I Hired My Neighbor to Be My Girlfriend, Then Fell in Love

Everly Hart stared at her banking app until the number stopped making sense, which didn't take long, because two hundred and thirteen dollars only has so many ways of looking small.

She closed the app, then opened it again, as if refreshing the screen might change what was staring back at her. It didn't. Four days until rent was due, and the arithmetic hadn't improved since the last time she'd checked an hour ago. She pushed the laptop away and pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, listening to the muffled sound of her upstairs neighbor's television bleeding through the ceiling, some late-night talk show laughing at a joke she couldn't hear.

She'd applied to nine jobs that week. Six had auto-rejected within the hour. Two hadn't answered at all. The ninth had sent back a polite paragraph about how impressed they were with her resume and how, unfortunately, the position had already been filled internally, which was corporate for we never actually needed to post this job.

The eviction notice was still in the kitchen drawer where she'd shoved it three days ago, tucked behind a takeout menu so she wouldn't have to see it every time she reached for a spoon. She hadn't told her sister. She hadn't told anyone. Admitting out loud that she was four days from real trouble made it real in a way that staring at a banking app somehow didn't.

A year ago, she'd had a plan. A steady job, a modest but livable studio, a life that wasn't glamorous but wasn't in freefall either. Then the company downsized, her position among the first cut, and every month since had been an exercise in seeing how thin she could stretch what little she had left. She was smart. She was capable. None of that seemed to matter much against an economy that didn't want her.

She was still staring blankly at the kitchen drawer, debating whether to look at the notice again just to torture herself, when a knock landed against her door, three sharp raps in quick succession, urgent enough that she startled.

It was nine at night. Nobody knocked on her door at nine at night, except maybe the building's maintenance guy, and he usually texted first.

She crossed the apartment in socked feet and checked the peephole before opening it, and found Nathaniel Cross standing in the hallway, still in his work clothes, tie loosened, hair disheveled in a way that suggested he'd been dragging his hands through it for the better part of an hour.

They'd lived next door to each other for over a year. She knew the sound of his key in his lock, the brand of coffee he bought because she'd once borrowed a cup of it, the fact that he ran three mornings a week and always looked faintly annoyed doing it. They exchanged hallway small talk, borrowed sugar, the occasional wave through the shared parking lot. He had never once shown up at her door looking like this.

"Everly." Her name came out of him like it was the only word he had left. "I need a favor. A big one."

She crossed her arms, leaning against the doorframe, some old instinct telling her to stay guarded even as curiosity pulled harder. "It's nine o'clock, Nathaniel. This better be good."

"Can I come in?"

She hesitated only a second before stepping aside. He walked past her into the living room and immediately started pacing, a tight, restless circle across her rug, like he'd rehearsed something on the drive over and lost the thread of it the moment he actually had to say it out loud.

"My parents," he started, then stopped, then dragged a hand through his hair again. "My parents have decided whom I'm going to marry."

Everly blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Her name is Priya. Family friend, business connection, everything my parents have wanted for me since I was twenty-two." He said it like a list he'd memorized under duress. "They're hosting a dinner this weekend. My mother's already made it clear that if I show up single, she's going to spend the entire night pushing Priya on me like the whole thing's already decided."

"Okay." Everly drew the word out slowly, watching him. "And this involves me how, exactly?"

Nathaniel stopped pacing and looked at her properly for the first time since he'd walked in, and something about the directness of it made her suddenly aware of how thin her sleep shirt was.

"I need a girlfriend. For a month. Someone to sit through family dinners, convince my parents I'm already spoken for, and get this arranged marriage plan off my back before it goes any further."

Everly laughed before she could stop herself. "You want to hire a fake girlfriend."

"I want to hire you." He said it plainly, like it was the most reasonable proposal in the world. "You're quick. You already know enough about my life from the hallway that you wouldn't need a crash course. And I'll pay you. Well."

The word well hung in the air between them, and despite every ounce of pride telling her to throw him out of her apartment, her mind flew straight back to the kitchen drawer four feet away.

"How well," she asked, "is well?"

Nathaniel named a number.

Everly actually took a step back.

It was enough to cover not just this month's rent, but the next two. Enough to breathe for the first time in months. Enough that the eviction notice behind the takeout menu suddenly felt like a problem with an actual solution instead of a slow, silent countdown to disaster.

"You're serious," she said.

"Dead serious. One month. A few dinners, maybe an event or two. You play the part, I pay you, and at the end of it we go back to being neighbors who wave at each other in the parking lot." He held out his hand, like he was closing a business deal, which, she supposed, he technically was.

Everly looked at his outstretched hand for a long moment, the number he'd just named still ringing in her ears loud enough to drown out every instinct telling her this was a terrible idea.

She was reaching for his hand, the word yes already forming on her tongue, when her phone buzzed sharply against the counter behind her, the screen lighting up with a name she hadn't expected to see tonight of all nights.

Her landlord.