“Can I ask you something?” Bram asked as the waitress left to fill their order.

“Sure.”

“Am I fired?”

The question threw Spencer for a loop. “F—no. Why would you think that?”

“I kissed you.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “Remember?”

Oh, he remembered. Vividly. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had taken him so completely off guard. He’d spent more time than he’d care to admit reliving the moment. But it sure as hell wasn’t a fireable offense. Okay, technically, it could have been. But in this case it had cemented his decision to go ahead with his ridiculous plan.

“No, Bram. You’re definitely not fired.”

Bram’s posture relaxed somewhat. Then he leaned forward and asked, “So what are we doing here, then?”

“Hang on a minute. You thought you were about to be fired and you came along anyway?”

“I mean, yeah. If you were going to fire me, you could have done it anywhere. At least this way, it wouldn’t have been in front of everyone at work.”

“Well, you can rest assured. Nobody is getting fired.”

As their waitress set their drinks down, they stared at each other intently. Neither man spoke until they both thanked her without breaking eye contact.

“So?” Bram prompted. “What did you want to talk about?”

After hesitating briefly, Spencer bit the bullet and dove right in. “I need to get married.”

Bram furrowed his brow and took a hearty swallow of wine. “You’ve lost me.”

“I need to get married and want to make you a proposal,” Spencer explained. “A business proposal,” he quickly added.

“I’m sorry, what?”

Spencer removed the contract from its folder, then slid it across the table toward Bram.

“My grandmother was a hateful old woman,” he began to explain. “And in order to meet the requirements put on the money she gifted me in her will, I have to show proof of marriage to her lawyers.”

“And you want me to…” Bram trailed off as he picked up the papers.

“You need help paying off a big chunk of student debt,” Spencer continued. “And I need the money to make a sizeable and timely investment in AppMedica. So what I’m proposing is we get married. In return for you agreeing to do this, I use a portion of the money to pay off your loans.”

“Get married.” Bram sounded out the phrase like it was in a foreign language. “Are you serious?”

“Quite,” Spencer answered. “Nothing as far as our respective lives go has to change. We wouldn’t have to live together or be a couple or anything like that. It would simply be a legal document we would both be signing.”

Bram was silent.

“I don’t expect you to give me an answer right away,” Spencer added.

Bram started to speak, then closed his mouth.

“Are you okay?” Spencer asked.

“I’ll be honest. I have a million things I want to say, but they all seem to want to come out as what the fuck.”

“Fair.”

“I mean. What the fuck?” Bram finished his wine in one swallow. “This is really … what the fuck.”