“Mom, Dad, I’m here,” I call as I open the front door. Buster, their poodle comes running to greet me. Even though I never lived with Buster, he seems to understand I’m part of the family. “Hey, boy,” I say, bending down to pet him.

“Alex,” Mom says, walking into the foyer to greet me. She takes my face in her hands, her diamond tennis bracelet nearly blinding me in the light streaming through the glass on the front door. Mom and Dad have more money than they know what to do with, which is why I can afford to work at a small paper and work my way up in the business. I have a trust fund to fall back on. Unlike most people my age, I don’t live from one paycheck to the next. And I can afford to drop fifteen hundred dollars on a painting.

“You should visit us more often, you know,” Mom admonishes.

“I know. I mean to, but work can get hectic.”

“Work,” Dad says. “Why do you insist on a job that makes you chase after stories? I told you to go into the family business.”

“Yes, but you know how I feel about celebrities.” Dad is a plastic surgeon who only has celebrity clients. He flies to remote locations to perform the surgeries, and he’s paid insane amounts of money to never tell anyone who he works on.

Dad laughs. “Most people would say it was the blood that bothers them, but not you. You hate celebrities. You don’t hate their money, though.” He wags a finger in my face.

“I try to spend it quickly to get rid of it.”

“Like purchasing artwork?” Dad asks.

“Where is the painting?” I ask. Whitney mailed it out on Tuesday, and Mom called me yesterday to say it had arrived.

“It’s in the study, dear.” Mom gestures for me to follow.

The house is impeccable as usual, considering Mom and Dad have a live-in maid. Mom can’t stand to have anything out of place. While I love my parents dearly, I couldn’t live this way. I hated it growing up, too. Maybe that’s why I like living in a city that’s so expensive to have so little. My tiny apartment makes me feel normal. My regular job makes me feel normal. But one way I’m not normal is that I don’t need to work. At least not to pay my bills. Though I let everyone believe I’m just like them, working to live. My parents had this rule that while I was living under their roof, I couldn’t touch my trust fund. So I left. I have plenty in the bank to live comfortably until the day I die, but I wouldn’t be comfortable if I wasn’t working like everyone else. Mom and Dad never understood that. Dad loves that he only performs a few surgeries a year, and the rest of the time, he vacations on different tropical islands. I was actually surprised when Mom called and said they would be home today. They usually don’t stay home for very long periods of time.

The painting is in a large package resting up against the bookshelf that runs the full length of the back wall of the study. I immediately go over to it. Holding it in my hands, I know it was meant to be mine. I hate how I had to go about getting it, but I’m glad it’s in my possession.

“Can you stay for dinner?” Mom asks me.

“No, sorry,” I say. “I already have plans this evening. I just didn’t want to leave this sitting here, cluttering up your house.” I’m sure that’s exactly how Mom views having the package in her study, as clutter.

“You’re so thoughtful. And we received your check. You really didn’t need to pay us back, though,” she adds.

“Of course, I did. I’m not sure why I was still logged into your account to begin with.”

“We should close that,” Dad says. “You never can be too careful with your money these days.”

“I can close it for you if you’d like,” I tell him.

“Good boy.” Mom pats my cheek and then kisses the opposite one. “Don’t be a stranger, okay?”

Sure. Except the reason why I stopped coming to visit is because every time I tried to they told me they were going out of town. “Of course, Mom.”

Dad shakes my hand, which in his mind is a huge gesture of love considering his hands are his paychecks.

I give Buster another pat on the head and carry the painting to my car. Now to drive the two hours back to Priority to get ready for my date with Whitney. On the ride back, I consider coming clean about what I did. The painting in the passenger seat is making me feel guiltier than if I’d paid the rent money for her. Which in a way, I guess I did. It’s been eating at me since Monday morning, though. She was so excited when she thought she’d made a sale. And when I showed up at the art school with lunch, she seemed to sense my unease. She kept pushing through with her plans despite any nerves she felt about opening the school. She’s set for the doors to open on Monday. She decided to go with afternoon and early evening hours since most of her students will most likely be in school during the day. She’s also working Saturdays. I’m not sure how much time that will give us to spend together, but I’m not about to bring that up.

I pull up to my apartment complex and carry the painting upstairs. It’s only when I look up from the package in my hands that I see Whitney standing at my front door.

“Whitney.” I stop in my tracks. “What are you doing here?”

“We have a date. Did you forget?” She moves toward me, and I can’t figure out how to hide the painting. There’s no way to keep her from recognizing her own packaging. Her eyes lower, and she stops. “What’s that?”

I could lie and say it’s a different painting, but she’ll ask to see it. And she’d probably be insulted that I bought someone else’s artwork instead of hers. “Let’s go inside,” I say, moving quickly past her, my keys already in hand. I hug the painting to my chest so she can’t see her handwriting on the front of the package, and I rush inside the apartment.

“Alex,” she says, following me inside.

I close the door behind her so she can’t run out the second she figures it out. Though I’m sure she already has.

“Why do you have that?” she points to the package, her face red with rage.

“I know the buyer,” I say.

“You know the buyer, or you are the buyer?” she accuses. She rips the package from my hand. “Did you buy this under a fake name and have it delivered somewhere else in the hopes I wouldn’t find out?”

“No. I didn’t use a fake name. I swear.” At least that much is true.

“Start talking,” she says. “And it better be the truth.” Her chest is heaving, and I’m not sure if she’s about to scream her head off or start bawling. Right now I’m not sure which would be worse.

I move toward her, but she backs up to the other side of the couch. She’s still gripping the painting in her hands. “John Harris is my stepfather. Well, he’s more like my dad because I never met my real father. He died before I was born. John raised me, and I call him Dad.”

“Stop rambling, and tell me why you have my painting.” She inhales a shaky breath.

“Okay. You know I wanted that painting, but you refused to let me buy it.”

“Do not try to turn this around on me. You went behind my back and intentionally deceived me.”

“Whitney, please. I didn’t mean to hurt you, and I felt guilty as soon as I did it, but I was afraid of what you might do if you didn’t sell another painting.”

“So you don’t think I can sell another painting?” Her eyes widen. “Wow. You know, I thought something was wrong on Monday. You went from wanting me to open the school to thinking I was rushing things by opening so soon. I should have figured it out.” She tears the packaging from the painting.

“What are you doing?” I ask, moving toward her. She can’t destroy that painting. “Whitney, please don’t. I love that painting. I love—”

She shakes her head. “Don’t. Don’t you dare say it. That would be the lowest thing you could do right now, Alex.”

I hold my hand out. “Okay. Just please put the painting down.”

“I’m refunding your money,” she says.

“No. I don’t want my money back. I just want the painting. You painted it for me.”

She looks down at the painting and then spins it around to face me. “No. I painted it for him. For this man. The one who looked at me and made me feel like I was the most special person in the world. He looked at me that way even when he didn’t even really know me yet.” Her shoulders rise and fall with her quick breaths. “I felt so connected to you, and then you had to go and ruin everything we worked to rebuild. You lied to me, Alex. And worse, you made your stepfather buy my painting.”

“I didn’t. I bought it. Whitney, my parents are loaded.” I take a deep breath before I tell her what I’ve never told anyone since coming here in the hopes of starting over. “I’m loaded. I don’t need my job at For the Record. I work there because I enjoy it. I like being a journalist. I don’t tell people I have money because it changes the way they see me, and I hate that. It’s like people can’t see past it.”

“So you think what you did is fine because you have the kind of money you can just throw around? Should I be thankful you didn’t make an anonymous contribution to my art school?” She advances on me and shoves the painting against my chest. “Here. Take your painting. I hope it was worth every penny.” She starts for the door.

“Whitney, please don’t walk out,” I call after her.

She stops halfway out the door. “Your money can’t buy your way out of this one.”

“I can’t lose you.”

She shakes her head and starts to close the door.

“I’m in love with you!” I yell.

She stops, the door handle in her hand. “Go to hell, Alex.”