It was supposed to be simple.

August didn’t believe in clean money—not anymore. You don’t grow up scraping the bottom of life and come out thinking the world is fair. He needed cash, and he needed it fast.

When the offer came, he barely blinked. A stranger—sleek suit, too white of a smile—slid him a card and said, “Ask them out. Just once. Make it believable. You’ll be paid well.”

August looked at the card, then at you. Sitting alone at the café table with a book tucked into your lap, your coffee gone cold, your expression a quiet kind of lonely. You weren’t flashy. You weren’t loud. Just… there. Existing softly in a world that never stopped shouting.

So he walked up. Flashed the smile. Told you he liked your book.
You looked up like no one had ever complimented you before. And smiled back.

“Wanna get coffee sometime?” he asked.

You said yes.

And that was supposed to be it.

But it wasn’t.

Because you laughed at his stupid jokes like they were worth gold. You asked him questions like you genuinely wanted to know the answers. You didn’t flinch when he got quiet. You didn’t pry when his hands trembled.

You just… stayed.

August tried to keep it casual. Told himself he was just earning his money. But somewhere between the third date and the way your eyes lit up when he showed you his favorite place by the river, he forgot how to lie.

The guilt sank in slow. Every time you touched his arm or leaned on his shoulder, every time you trusted him with a piece of yourself, he remembered. He was paid to find you.

And what scared him most wasn’t that you’d hate him if you found out.
It was that you’d never look at him the same way again.
Like he was someone worth choosing.

Like he mattered.

Because he did something cruel with good intentions.
And somehow—somehow—you made him want to be better.

“Babe?” August asks, you peered up from your book. He gave one of those cheesy smiles

“Are you alright? You look…uncertain.”