2015.”

Scott stared at him in disbelief. “What are you doing?”

Ilya’s mouth curved slowly at the corners as his gaze drifted back toward the stranger by the window.

“Improving my evening.”

At the corner table, Shane was already preparing to leave when a waiter appeared beside him and carefully placed a glass of dark red wine in front of him.

He blinked.

“I didn’t order this,” Shane said immediately.

“Compliments of the gentleman across the room, sir.” The waiter gestured subtly toward one of the private booths before disappearing again without another word.

Shane’s stomach dropped straight through the floor.

Oh, absolutely not.

That wine probably cost more than his monthly grocery budget.

“No, wait,” Shane said quickly, reaching toward the glass in immediate panic. “Take it back. I can’t pay for this.”

“I would sincerely hope not,” a deep voice said beside him.

Shane looked up so fast he nearly gave himself whiplash.

The man standing next to the table was, objectively, the most infuriatingly attractive person Shane had ever seen in his life.

Tall, broad-shouldered, blond with painfully bright blue eyes and the kind of face that belonged on magazine covers Shane couldn’t afford to buy.

And worst of all, he was smirking.

“It was a two-hundred-dollar pour,” the stranger continued. “Making you pay for it would be deeply ungracious of me.”

Shane narrowed his eyes immediately,“Who are you?”

The smirk widened slightly, like he genuinely enjoyed.

“You’re very welcoming.”

“I don’t accept drinks from strangers,” Shane shot back, pushing the wine glass farther away. “And I definitely don’t accept pity.”

“It wasn’t pity.”

Before Shane could argue, the man pulled out the empty chair across from him and sat down like he belonged there.

Which, annoyingly, he probably did.

“I simply enjoy people-watching,” he said. “And you looked like you were having a catastrophically bad evening.”

Shane stared at him for a second, thrown completely off-balance by the sheer audacity.

“Are you always this obnoxious,” he asked slowly, “or is tonight special?”

The man laughed softly.

“A bit of both,” he admitted. “Were you waiting for someone?”

Shane’s jaw tightened immediately. He hated how easily the stranger had figured it out.

“Apparently not,” he muttered.

The man’s eyes flicked once toward the untouched second place setting before returning to Shane’s face again.

“Their loss.” He sounded sincere. “You look good in that suit.”

Shane swallowed hard before he could stop himself.

The stranger was still looking at him a second too long, blue eyes sharp beneath the warm restaurant lighting, and suddenly Shane felt hyperaware of everything at once.

From across the room, the guy in the grey suit from earlier was staring at them in visible horror.

Bodyguard, Shane guessed vaguely.

Or publicist.

Honestly, this man looked expensive enough to require both.

“What do you want?” Shane asked finally, crossing his arms over his chest to hide how fast his heart had started beating.

“Your number,” the man said immediately.

Shane blinked.

Then he laughed once, short and disbelieving. “You cannot be serious.”

“I rarely joke about things I want.”

He pulled an expensive-looking phone from his suit jacket and slid it across the table. “Put it in.”

Shane stared at the phone, then at him.

This man was actually insane.

And somehow, that made Shane reach for the phone anyway. He typed his number in quickly before he could think too hard about it.

Deliberately, he left the contact name blank.

“Don’t expect me to answer,” Shane muttered, sliding the phone back across the table.

The man glanced at the screen once before standing smoothly, buttoning his suit jacket.

“Oh,” he replied, looking down at Shane with that same infuriatingly calm expression, “you’ll answer.”

And then he walked away before Shane could come up with a response.

──── ୨୧ ────

The ride home felt strangely unreal.

Shane sat near the back of the nearly empty O-Train, knees bouncing restlessly while Ottawa blurred past the windows in streaks of streetlights and dirty snow. His suit jacket was folded across his lap, still carrying traces of the restaurant.

Expensive cologne, wine, something warm and smoky that reminded him, irritatingly, of the stranger.

Shane hated how clearly he could still picture him.

Oh, you’ll answer.

What a psychopath.

Shane leaned his head back against the cold glass with a quiet groan.

The entire night felt ridiculous in retrospect. He’d gotten stood up by a sugar daddy, accidentally flirted with a man who looked rich enough to own several governments, and willingly handed over his phone number.

He was exhausted.

That had to be the explanation.

Because no mentally stable person should still be thinking about the way that man had looked at him forty minutes later on public transit.

By the time he finally climbed the stairs to the apartment, the adrenaline had mostly worn off.

The familiar hum of the broken refrigerator greeted him the second he stepped inside.

Aya was already asleep in the bedroom they shared, sprawled sideways across Shane’s pillow with messy dark hair stuck to her forehead and a suspicious amount of drool soaking into the fabric. One socked foot poked out from beneath the blanket.

Yuna’s door was closed too, the apartment quiet except for the occasional rattle of old pipes somewhere in the walls.

Shane dropped his keys onto the counter and loosened the suffocating collar of his dress shirt with a tired exhale.

That was over.

Done.

The ridiculously handsome stranger from the restaurant was never texting him.

People like that didn’t text people like Shane.

The whole thing had probably just been entertainment for a bored rich guy looking to spice up his evening.

Shane rubbed tiredly at his eyes.

He had a seven a.m. clinic shift tomorrow, an unfinished assignment in his backpack, and four dollars left in his checking account.

His phone vibrated loudly against the coffee table. Shane froze.

Slowly, he looked down at the screen lighting up beside him.

“No.”

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

Shane stared at the glowing screen of his phone in the middle of the dark kitchen.

He knew for a fact he hadn’t told the man his name. Any name. He’d typed his number into that absurdly expensive phone, slid it back across the tablecloth, and left.

That was it.

Shane immediately started pacing the kitchen, replaying the entire night in his head.

Wallet? Still in his pocket.

Student ID? Buried in the bottom of his backpack.

Clinic nametag? Absolutely not.

So how the hell had this man found him that fast?

Shane stared at the reply, pulse hammering in his ears while the apartment stayed painfully quiet around him.

He let out a quiet sound somewhere between a groan and a growl.

Shane dropped the phone onto the kitchen counter and leaned against the sink with a tired exhale.

“I’m blocking him,” he muttered to the empty apartment. “Deleting the app.”

He didn’t block him.

──── ୨୧ ────

The next morning, Shane was barely functioning.

He sat in the middle of the campus courtyard with a paper cup of coffee that tasted aggressively burnt and a human anatomy textbook open in front of him.

He’d been staring at the same skeletal diagram for almost twenty minutes.

Mostly because he kept checking his phone instead.

“You look like you’re waiting for the governor to pardon you from death row,” Hayden said, dropping onto the bench beside him.

Kip sat down on Shane’s other side with a matcha latte balanced carefully in one hand. “You didn’t sleep again, did you?” He frowned immediately. “Shane, you’re going to end up hospitalized before you even graduate.”

“I’m fine,” Shane lied, locking his phone again and dropping it facedown onto the table. “I just have academic stress.”

Hayden narrowed his eyes immediately.

“You’re a horrible liar. What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“That was the least convincing nothing I’ve ever heard.”

Shane groaned into his hands.

Without another word, he grabbed his phone, screenshotted the conversation from the night before, and dropped it into their group chat.

“Check your phones,” he muttered.

Two notification chimes went off at the same time.

A second later, Hayden gasped so loudly a pigeon nearby took off in panic.