I live in a vibrant, relatively quiet residential neighborhood of San Francisco called NoPa/Western Addition/North of the Panhandle, depending on who you’re talking to. The two bedroom that I rent with my roommate is ten blocks from my restaurant. I don’t own a car, because I can either walk around my neighborhood, take Muni to the theatre, or a Lyft. Also, I never got a driver’s license.

Johnny gave me a twenty-dollar tip, waited for me until the end of my shift, and asked if he could walk me back to my place. He is clearly more comfortable in his body now than as a teenager, but I get the sense that he doesn’t walk around neighborhoods much. He had mentioned having a driver who’ll pick him up whenever he texts him.

“You live in Palo Alto, right?”

“I do, yes. Since I left MIT. I bought a house there. You’ll see it, it’s very nice.”

“That’s wonderful. Do you come into the city much?”

“This city?”

“San Francisco, yes, the city we’re currently in.”

“I have meetings and events here occasionally, sure, but mostly just driving through. I travel a lot.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“I wouldn’t call it fun, as it’s never been my life’s ambition to have fun, but it’s certainly not unpleasant. Do I smell urine?”

“I don’t know, it’s probably dog pee. This is not the kind of neighborhood that vagrants piss all over. I think.”

“And you’re happy here?”

“Very. I mean, yes, most of the time.”

“Do you miss Cleveland?”

“I mean. I miss my parents. I miss my house. I don’t know if I’d say that I miss Cleveland, exactly. Do you?”

He stares ahead. “I suppose I’d call it nostalgia for that period when we were growing up, rather than missing Cleveland.”

I nod. “I know what you mean.”

“Do you?” He looks at me, with an arched eyebrow. His eyebrows are spectacular, and impressive, his eyes so beautiful.

“Yes, of course.”

There’s a moment, when we’re walking down the sidewalk, when neither of us speaks, and I have a chance to feel two more things I haven’t felt with Johnny before—an appreciation of how tall he is, and nostalgia. Other than my parents and Nathan, who have come for one brief visit, I’ve never walked the streets of San Francisco with someone from back home before. I feel so comfortable for a second that I almost reach out to put my arm around him. But I don’t.

I keep noticing people staring at him, and assume it’s because he’s Hot Guy, but then a grown man in a hoodie jacket, black jeans and high tops, approaches him. “John Brandt, wow, sorry, I just wanted to say ‘hey.’”

“Hey, how are you.”

John stops to talk to the guy, so I wait a few feet away.

“Good, I’m Tim, I just wanted to shake your hand dude, and say ‘thanks.’”

They shake hands. “Oh cool, great.”

“Yeah, thanks to you and Brainy Biz I’m got an awesome job and I just moved out of my Mom’s basement, so…Hey, I’ve got an idea for a startup, can I pitch it to you?”

John pulls a business card out of his front pocket, he had it ready, and hands it to Tim. “I’d love to hear about it but I have to get my friend home, so you can email me, look forward to it.”

“Okay cool, thanks.” Tim doesn’t even look at me, he’s too excited to be holding John Brandt’s business card.

Johnny touches my elbow as he catches up with me. “Sorry about that.”

“Must be tough being a celebrity.”

“You tell me.”

“Hah. I mean, little girls ask me for my autograph after the shows, but they just hold up their notebooks to anyone who comes out from backstage.”

“That’ll change soon, I’m sure.”

I look over at him to check his facial expression, because he sounds completely genuine.

“Brainy Biz, huh?”

“Unfortunately, ‘Nerdballs, Inc’ was already taken.”

“Really?!”

“No.”

“Wow. Did you just make a joke? Who are you?”

He smiles. What a smile. He so rarely smiled growing up, it makes me sad for little Johnny Brandt. Although, it probably didn’t help that a small sassy ballerina was always belittling him.

“So tell me about Brainy Biz. My brother was talking about it once, but I wasn’t really paying attention. Sorry.”

“It’s LinkedIn meets Match dot com for people in the computer and applied science fields. Matches tech nerds and geeks with employing companies and investors, and vice versa, and also offers services to help techies optimize their job seeking and marketing skills.”

“Sounds like a highly necessary service.”

“Actually, I’m very grateful to you.”

“Grateful? To me? Why?”

“In a way, you inspired me to come up with the idea for Brainy Biz. Because you were always telling me how bad I am at connecting with people and so are all brainy nerds. I decided to help guys like me out.”

“Oh. Wow. So in a way you owe me, what, half of your massive fortune?”

He grins and says nothing.

“So you’re…a tech guy? What do you do, exactly?”

“I’m primarily an investor and entrepreneur, now that I have the financial resources. That was always the goal.”

“So why did you go to MIT and not Harvard Business?”

“It’s my understanding of the tech world that gives me an edge. I’m an idea guy too. A facilitator. I’m not just a guy who looks at the numbers, that’s why certain—tech guys, or girls—trust me more than other VCs. I speak both languages.”

You just don’t speak mine. “VCs? Virgin Computernerds?” He smiles. I don’t even get a laugh for that, just a smile.

“Computer Nerds is two words. And no. Venture capital. Private equity. The people or firms who fund startups. And you may be pleased to know, Olivia, that I haven’t been a virgin for quite some time.”

“Why, Johnny, I am terribly pleased to know this.”

Also I may be blushing.

Am I blushing?

Holy shit, I’m blushing.

“Um. I didn’t know you could be an investor and an entrepreneur and a startup founder at the same time.”

“Well. I can be whatever I want to be, depending on how I choose to allot my time and resources.”

“Well. Good for you.”

We’ve reached the non-descript front of the small condo that my apartment unit is in, on Fulton Street. The front door has a black metal security door in front of it. It’s not a pretty façade, but I really lucked out when my roommate Callie asked me if I wanted to live with her. She works at the restaurant part-time when she needs to supplement her graphic design business.

“This is me,” I say, as I unlock the security door.

Johnny looks around, as if I’ve brought him to some dark alley in Chinatown. It’s actually a great street. There are two trees on the sidewalk in front of our building! It’s not Pacific Heights, but it’s an up and coming neighborhood.

“It’s really nice inside,” I say, defensively. “And we have access to the backyard, it’s really sweet.”

“Good,” he says, as he keeps an eye out for muggers.

I roll my eyes. “You don’t have to come up if you don’t want to.”

“I do. I promised Monty I’d check up on you.”

He calls my brother Monty. “Really? He asked you to check up on me?”

“He was concerned about a recent incident. With a photographer.”

I drop my keys. “He told you about that?”

Johnny picks up my keys and hands them to me. “He didn’t go into any detail, he just said that your Mom mentioned you had an uncomfortable experience with a photographer.”

“I can’t believe she told Nathan.” I unlock the inner door and lead him up the narrow stairwell to the main living area. “It wasn’t that bad, he just tried to touch me and I left, end of story. I guess I was just lucky that it never happened before.”

“It’s not okay that it happened to you at all, Olivia,” he says. “I’m sorry that it did.”

I kind of love that he’s being protective of me. My brother always has been, but I guess Johnny never felt he could show it when Nathan was around. Hmm. Whaddyaknow.

We reach the living room area. “Sorry it’s a little messy.” I open the curtains to let more light in. I pick up various items of clothing and footwear, dishes that are on the hardwood floor.

We have quite nice furniture, it’s just covered with Callie’s design magazines and notebooks and our discarded apparel.

“Callie and I—that’s my roommate—we’re both pretty busy, so you know, not a lot of time to tidy up unfortunately. Can I get you something to drink?”

“No thank you,” he says, scanning the room. “Two bedroom?”

“Yes. We share a bathroom, but it’s big. Laundry downstairs. Backyard access. Patio. It’s a great location.”

He nods. “How can you live like this?”

“Excuse me? This is an amazing apartment. It’s $3695 a month, that’s less than most two bedrooms in the area and there are only two units in the building. This is an amazing apartment, you just don’t know because you’ve never lived on your own in a big city. Have you?”

He shakes his head. “It is a sweet unit, I don’t mean to insult your home. It’s just that you’re a beautiful intelligent talented woman—why have you deliberately chosen to live as mediocre a life as possible?”

“What? My life is not mediocre.”

“You’re resisting greatness.”

“You’re about to be ejected from my not at all mediocre apartment.”

“I want you to have the life that you deserve why does that bother you?”

“Because I have ears and I can hear what you’re saying to me. You do realize you said all that out loud right?”

“Olivia, I’d like to have my housekeeper come to clean this place up—at no cost to you, of course.”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“We can’t wait around for a housekeeper to come by.”

“I’ll give her a copy of my key.”

“You don’t have a key to my apartment.”

“Well, obviously I’ll need one. Here, this is the key to my house in Palo Alto.” He removes a fancy key from a classy key ring and holds it out to me. I don’t take it.

“Why are you giving me your house key?”

“So I don’t have to wait around for you whenever you want to come over. Your personalized six digit guest code for the house security system is your birth date, it has already been programmed in.”

“You remember my birth date?”

His eyes widen and he grins. “Well, we’ll see if I got it right if and when you enter your code into my security system keypad, won’t we?”

“I’ve lived here for over a year. Why am I seeing you now?”

“I told you. Your brother asked me to check in on you.”

“It never occurred to you to check in on me before?”

“I apologize. It’s not that I haven’t thought about you, believe me. I’m very busy. When you see my schedule you’ll understand. Let me now explain to you why I’m here.” He takes my hand and presses the house key into my palm, closes my fingers around it. I look up into his eyes and remember hearing him calling me “beautiful intelligent and talented” a minute ago, but I was so defensive it didn’t sink in until now. He’s never complimented me before. That was as close to a compliment as Johnny B. Nerdballs is capable of giving.

I clear off the magazines from the armchair and gesture for him to sit in it, while I take a seat on the sofa. “So? Explain to me why you’re here.”

He lifts the shoulder strap of the leather messenger bag over his head, and I can see that his armpits are sweating. It is warm, but I hope he’s nervous too, because he should be. Whatever his intentions for this unannounced visit, I think it’s safe to say that he’s blowing it. He places the bag on the ground by his feet, and places the shoulder strap in such a way that he won’t trip on it, in case I throw something at him or lunge at him and he has to make a run for it.

I lean back, rest my elbows on the back of the sofa, and place my ankle on my knee, spreading out. Body language. I’m taking up as much space as possible, to show him I’m in charge.

He puts his elbows on his knees, which are spread apart, clasps his hands together and leans forward. I try not to notice the dark swirls of exposed sexy chest hair. Jesus, you grew up good, JB.

He begins: “As I said, I maintain a busy schedule and travel much of the time, but I have some significant events coming up in the coming weeks—an important business trip to Shanghai, then a gala event in New York, a fundraiser for my new charity in Cleveland…I usually travel alone because it’s easier, but my market research consultant has informed me, time and again, that the most successful men in my industry are married…”

“Really?   My market research consultant has informed me that most unmarried men are unmarried because nobody wants to marry them.”

“Is that true?”

“No.  But it was witty.”

“It would have been witty if there were any truth to it. Anyway. Due to the nature of my new initiative, which aims to encourage more women to get involved in the tech industry…”

I involuntarily guffaw. “Sorry.”

“My PR consultant has recommended that I attend these upcoming events with a girlfriend, to convey myself and my industry as more ‘woman-friendly,’ as she put it. I'll be very busy, as always, so I'll need someone who requires a minimal amount of attention, someone I don't have to make an effort to get to know or impress.”

I see where we’re headed with this. “Whoah, easy, a girl can only take so much sweet talk, mister.”

He leans down to wipe an imperceptible scuff mark from his thousand dollar shoes. “About two weeks after returning from Cleveland I’m going to a wedding in Santa Barbara and I’ll definitely need a date for that so don’t have to deal with…what I usually deal with when I go to weddings solo.”

“Being laughed at?”

He is so smug.

“Oh just say it—women throw themselves at you.”

“I would never put it like that. But yes. If you aren't interested, there's a matchmaking service for high net worth gentlemen based in Sausalito that's been hounding me to sign up with them as a client.  I can just call them.  But I came to you first.”

I lean forward. “Why?”

“What do you mean?”

“I'd like to hear you say out loud why you came to me first.”

He blinks his long dark lashes and gives me a look that I cannot interpret.

“I need to hear it with words.”

“I came to you first because I know you, and I like you.  Because you're beautiful and intelligent and good-humored and I have always enjoyed spending time with you...also because I feel very comfortable with you. So I’d like you to join me, as my date, for the next month.”

I guffaw again. I really didn’t mean to. It just came out. Force of habit.

“I can pay your monthly bills, to cover the time you’ll have to take off from work while we’re traveling.”

“Would I have to actually spend time with you?”

“Yes. A lot of time. With a smile on your face. But only when we’re in public. I enjoy making you scowl in private.”

I’m frowning at him.

“Yes, like that, that’s perfect,” he says.

“Covering my bills ain’t gonna cut it.”

“Understood. Since it will require you taking time off from your restaurant job while we’re out of town, I’d be happy to compensate you for missed wages. You make what—fifteen dollars an hour?”

“I make around five thousand a month in tips alone. And yes, fifteen an hour. Six to eight hour shifts, five nights a week. But I’m also doing some modeling.”

“Right. I thought you weren’t going to do that anymore.”

“I have a regular gig that I like.”

“Really? For whom?”

“For a local lingerie boutique.”

He raises his spectacular eyebrow and jerks his head back.

“Don’t judge me. The pictures are for Instagram, so they’re very pretty and tasteful. Plus I’ve been doing odd jobs here and there, so it’s hard to estimate…”

He appears to be enjoying this, now that it’s becoming a negotiation. “Okay. Obviously your time and company are invaluable, and despite what you may think, I am aware that you consider my personality to be somewhat rough around the edges.”

I guffaw at that. “Understatement.”

“Let’s say that for the two weeks we’re out of town, I write you a check for five times the amount you’d make in that amount of time at the restaurant. In the unlikely event that you aren’t able to return to work at the restaurant after you take that time off.”

I wrinkle my nose.

“I can pay cash. As well, you will be provided with travel, luxury room and board, any and all incidentals, per diem and a substantial wardrobe budget.”

“Go on…”

“And…” He shifts around in the chair. There’s something he’s been keeping up his sleeve, and here it comes. He clears his throat and can’t contain his grin. That smug, cocky grin. “And as a major donor to the Bay Area Ballet, I would be happy to speak to the appropriate people to ensure that you will be featured next season.”

Whuck?

“You’re a donor? Since when?”

“Since last year.”

“You mean since I started there?”

“It did coincide with your employment there, sure. I’ve dined with Louisa and been to a cocktail party at her house.”

Louisa Boehmer is the Artistic Director of the Bay Area Ballet. She’s a retired principal dancer and a phenomenal choreographer. I worship her, even though she is not immune to the politics of art and commerce. No one is, apparently.

“I’m friendly with several board members.” He looks at me, very seriously. “You should be the Sugar Plum fairy in the Nutcracker this year. You’d be perfect. It’s a great part for you, right? I intend to tell them so when I hand them the next check.”

“Uh, you are correct, sir. That would be…very much appreciated. I thought you didn’t approve of my career choice.”

“Things have changed.”

“How so?”

“I’ve changed. My perspective on things has changed. I wish to support your endeavors.”

“Thank you. My endeavors would be grateful for your support.” Suck it, Kennedy, my Sugar Daddy’s hotter than yours! “You’d really do that for me?”

“I’ve made a lot of money, Olivia, and I know everyone says they want to make the world a better place, but I do especially intend to make the world a better place for the people I care about, and that includes you.”

My hand goes to my heart. “Thank you, Johnny. Thank you.”

“So you won’t mind if I try to help you in this way?”

“No. I don’t mind. I mean, I would have a few years ago, but…I’ll graciously accept it now. I mean—I know that there’s no guarantee that I’ll get the part even so. It’s such a coveted role. But yeah. Thank you for supporting the ballet.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Wait. Have you even been to a performance? Did you come see me dance without telling me?”

He doesn’t answer. “So you agree to the terms, as discussed?”

“The terms? Is there a contract?”

He opens up his messenger bag and gets up to hand me a printed-out contract, then returns to the armchair to watch me look at it. I suddenly feel uncomfortable with the formality of these terms. I stand up and walk over to the kitchen counter, to lean against it while I scan the two pages.