“Ah ha!” Lee sat forward again. “That’s exactly what I’m in the process of doing.”
“Ooh? Do tell.”
“I’ve signed up for this new service called Rent-A-Boyfriend,” Lee told her.
Diana’s eyebrows went up, and she looked at her camera again, snorting with laughter. “Rent-A-Boyfriend? What the hell is that?”
Lee felt his face heat as he grinned at the image of Diana on his screen. “They bill themselves as a sort of dating service for people who need a companion for specific events and things.”
“Like what?”
“Like family weddings or outings where someone needs a partner,” Lee explained. “Or it could just be a companion for supper or someone to play tennis with.”
“I didn’t know you played tennis.”
“I don’t,” Lee laughed. “But I’ve done a bit of theater in my time, a long time ago. I figured this could be the perfect way to try out various different lives and lifestyles so I have something to base my characters and plots on as I venture into this new genre.”
“You know, that’s not a half bad idea,” Diana said, tilting her head to the side. “In fact, that might be the perfect way to do research as a writer. Can you write any sort of fee you have to pay off as a business expense?”
Lee laughed. “I doubt it. But it’s been fun so far.”
“Oh, so you’ve done dates and things already?” Diana looked like she wanted all the juicy details immediately.
“Two,” Lee said, trying to focus on making graphics as he talked. “And they weren’t really dates. I accompanied a guy named Matt to a friend’s birthday party. Those friends were on his case because he hadn’t gotten over his ex yet. He wanted to prove to them he’d moved on even though, spoiler alert, he totally hasn’t.”
“How did that go?” Diana laughed.
Lee chuckled thinking about it. “I spent the whole night being grilled by people I don’t know about my intentions with Matt and how we’d met. I had an entire script Matt provided, of course.”
“Were you able to stick to it?”
“No, not at all,” Lee laughed outright. “The whole thing was a bit of a disaster. Matt had to come clean at the end of the night. But everyone liked me, and I was invited to join the group for an outing to the cinema at some point.”
Diana laughed loudly. “It sounds like they gave you the entire plot to a book on the spot. It would have been even better if there’d been some other guy at the party and you two had an amazing meet-cute and started dating.”
“That’s a brilliant idea,” Lee gasped, reaching for the notebook he always kept on the corner of his desk. “I’m going to write that down, and if I end up using that plot, I’ll let you choose the name of one of the main characters.”
“You know I’m going to choose Beauregard.”
“You are not allowed to name one of my characters Beauregard.”
“Oh, come on!”
Lee finished writing his note and laughed. Honestly, he really did have the best job ever. He did what he loved, except when it came to making graphics and posting on social media, he’d made some amazing friends all over the world, and yes, he got to think about sex guilt-free all the time.
“Do you want to hear about the other fake date I went on?” he teased Diana, wiggling his eyebrows.
“Absolutely!”
“That one was actually a straight guy who wanted to play a prank on a friend.”
Before Lee could launch into the rest of the funny story, his phone rang. He paused and stared at it for a moment. Almost no one actually called him, except his mum. Nearly everyone he knew would either text or email him.
But the call wasn’t from his mum. Ironically, “Rent-A-Boyfriend” popped up on his phone screen.
“Speak of the devil,” he said, picking up his phone. He held up a finger to Diana, signaling for her to wait, then answered, “Hello?”
“Hello, Lee. It’s Javier Rivera from Rent-A-Boyfriend.”