Page 20 of Shy Girl

Instead, I ask: “So, what do you do?” The question is light, casual on the surface, but I mean it with weight. I need specifics, a foothold in this uneven terrain. His profile says finance, but that could mean anything: investment banking, accounting, even one of those cryptocurrency schemes. I need details. Specifics. My fingers twitch under the table, wanting to write down his answer, to catalog it, analyze it later.

He hesitates, the smallest flicker of something unreadable crossing his face. “I work with portfolios,” he says, each word neat but deliberately vague. “Helping clients manage their investments.”

It’s nothing, a placeholder answer that leaves no room for real understanding. It irritates me in a way I didn’t expect, makes me want to press harder, but before I can, the waitress interrupts with a smile that feels pasted on.

“Have you two decided?” she asks, pen poised.

“Two spaghetti Bolognese,” Nathan says, his voice quick, authoritative, as if he’s a judge who slammed his gavel down to declare our meal. “And a bottle of red.”

I blink, caught off guard. He ordered for me. My brain stumbles over this, the presumption of it. I don’t even like Bolognese. I’ve already imagined the acidic sauce staining my lips, the mess of it

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lingering too long. It feels too uncouth for sugar dating. I wanted oysters or crab cakes, something sexy. Spaghetti bolognese were for couples on the brink of divorce.

“Thank you,” I say to the waitress reflexively. She widens her eyes at me.Get a load of this guy.I smile and cartoonishly widen my eyes back at her before she leaves the table. I love how we can telepathically converse like that. It was one of the only things women had that men couldn’t take away.

“You like Bolognese, right?” Nathan asks, a faint curve of amusement at the edge of his mouth.

“Sure,” I lie. The word feels sour in my mouth.

I sip my water again, this time more slowly. I’m holding it too tightly, I realize, my fingers tense around the rim. I set it down carefully before I break the glass.

“Have you always been in finance?” I ask, redirecting the conversation into safer waters, though my pulse quickens at the thought of him dodging again. I want something real from him, something I can pick apart later.

I wanted an arrangement for money, but even in that, I still want to know withwho. I still want to look across the table and see a person instead of an outline, to hear something real in the spaces between the practiced lines. Men can sleep with anyone without knowing their name, their favorite color, what keeps them awake at night. They can touch a body without wondering about the life that inhabits it.

But women—women require more. Not much more, not always, but enough to tether the act to something tangible. It’s not just the mechanics of connection; it’s the context, the shape of the person behind the hands. Who are you when you’re not here, sitting across from me? What’s your damage, your desire, your history? What do you see when you close your eyes at night? I’m not asking for love or even for vulnerability. Just something sharp enough to make the

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moment stick. Something to make me feel like I’m not vanishing into nothingness the second this ends.

Because that’s what it feels like, being here with him. He is a smoothed-over surface, glossy and opaque, withholding just enough to keep me at bay. And I hate how much I care. How much I want to peel him apart, layer by layer, until I can see the raw, messy thing underneath. It’s not romance—it’s curiosity. It’s wanting to know who I will be giving myself to.

He nods, but his answer is noncommittal, the details slipping away like sand through my fingers. I hate the slipperiness of it, the way he refuses to let me pin him down.

The pasta arrives, steaming and rich, and I force myself to smile, to mirror his calm. But my mind spins, replaying his words, dissecting his gestures, the uneven power of this arrangement laid bare between us.

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The restaurant humswith a quiet, mechanical efficiency, the kind that smooths over the chaos of human presence. Forks scraping against porcelain. Laughter muffled by the low hum of ambient jazz. Voices rise and fall like waves, colliding, dissipating, and disappearing into the fabric of the space. I keep my gaze fixed on my plate, my fork absently tracing the edges of the pasta I’ve barely touched. Nathan doesn’t comment on it. Doesn’t ask if I enjoyed the meal or why I’ve basically left it untouched, only taking a few small bites. He just signals for the check, and when it comes, he throws down a stack of money like it’s nothing.

“Ready?” he asks, shrugging his blazer back into place as he stands. I nod, my throat too tight to form words.

Outside, the air bites at my cheeks, crisp and sharp in a way that feels violent. “Follow me in your car?” he says, gesturing toward the sleek black sedan waiting for him at the curb, the valet holding the door open like a scene from a movie.

I nod again, my head bobbing mechanically. My legs carry me toward my car, each step feeling heavier than the last. Inside, I grip the steering wheel until my knuckles pale. What does he want to show me? Is this some kind of test? A game? My chest tightens at the thought, and for a moment, I consider turning around, driving home, erasing the night from memory. But then the image of the eviction notice flashes in my mind and something in me pulls tight. I put the car into gear and follow him.

The city falls away quickly, the bright lights and crowded streets replaced by wide, tree-lined avenues and the quiet, measured order of suburban wealth and then eventually, the middle of nowhere. Each turn feels like a step deeper into something I don’t

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