I Paid a Stranger Fifteen Hundred Dollars to Be My Boyfriend for My Father's Birthday Weekend, and He Obeyed Every Order I Gave novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: The Birthday Dinner

At six o'clock on my father's birthday, twelve of us sat down at the long table.

The cake stood on the sideboard with four layers and no candles lit.

My mother had made roast chicken, the good potatoes and enough gravy to float a boat.

Ben sat on my right, and Nick sat across from me.

He had not eaten anything.

Janelle sat beside him with her hand on his arm.

She smiled at the room.

My father tapped his water glass with a fork.

"Before we cut the thing," he said, "my daughter has something to say."

Twelve heads turned.

I stood up.

My knees were solid, and my voice came out level.

The voice I use on the phone when a surgeon wants to move an operating room.

"This will take two minutes," I said. "Dad asked me to say it before the cake."

My mother put down her fork.

"Ben isn't my fiancé."

The whole table sucked in a breath.

"I paid him fifteen hundred dollars through an app called Plus One to walk into this house on Thursday and say he was. I lied to every one of you."

"Jodi," my aunt whispered.

"I did it because I was tired of being the casserole."

Somebody laughed, short and horrified.

"And Mom paid him three thousand dollars, three weeks before I did, to be nice to me."

My mother's face went through four different colors.

"Wendy!" said her sister.

"Somebody had to," my mother said, and lifted her chin. "She wasn't eating."

Dad made a noise at the head of the table.

He had his napkin pressed to his face, and his shoulders were shaking.

I realized he was laughing so hard that he couldn't breathe.

"She hired a boyfriend," he wheezed. "For our daughter. Oh, Wendy."

"It worked," my mother said, with dignity.

"It worked."

I waited until they had stopped.

"I'm telling you this," I said, "because this table is full of people who have asked me for six months if I'm okay. And Nick has told you all that I'm always fine."

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