“S o ? How did it go? What was his place like? Was he handsome and charming? Tell me everything. I have to know.” For such a smart, empowered, independent woman, Thalia sure does like to act like a gossiping teenager from time to time. It’s nine P.M. I silenced my phone and have been avoiding looking at the screen for the past four hours, but I just knew she’d end up at my building, hammering down my door if I didn’t tell her what happened and soon. So I checked, and sure enough I had five missed calls from her.

“There’s not much to tell,” I say. “We played our game. Yes, he was handsome. His place was insane. He was a little…cold.”

“Cold? What do you mean, cold?”

I mean his attitude was positively glacial. I don’t say that to Thalia, though. I don’t want her to worry. Instead, I say, “Like…odd . He asked me a bunch of really personal questions.”

“And?”

“And I don’t think he liked that I didn’t bend over backwards to give him the answers he wanted.”

“Oh, boy. Please tell me you at least let him win the game?”

I’m quiet for a moment, and then I say, “I didn’t even notice until he pointed out that I was going to win. I was so angry, I figured I was bound to lose. I was all over the place.”

“Beth! What the hell!”

“I’m sorry! What do you want me to do, go back in time and spill my deepest darkest secrets to him like a good little girl? It’s too late now. I blew it. At least he’ll pay us for this session. You can keep the money. I don’t mind. I have a couple of interviews tomorrow anyway.”

“What are you talking about?” Thalia asks. “You can’t go to those job interviews. You don’t have to. Raphael’s assistant emailed and said he wants you to go back on Monday.”

“What?” I can’t think of anything else to say. He wants me to go back? That makes no sense. I was off kilter and annoyed, and he was pushy and aggressive. The artic chill that was blowing off him ninety percent of the time I was sitting opposite him almost had my teeth chattering.

“You must have done something right,” Thalia muses. “But next time, try and remember which side your bread is buttered on, girl. This is easy money, and that guy is heavenly to look at. Fucking heavenly . Don’t waste this opportunity, or I will bitch slap you so hard you won’t remember your name for a week.”

If anyone else were saying this to me, I’d think they were pissed at me for jeopardizing their cut of the money Raphael promised to pay every month. Thalia’s business minded, though. While she never misses an opportunity to make some money, she doesn’t particularly need it. Her parents are loaded. Not quite Raphael North loaded, but still, she came into her inheritance when she was twenty-one. She told me when we were drunk one night that her parents hate that she’s studying law. She said she didn’t have to work another day in her life if she didn’t want to, and that her parents had grand dreams of her becoming a tennis pro. Their dream, though. Not hers. So the two grand she’s taking out of the money from Raphael is peanuts to her. And she knows the other six are vitally important to me.

“When you see him on Monday, can you do me a favor? Can you try and be cordial? He didn’t hit on you, did he?”

“No, he didn’t.” If anything he seemed slightly repulsed by the idea that I’d lost my virginity earlier than I should have. I don’t tell Thalia that part.

“He didn’t seem like a criminal or a murderer, either?”

“No,” I admit. “Just a jerk.”

“You can handle hanging out with a jerk for a couple of hours a week here and there, girl. Promise me you’ll do it. Promise me you’ll be civil.”

Now that I’ve had the chance to meet Raphael, I’d love to decline the offer to spend any more time with him. I hate that he knows about the trauma I witnessed when I was a kid. I fucking hate it. Thalia is the only person I’ve mentioned it to, and I see the way she looks at me sometimes, like she feels sorry for me. Like I’m broken in some ways because of it. If Raphael North looks at me that way, I don’t know what the hell I’ll do. My reaction won’t be pretty, though. On top of that, Raphael’s looks are so distracting, his home so imposing. It clouded my head to be around him, and that coupled alongside the fact that he really was hostile made for one hell of an awkward hour. But. God, I hate when there’s a but…

“All right. For the money. But this can’t go on forever, Thalia. I’m going to have to buckle down and really start studying for exams soon. Once that time comes, I’m going to have to stop this, anyway.”

“Fair enough,” she concedes. “I get it. But in the meantime, think of all the cash you can put aside.”

“I am,” I tell her. “I really am.”

* * *

I cancel the interviews I have lined up the next day. It feels foolhardy to do it, but if I’m going to continue to visit Raphael, then I don’t need the extra two hundred bucks I’ll earn working fifteen hours a week in a coffee shop. And I do need that extra time to study. I spend all day going over the notes from Professor Dalziel’s missed class, making sure I have everything down and I understand the side notes that have been added by his T.A.

Then, on Sunday night, I get a text from a number I don’t recognize.

U nknown : I did the research. There’s no evidence that chemtrails contain elements known to cause infertility.

I sit there on my couch, surrounded by textbooks, paper everywhere, and I stare at my cell phone’s screen. I know who the message is from but I can’t quite force myself to believe it. I’m meant to go and see him tomorrow morning. Why would Raphael text me, especially if only to comment on some fleeting thing we mentioned in passing?

How did he get my phone number? Thalia must have given it to him. Or maybe he went and hunted it down on his own. He has the resources to do that kind of thing, I’m sure.

Am I supposed to reply to this? And if so, how ? I think for a solid ten minutes, torn by what I should do. His message wasn’t a question. He didn’t ask me anything, so I have nothing to respond to per se. But if I don’t send something, would that be rude? Shit. What would I do if it were Thalia who’d sent the text and not Raphael? Hmm. I’d reply with an emoji probably. Hardly an intellectual means of communication, but emojis are safe. You can’t confuse the tone of an emoji. A happy face is just that. A crying face, a high five, an emoji blowing a kiss. They’re impossible to misinterpret. I go to respond, surveying the options open to me. The smiling guy with the red cheeks? Extreme happiness? Probably not appropriate. Flamenco dancing lady? Definitely not. The laughing-so-hard-I’m-crying dude? Nope. What about a simple smiley face? That’s none threatening. It says, ‘it’s funny that you looked that up.’

Okay. Smiley face. Smiley face. Just send the damn thing already, Beth. Come on! I tap the smiley face icon and then hit send as quick as I can. I’m my own worst enemy. I overthink everything in these situa—

Wait.

Wait .

Oh…god…

I stare at the phone screen, not quite able to process what I’m seeing. There is no happy, yellow, round smiley face icon on the screen I’m looking at. Not even close. The single emoji sitting there next to my name, the only thing I’ve replied to the hottest, wealthiest man in New York… is brown.

The poop emoji.

It stares back at me, mouth open, eyes wide, laughing at me. Fuck. I can almost hear it mocking me: “Too late! Can’t take me back now, motherfucker! I have been unleashed upon the world.”

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit !” Literally. Shit. I throw my phone down on the couch beside me and cover my face with both hands. How? How the hell did I manage to send a shit emoji for no apparent reason to Raphael North? This is not good. Thalia is going to murder me.

I scramble, picking up my phone, about to text her, to ask her what the hell I should do, when I see the little bubble text box pop up in the conversation: Raphael is replying. I mouth the word fuck silently as I watch that damn box flash on the screen.

And then…an emoji. Two of them: a monkey, and another poop. The speech bubble appears again.

U nknown : Hey, if you’re about to start slinging shit around, at least let me defend myself.

M e : I am SO sorry. I did NOT mean to send that.

U nknown : No offence taken. I’m aware that I invoke strong reactions from people sometimes.

D amn it . It was an accident, but now Raphael obviously thinks I’m trying to insult him. Change the subject. Change the subject.

M e : Ha! I’ll be sure to tell my conspiracy theory friends that chemtrails are 100% safe, then.

R aphael sends a hand emoji —a peace sign. That seems a little out of character, but at least he doesn’t appear to be mad.

M e : I’ll also be sure to tell them the reports of your death have been greatly exaggerated.

H e doesn’t reply . I watch my phone, waiting for its chime for fifteen minutes, knees up under my chin, but nothing happens. After a while, I go back to my textbooks. An hour later, as I’m making coffee, a new message pops up on the screen. I’ve saved his number now, so I immediately know it’s him.

R aphael : I wouldn’t be so quick to spread that rumor if I were you. The jury’s still out on that one.