“You are the person who runs this thing,” Brougham said, confidently enough I knew there was no point protesting further. “And I really need your help.”

I hadn’t settled on what I believed would happen if I ever got caught. Mostly because I’d preferred not to worry about it too much. But if you’d forced me to guess what the person catching me would do, I would’ve probably gone for “turn me in to the principal,” or “tell everyone in school,” or “accuse me of ruining their life with bad advice.”

But this? This wasn’t so threatening. Maybe it was going to be okay. I swallowed hard in an attempt to shove the lump in my throat down closer to my thudding heart. “Help with what?”

“With getting my ex-girlfriend back.” He paused, thoughtful. “Oh, my name’s Brougham, by the way.”

Brougham. Pronounced BRO-um, not Broom. It was an easy name to remember, because it was pronounced all wrong, and that had irked me since the first time I’d heard it.

“I know,” I said faintly.

“What’s your hourly rate?” he asked, peeling his shirt away from his chest to air it out. It thwacked heavily back against his skin as soon as he let go of it. See? Overly wet.

I tore my eyes away from his clothes and processed his question. “I’m sorry?”

“I want to hire you.”

There he went again with the weird money-for-favors language. “As…?”

“A relationship coach.” He glanced around us, then lowered his voice to a whisper. “My girlfriend broke up with me last month and I need her back, but I don’t know where to start. This isn’t something an email’s gonna fix.”

Well, wasn’t this guy dramatic? “Um, look, I’m sorry, but I don’t really have time to be anyone’s coach. I just do this before bed as a hobby.”

“What are you so busy with?” he asked calmly.

“Um, homework? Friends? Netflix?”

He folded his arms. “I’ll pay you twenty dollars an hour.”

“Dude, I said—”

“Twenty-five an hour, plus a fifty-dollar bonus if I get Winona back.”

Wait.

So, this guy was seriously telling me he’d give me fifty dollars, tax-free, if I spent two hours giving him some advice on getting back a girl who’d already fallen for him once? That was well within my skill set. Which meant the fifty-dollar bonus was all but guaranteed.

This could be the easiest money I’d ever made.

While I mulled it over, he spoke up. “I know you want to keep your identity anonymous.”

I snapped back to reality and narrowed my eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”