Chapter 2 - The Construction Worker Everyone Laughed At
At thirty years old, I had somehow become the only person my family could always agree on.
Not because they admired me.
Not because they understood me.
Because I was their favorite disappointment.
My name is Serena Hale, and by almost every reasonable standard, I had built a good life. I had a stable career as a commercial interior designer in Manhattan, paid my own bills, rented a bright apartment overlooking a narrow tree-lined street in Brooklyn, and had enough savings to survive without calling my parents whenever life became difficult.
I worked hard. I treated people well. I had friends who loved me and clients who trusted me.
None of that mattered to my family.
I was unmarried.
To them, that single fact erased everything else.
At every Christmas dinner, my mother found a way to ask whether I had “finally met someone.” At Thanksgiving, my father joked that he might have to offer a dowry. During birthday calls, relatives asked whether my standards were too high or whether I had secretly decided to spend my life alone.
My older sister, Lois, enjoyed those conversations more than anyone.
Lois was thirty-four and had been married to a real estate broker named Trevor for six years. She dressed as if every family event were being photographed for a society magazine, spoke loudly about expensive vacations, and possessed an almost supernatural talent for turning any conversation into a celebration of herself.
If I mentioned landing a major client, Lois talked about Trevor’s commission checks.
If I described renovating a historic hotel, she asked whether interior design was “really a career or more of a creative hobby.”
If I defended myself, my mother sighed and said, “Serena, don’t be so sensitive. Your sister is only teasing.”
Lois was the family success story.
I was the warning.
Three days before our annual summer barbecue, my mother called while I was standing in line at a crowded coffee shop near Union Square.
She did not say hello.
“You are bringing someone this year,” she announced.
I pressed my phone against my ear and stepped aside as a barista called another customer’s name.
“Good afternoon to you too, Mom.”
“I’m serious, Serena.”
“So am I. Hello would have been nice.”
She ignored that.
“Everyone is uncomfortable watching you arrive alone.”
I stared through the window at pedestrians rushing along the sidewalk.
“Everyone?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, actually, I don’t.”
My mother exhaled as though I were making her explain something embarrassingly obvious.
“Your sister has created a respectable life. She has a husband, a beautiful home, and a promising career. The least you can do is stop humiliating us in front of our friends.”
The words struck harder than they should have.
Maybe because she said them so casually.
Maybe because two strangers nearby heard her raised voice through the phone and glanced in my direction.
I lowered my gaze.
“I have a career too.”
“This isn’t about work.”
“It’s always about whatever Lois has that I don’t.”
“Don’t turn this into another competition.”
“I’m not the one competing.”
“You are bringing someone,” she repeated. “I don’t care where you find him.”
“I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“Then find one.”
The call ended.
For a few seconds, I stood motionless in the middle of the coffee shop, listening to the hollow silence where my mother’s voice had been.
Then the barista pushed my drink across the counter.
“Large vanilla latte?”
I took it automatically.
My hands were trembling when I turned around.
Unfortunately, a man was standing directly behind me.
The lid loosened as the cup collided with his chest. Warm coffee splashed across his faded charcoal shirt and dripped onto his worn jeans.
“Oh my God.”
I froze.
The man looked down at himself.
“I am so sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t paying attention.”
He was tall, perhaps six foot three, with broad shoulders and dark hair that looked as though he had run his fingers through it several times. His work boots were scuffed. There was a faint streak of grease across one knuckle and a shallow scratch near his wrist.
He looked like someone who had spent the morning repairing machinery.
Instead of becoming angry, he calmly accepted the napkins I shoved toward him.
“It’s all right,” he said. “It’ll wash out.”
“No, it won’t. It has vanilla syrup in it. I’ve probably permanently turned your shirt into dessert.”
One corner of his mouth lifted.
“I’ve survived worse.”
The sensible thing would have been to apologize again and leave.
Instead, my mother’s words continued echoing in my head.
Then find one.
I stared at the stranger’s plain shirt, worn jeans, and steady gray eyes.
And I said the most ridiculous sentence of my adult life.
“I’ll pay you to pretend you’re my boyfriend.”
His hand stopped in the middle of wiping his shirt.
Behind us, the espresso machine hissed.
“I’m sorry?” he asked.
Heat rushed into my face.
“I know how that sounded.”
“I’m not sure you do.”
“It’s only for one afternoon.”
He folded the wet napkin between his fingers and studied me carefully.
I could still retreat. I could laugh, claim it was a joke, and run outside.
Instead, humiliation loosened every word I had spent years swallowing.
“My parents are hosting a barbecue on Saturday. My family constantly mocks me because I’m single. My mother just told me I’m embarrassing them. You wouldn’t have to do anything complicated. Stand beside me, hold my hand occasionally, pretend we’ve been dating for a few months.”
“What happens if they ask how we met?”
“We’ll say I attacked you with a vanilla latte.”
That made him laugh.
It was a quiet, surprised sound, and for half a second I laughed too.
Then the absurdity of what I was proposing crashed over me.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “Forget it. This is pathetic.”
My eyes burned.
I turned away, but his voice stopped me.
“What’s your name?”
I looked back.
“Serena.”
“I’m Miles.”
He glanced toward the phone still clenched in my hand.
“Does your family always speak to you like that?”
I forced a shrug.
“They think they’re helping.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
There was no judgment in his face. That somehow made answering more difficult.
“Most of the time,” I admitted.
Miles looked at me for several quiet seconds.
“How much were you planning to pay this fake boyfriend?”
“Five hundred dollars.”
His eyebrows rose.
“Your family must be impressive.”
“Only if cruelty impresses you.”
The hint of humor vanished from his expression.
Finally, he nodded.
“All right, Serena. One afternoon.”
I blinked.
“You’re serious?”
“You made a business proposal. I’m accepting it.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“You don’t know me either.”
“That is exactly why this is insane.”
“Probably.”
He pulled a phone from his pocket and handed it to me.
“Put in your number before you change your mind.”
I did.
During the next two days, Miles and I exchanged basic information so we could survive questions. We decided we had met three months earlier at a coffee shop, which was technically only off by three months. He said he handled operational projects. I said I designed commercial interiors.
When I asked for more details about his work, he wrote, It’s complicated. Easier to explain in person.
I assumed he worked for a construction company.
Saturday arrived with flawless blue skies and a temperature high enough to make every blade of grass shimmer.
Miles picked me up in an older dark pickup truck. He wore the same work boots, clean faded jeans, and a plain navy shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms.
I had told him casual clothes were fine.
The moment I saw him, panic tightened my stomach.
“My family considers a three-hundred-dollar polo shirt casual.”
He glanced at his clothes.
“You want me to change?”
“No.”
The answer came faster than I expected.
I was tired of adjusting myself for them. I would not start adjusting him before we even reached the house.
“You look fine,” I said.
He opened the passenger door for me.
“Then let’s go disappoint some people.”
Despite everything, I smiled.
My parents’ Connecticut estate sat behind black iron gates and nearly two acres of manicured lawn. White tents covered dining tables. Servers carried trays of champagne beneath flowering trees. Luxury cars lined the circular driveway.
The Hale family called it a barbecue.
Everyone else would have called it a catered garden reception.
As we approached the lawn, Miles touched the small of my back.
The gesture was gentle, but it sent an unexpected current through me.
“Nervous?” he asked.
“They can smell fear.”
“Good thing I smell like construction work.”
I laughed, then immediately noticed Lois watching us from across the lawn.
She wore a cream designer dress and oversized sunglasses. Her husband stood beside her talking to one of my father’s wealthy neighbors.
Lois excused herself and walked toward us.
Her eyes traveled slowly over Miles’s boots, jeans, and shirt.
Then she smiled.
“This is your boyfriend?”
Every instinct told me to apologize for existing.
Instead, I took Miles’s hand.
“Yes. Lois, this is Miles.”
She did not offer her hand.
“So now your type is a smelly construction worker?”
Several cousins standing nearby laughed.
One of them lifted his glass to hide a grin.
My face burned.
Miles did not react.
He simply looked at Lois with an expression so calm that her smile flickered.
Before I could respond, my mother hurried across the lawn.
Her eyes widened when she saw Miles.
“Serena, may I speak with you?”
She seized my wrist and pulled me behind a row of decorative shrubs.
“Where did you find him?” she hissed.
“He’s my guest.”
“He looks like someone we hired to repair the plumbing.”
“You told me to bring someone.”
“I didn’t tell you to bring a laborer.”
My stomach tightened.
“You haven’t even spoken to him.”
“I don’t need to. Keep him away from Lois’s professional contacts, and please make sure he doesn’t say anything stupid.”
For once, I did not apologize.
I pulled my wrist from her hand.
Then I stepped around the shrubs and returned to Miles.
He was standing exactly where I had left him, watching the lawn with quiet interest.
“What did she say?” he asked.
“Nothing worth repeating.”
He held my gaze.
Something in his expression told me he already knew.
My father’s greeting was worse.
When I introduced Miles, Dad extended only two fingers for a handshake, barely looked at him, and immediately turned away to continue a conversation about golf.
Miles stared after him.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
He wiped his hand against his jeans.
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
Across the lawn, Lois was still watching us.
Her expression had changed.
She no longer looked amused.
She looked curious.
And Lois’s curiosity had always been most dangerous when she believed she had found a new way to humiliate me.
She lifted her champagne glass and began walking toward us.
Miles leaned close enough that only I could hear him.
“I think your sister is planning something.”
“She always is.”
His hand closed around mine.
“Then let her.”
At that moment, I thought the worst thing that could happen was my family discovering I had paid a stranger to attend the party.
I had no idea that before sunset, the stranger standing beside me would expose a lie Lois had built her entire life around.
May you like
And once the truth came out, my family would never look at either of us the same way again.
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