"You look like reheated death, and I mean that with love."
Jules Moreau slides into the booth across from me, two whiskeys already in hand, his violet-streaked hair catching the amber glow of the bar's Edison bulbs.
He works in Apex Global's creative department—a glass-walled fishbowl on the fifteenth floor with a direct sightline to every elevator bank, every executive corridor, every whispered conversation that echoes through marble lobbies.
If secrets exist at Apex, Jules has catalogued them.
"I didn't want to come out tonight," I say, accepting the glass he pushes toward me. "I have sixty hours to figure out how to produce money I don't have, and you want to drink."
"I want to help."
Jules takes a long sip, his dark eyes sharp beneath the theatrical sweep of eyeliner he refuses to abandon since high school.
"You've been dodging my calls for two days, which means whatever's happening is bad enough that you think you have to handle it alone, which means you're about to do something spectacularly stupid."
The whiskey burns going down, and I let it settle in my chest before answering.
"My father needs surgery that costs one hundred and eighty thousand dollars, and I have approximately four hundred in my savings account."
Jules sets his glass down slowly.
"Ethan, I'm so sorry. Have you looked into—"
"Everything."
I cut him off because I can't bear the suggestions, the hopeful possibilities I've already exhausted.
"Payment plans require credit I don't have. Loans require collateral I can't provide. Charity funds have six-month waiting lists. I've called every hospital administrator, every financial aid office, every organization that claims to help people in my situation. And the answer is always the same: we're very sorry, but there's nothing we can do."
"Jesus." Jules reaches across the table and grips my wrist, his fingers warm against my skin. "What about your job? Can Hargrove advance you anything?"
"Hargrove would sooner set himself on fire than help me."
I laugh, and it sounds hollow even to my own ears.
"But something strange happened today. I had to get a sign-off from the executive floor, and I ended up working with Asher Varkas for three hours."
Jules's eyebrows shoot toward his hairline. "Asher Varkas? Ice Prince Asher Varkas who once made a senior partner cry in a board meeting?"
"He was..." I search for the right word. "Demanding. Brutal, actually. But he taught me something in those three hours that Hargrove hasn't managed in two years. And at the end, he said I had potential."
"Of course he did." Jules leans back, a knowing smile spreading across his face. "You don't see it, do you? You genuinely have no idea what's happening."
"What are you talking about?"
"Ethan, I work in the glass fishbowl. We see everything." He leans forward, dropping his voice. "People talk. And my roommate works in HR—she mentioned Asher Varkas requested access to personnel files for the analytics department last month. Wouldn't say whose file specifically, but the timing lines up with your sudden visibility."
"That doesn't mean—"
"And Blaine?" Jules pauses. "I've watched him watch you in the lobby, babe. The man delays his coffee runs to match your elevator schedule—I've timed it. Call it pattern recognition from someone who's spent four years cataloguing executive movements from a glass box."
Heat floods my face.
"That's ridiculous. They don't even know who I am."
"And Cole?" Jules pauses for dramatic effect. "Cole looks at you like you hung the moon and personally placed every star in the sky. He gave you his business card, didn't he? I heard about the elevator."
"How could you possibly know about that?"
"The elevator security feeds route through our floor for the digital archives project. I may have... noticed... when I was pulling footage for marketing."
Jules shrugs without a trace of remorse.
"The man watched you walk away for a solid thirty seconds after you left the car. His face looked like someone had just shot his dog."
"Oh, honey."
Jules shakes his head with the patient condescension of someone explaining gravity to a toddler.
"You really have perfected the whole repressed straight-boy aesthetic, haven't you? The buttoned-up shirts, the careful distance, the way you flinch whenever anyone gets too close. It's like catnip for men who enjoy a challenge."
"I'm not—" I stop, the denial catching in my throat. "It doesn't matter what I am or what they think. None of that helps my father."
Jules's expression shifts, the teasing warmth draining away to reveal the protective instinct he usually hides behind sarcasm.
He pulls out his phone, swipes through several screens, and slides it across the table toward me.
"What is this?" I stare at the screen, not understanding what I'm seeing.
Numbers. Photographs of men with their faces obscured. Bid amounts climbing higher and higher.
"It's an underground auction site," Jules says quietly, glancing around to ensure no one's listening. "Apps where 'straight' guys auction off their first gay experience. Curious virgins, bicurious professionals, men who want to explore without anyone in their real lives ever knowing."
My stomach turns. "Jules, what the hell—"
"Just look."
He reaches over and scrolls through the listings.
"This guy went for forty thousand. This one hit seventy-five. And this—"
He stops on a profile with a six-figure bid.
"One hundred and twenty thousand dollars, Ethan. For one night."
The number burns itself into my retinas. One hundred and twenty thousand dollars.
"The men who pay for this aren't random creeps off the street," Jules continues.
His voice becomes low and urgent.
"They're wealthy, vetted, background-checked within an inch of their lives. The site has security protocols, safety measures, everything designed to protect the sellers. It's not prostitution in the traditional sense—it's more like an experience marketplace for people with very specific tastes and very deep pockets."
"You're suggesting I sell myself." The words taste like ash.
"I'm suggesting you have options."
Jules meets my eyes without flinching.
"You've spent your entire life pretending to be something you're not, burying every part of yourself that your father couldn't accept. And now that same father is dying, and the only thing standing between him and a grave is money you don't have."
"I can't. I don't even know if I could go through with something like that."
"You don't have to decide tonight." Jules squeezes my hand, his touch gentle now. "But the site is called FirstBid, all one word. Just in case you want to look."
I flinch, and Jules sees it.
"That man might be your father but he doesn't deserve your loyalty, Ethan. He never did."
We finish our drinks in silence.
Jules hugs me outside the bar, his arms tight around my shoulders, and whispers something about calling him if I need to talk.
I nod without really hearing him, my mind already spiraling into calculations I don't want to make.
The walk home takes twenty minutes.
My apartment greets me with cold air and the persistent drip of the kitchen faucet I can't afford to fix.
I change into sweatpants and collapse onto my bed, staring at the ceiling while the city hums outside my window.
FirstBid. One word.
I close my eyes, but the numbers won't stop cycling: fifty-eight hours, one hundred eighty thousand, one hundred twenty thousand, one night.
At 2 a.m., I give up on sleep.
My laptop sits on the desk where I left it, screen dark, waiting. My hands move without permission, opening the browser, typing the letters one by one into the search bar.
The website loads in shades of black and gold, elegant and discrete, nothing like the seedy underworld I'd imagined.
A tagline glows beneath the logo: Your first time deserves to be unforgettable.
My cursor hovers over "Create Profile."
What are you worth, Ethan? What would someone pay to unwrap everything you've hidden?
I click.