Page 2 of Sweeter

Tech Bro raises his hands, the fingers spread wide in a ‘please don’t kill me’ gesture. “I’m sorry. I know Felix made a lot of promises—”

“He said he’d take me to London for the Wireless Festival.” The redhead is on her feet, beer glass clenched in her fist. If I was Tech Bro, I’d be hoping my stupid hat had a secret steel lining.

“What about the payment?” Glamazon asks.

“Payment? You mean, uh, promising to be your sugar daddy?” Tech Bro loses momentum halfway through the sentence, practically whispering the word ‘daddy.’

My laughter is swelling, burning my chest and lungs. I clamp my hand over my lips. I’m dying. I got catfished by a guy called Felix and now I’m going to die from unburst laughter.

“I don’t mean that,” Glamazon snaps. “Henry said he’d give me five hundred dollars to meet him tonight. Cash.”

“Me too,” says the redhead.

“Me too,” chimes Angelina Jolie.

Me four, I think.

I’m still trying to breathe through my impending lolz coronary, but I can see what a brilliantly evil move that was. I was umming and ahhing about meeting Henry, but five hundred bucks sure got me out of the house on a freezing winter night.

Tech Bro looks from one angry woman to the next. He attempts to catch the bartender’s eye, but that motherfucker is ignoring him. Who can blame the guy? The expression ‘shoot the messenger’ feels very relevant right now.

“Say something,” the redhead snaps.

Tech Bro grips both his elbows, making his pecs flex through his skin-tight thermal. “I’m really sorry.”

“Fuck sorry.” Glamazon points her finger like it’s the barrel of a gun. “I got a babysitter, I paid for an Uber, I’ve been sitting here for forty-five minutes, and you’re telling me I got catfished, Hat Boy?”

My laughter is hardening into hysteria, rising in my throat like an unswallowed lump of bread. I try to choke it back, but, well,Hat Boy?

“Hang on,” Glamazon says. “How do we knowyoudidn’t pretend to be Henry and come here to freak us out?”

“Because I’m not, I promise!” Tech Bro does the first sensible thing I’ve seen him do all evening and yanks off his cap. His hair is sandy, and his cheekbones are high. His overall hotness shoots up another ten points.

I side-eye Glamazon, but she doesn’t seem swayed by his All-American beauty. Her lips are curled in a she-wolf snarl. “You’re Henry, aren’t you?”

“No!”

“You fucking are,” the redhead shouts. Does she worry about being a cliché, or just lean into the whole ‘angry redhead’ thing? There are angry mutterings across the bar. This thing has taken on the air of a witch hunt. I look at the bartender who pulls out his phone. I wonder if he’s already dialed ‘nine’ and ‘one’ and his thumb is hovering over the third digit.

“I’m not Henry,” Tech Bro says. “I’m Will, William Faulkner and—”

The laughter lump rises with the force of a nuclear warhead. I hold it in my mouth for a second, then eject it in a hysterical half-scream. I can’t help it, I’m cold and tired and hungry and poor and I got catfished and the person telling me I got catfished isWilliam Faulkner.

“What’s wrong with you?” Glamazon yelps, but William Faulkner knows why I’m laughing.

He turns to look at me. “My mom didn’t know who William Faulkner was, okay?”

This does nothing to calm me down. I’m laughing so hard I grab the bar to keep from falling the fuck over.

“Seriously,” he says. “There are plenty of people called William Faulkner.”

I open my tear-streaked eyelids to tell him there’s also one particular guy called William Faulkner, and our gazes connect. I have a single second to appreciate the deep, almost intergalactic blue of Tech Bro’s eyes and then my stomach drops like I’m on a roller coaster to heaven.

No, I think.Please no.

But it doesn’t matter what I want, time is already stretching all around me like glittery gold chewing gum, rearranging itself in the context ofhim. The tech bro. The catfisher’s friend. The new most interesting person in the world.

I’ve felt this before in grad school, but I could pretend Iwasn’tstunned by sheer physical attraction to Tom Trafford. That doesn’t seem to be an option here. I’m staring at William Faulkner like staring at William Faulkner is how you get oxygen into your lungs. And he’s staring back.

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