My best friend is in love with my uncle. She’s also paying me a small fortune to play Cupid. When I delivered the scarf she knitted for him, my uncle’s jaw tightened. A notification pinged on my phone. “Ten thousand dollars,” he said, his voice flat. “Consider your services purchased.” When I passed along her handwritten love letter, he didn’t even glance at it. His face darkened as he tapped on his phone. “Twenty thousand,” he bit out. “Don’t ever do this again.” I was getting paid by both of them. Life was good. Until the day before his birthday. I walked in carrying a massive bouquet of ninety-nine red roses, courtesy of my very determined best friend. He exploded. His face was a mask of cold fury as he ripped the flowers from my arms and smashed them on the floor. “I thought you knew the line, Ava,” he seethed, his voice dangerously low. “But I see you’ve learned to be shameless.” He took a step closer, towering over me. “Stop fantasizing. I could never, ever feel that way about you. Not in this lifetime.” I just stared, stunned. But past the anger, I saw it clear as day: the desperate, agonizing conflict in his eyes. Hold on a second, buddy. Let’s get something straight. I see you as my uncle. So why are you acting like you want to be my husband? 1 Tomorrow is Connor’s thirtieth birthday. Every year, I give him a small, handmade gift. Nothing expensive or flashy, just something thoughtful. Tonight, like always, he was sitting in the living room, waiting for me to get home. But the moment he saw the massive bouquet of red roses in my arms, something in him snapped. His face, usually so composed, went cold. I instantly knew what he was thinking, what he’d misunderstood, and opened my mouth to explain. But before I could, he ripped the bouquet from my hands and slammed it onto the marble floor. The petals scattered like droplets of blood. His brow was furrowed, his eyes filled with a deep, crushing disappointment. “Have you no shame, Ava?” His voice was low, cutting. “Even if we’re not blood, I’m still your guardian. I’m your uncle.” He took a step closer, his shadow falling over me. “All these years, you’ve given me these… suggestive little gifts. I let it slide because I thought you knew the line. But now this? Are you really pushing it this far?” I was speechless for a second, then found my voice. “This is from Chloe,” I explained, my tone steady despite the tremor inside me. “She just asked me to give it to you.” Chloe is my best friend and, out of all the women vying for Connor’s attention, the only one I actually like. She has a great personality, she’s gorgeous, and even Connor seems to enjoy her company. She wanted to surprise him for his birthday. The plan was for me to be the advance guard with the roses. She was hiding outside, waiting for the right moment to come in and confess her feelings. As her designated wingwoman and paid consultant, I was happy to play my part in her slightly cheesy, rom-com-worthy plan. But when I pulled open the front door to prove I was telling the truth, the porch was empty. *What the hell? Where did she go?* Way to flake out at the crucial moment, Chloe. Now what do I do? I turned back to Connor, my mind racing, but meeting his gaze made the words die in my throat. His expression was a storm of conflict. Disappointment, yes, but also a raw, painful longing. The rest of it, the part that twisted my stomach into a knot, I refused to acknowledge. He grabbed my arm, his grip tight, and pulled me onto the porch, forcing me to look at the empty, manicured lawn. The night air was cold against my skin. His voice was laced with an arctic chill I’d never heard before. “I’ve raised you for over a decade, Ava. I didn’t do it so you could learn to lie to my face like this.” He gestured vaguely at the darkness. “Stop using Chloe as a shield. You’re not worthy of even mentioning her name in the same breath. She’s a decent, reserved girl. She would never be so… shameless.” In all the years I’d lived with him, he had never spoken to me with such contempt. It was humiliating. Utterly, profoundly humiliating. I clutched at the sleeve of his cashmere sweater. “It’s not like that…” He shook me off like I was a piece of dirt, pulling out his phone. His fingers moved across the screen with grim familiarity. A notification pinged on my phone. “I just sent you ten thousand dollars,” he said, his voice flat. “Consider the flowers bought. And consider whatever pathetic fantasy you’ve cooked up in your head bought and paid for, too.” He met my eyes, his own now hard as granite. “From now on, I don’t want to see this kind of trash in my house again. Get rid of your disgusting little crush. I could never, ever feel that way about you. This lifetime or the next.” He brushed past me and walked out into the night, leaving me standing there amid the ruined flowers. My eyes burned, tears welling up until my vision blurred. Just then, my phone buzzed again. A text from Chloe. *OMG I’m so sorry babe, I totally chickened out…* A second message appeared. *Can you buy another bouquet for tomorrow?? I’ll try again! I promise I’ll go through with it this time!* Then, a third notification. *Venmo: Chloe sent you $20,000.* Followed by: *Please??* Wait. How much? Twenty. Thousand. Dollars. I sniffled, blinked, and counted the zeroes after the two. One, two, three, four. It was real. I pocketed my phone, a sense of calm satisfaction washing over me. The tears of wounded pride instantly retreated. I knelt, methodically gathering the scattered petals from the floor. Then, my face a perfect mask of composure, I opened an app and ordered a new bouquet of roses for delivery tomorrow morning. Sorry, Connor. Her offer was just too good to refuse. 2 It wasn’t always this tense between us. Before I turned eighteen, things were different. The Reeds and my family, the Martins, were inseparable. After my parents died in a car crash, I was sent to live with Connor. He was my dad’s best friend, my designated guardian. By convention, I called him Uncle Connor. He earned the title. Even though we shared no blood, he treated me like a princess. He took me on trips to broaden my horizons, bought me ridiculously expensive dresses for school dances, and once, when a new housekeeper accidentally gave me regular milk and triggered my lactose allergy, he lost his notoriously unshakable cool and fired her on the spot. Having lost my own father, I came to see him as a father figure, someone I loved and respected deeply. For every holiday, every birthday, I would make him a gift. A hand-knit scarf or gloves when it got cold. A pitcher of his favorite sun tea when summer arrived. To me, these were just simple, ordinary gestures of affection. My mother was crafty, and I’d picked it up from her. I used to make the same kinds of things for my dad. But somewhere along the way, as I grew from a girl into a woman, things changed. Or maybe he changed. My simple gifts started taking on meanings he invented, and with each one, he grew more distant. Finally, whether to create distance or for some other reason, he started paying me. For the scarf I gave him on my eighteenth birthday, he didn’t even look at it. He just offered a thin smile and picked up his phone. “Thanks for the effort, Ava. I just sent you ten thousand. Consider it a purchase.” The sun tea got the same treatment. He took a single, perfunctory sip. “Tastes good. You worked hard.” Another ping from my phone. “That’s five hundred dollars. For the pitcher.” Five hundred dollars. Not for the sentiment. For the product. He never used many words. The wire transfers were his way of rejecting the feeling behind the gift. His deliberate distance hurt, but it also lit a fire under me. Five hundred bucks for a pitcher of tea? Where else was I going to find a patron that generous and clueless? He said he was buying my gifts, but he never said I had to stop giving them. So I doubled down. My gift-giving became more frequent, more… creative. I gave him presents for absurd holidays like National Left-Handers Day. Worried he’d get the wrong idea again, I started choosing the most impersonal things I could think of: designer sunglasses, artisanal teas, fancy imported milk, and even a bag of Nescafé instant I tried to pass off as hand-ground artisanal coffee. And as he grew colder, I took on a side hustle: running point for the legion of women trying to date him, delivering their gifts and messages. Getting paid on both ends of the deal isn’t shameful, it’s smart. I thought for sure this would get the message through his thick skull. That my interest was purely familial—and, now, financial. Apparently, I’d underestimated the complexity of his wiring. All my efforts, and I still ended up with, “I could never feel that way about you.” Sigh. Re-education program: failed. 3 Connor came home late, staggering drunk. Seeing him stumble, I instinctively moved to help him. The moment my hand touched his arm, he flinched like he’d been burned. He shoved me away, his eyes wild. I lost my balance and fell to the floor. “I told you to get away from me!” he snarled, his words slurring. “Stay the hell away! I don’t like you, don’t you get it?” *Dude,* I thought, rubbing my hip. *I never said I liked you.* He ignored me, lurching toward the staircase. He made it two steps before his legs gave out and he tumbled right back down, landing in a heap near my feet. Okay. Deep breaths. You’re turning thirty, my friend. Tomorrow, you officially begin your journey toward forty. In a few years, I could legitimately call you an old man. Can we please stop pretending we’re invincible? I pushed myself up, massaging my temples, and hauled him back to his bedroom. His consciousness was flickering, but he still knew who I was. As I pulled the covers over him, his hand fumbled for his phone on the nightstand. “Two thousand…” he mumbled. “For… for your help. The service fee. Don’t get any ideas.” I should have let him fall a few more times. Maybe the price would have gone up. For the sake of the money, I ignored the drunkard’s ramblings. I tucked him in and turned to leave. But before I could take a step, a pair of arms wrapped around me from behind, hot and heavy. The smell of whiskey and smoke mixed with his signature cedarwood cologne filled my senses. Connor’s lips, feverish and rough, brushed against my ear. “Why?” he whispered, his voice thick and raw. “Why won’t you just go away?” Before I could process it, his hand was at the back of my neck, turning my head. I was trapped, looking into his eyes—eyes that were no longer just conflicted, but filled with a dark, terrifying desire. That snapped me out of it. I shoved him hard, stumbling back. “You need to figure out who’s pushing who away!” I shot back, my voice sharp. Then, without waiting for a reply, I fled to my room. My heart hammered against my ribs. I leaned against my door, trying to get my thoughts in order. Suddenly, an idea struck. I grabbed my phone and opened my chat with Chloe. *Chloe, Connor’s trashed. Perfect opportunity. Get over here. Now.*
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