Obviously, this is an AU and it takes place in the future. The characters are adults. While I'm not someone who will ever write smut, and I don't plan on getting particularly graphic with language or even implications, the vary nature of this story is a bit more adult than what I've written previously. I feel I've rated it accordingly, but if this is something that isn't your cup of tea, I'd leave now.

Otherwise, enjoy!


The invitation comes on a Wednesday and Riley immediately considers throwing it in the trash and pretending she never got it.

It's not that she hasn't known it would be coming-Auggie had told her about the engagement weeks ago and asked her to be what he called his 'Best Sister'-but receiving the invitation makes it real. Auggie and Ava are getting married, they're holding the wedding in Cape Cod, and Riley is expected to join them and the family for a week of wedding festivities at the end of the summer. Riley could just about throw up at the thought. It's really the sort of scenario she's been trying (semi-successfully) to avoid since high school graduation nearly eleven years ago, and if the invitation were from anyone else she probably would crumple it up and pretend it got lost or RSVP with an easy lie about not being able to get the vacation time at work, but this is for Auggie.

The only acceptable reason for Riley not to attend would be massive injury and/or death.

With a resigned sigh, Riley clips the invitation up onto the fridge. She has to go. She's already agreed and Auggie will be devastated if she goes back on her word. Still, in her heart of hearts, she knows the whole thing will be an unmitigated disaster.

Maybe she'll be abducted by aliens before September.


"Ava wanted me to remind you that she wants heartfelt speeches only at the reception, no jokes or embarrassing stories. And she said if you want to submit a draft for her to look over and give you notes on, which, I'll be honest, is less of a suggestion than it sounds like, you need to do it by Friday at noon and not a moment later."

Riley rolls her eyes, cradling her cell phone between her shoulder and her ear as she pulls her street clothes out of her locker; Ava is a controlling bride, and it's absolutely not a surprise. It's actually a relief that Ava has stayed true to character. At least Riley knows the girl will have no truck with anyone causing trouble during any of the wedding festivities and stealing her thunder. With Ava's domineering personality being well-known and feared throughout the Matthews' family, everyone will, in all likelihood be on their best behavior. Which doesn't make going seem any less intimidating and dreadful, but at least it will help provide a small layer of security. "Duly noted."

"And to remind you that since Uncle Josh is handling my bachelor party, she wants you at her bachelorette party instead." Auggie says.

"That depends on the rest of the guest list." Riley answers primly, kicking off her shoes and starting to change. She'd normally shower here before getting changed, but since she'd happened to catch her brother's call as she'd gotten into the locker room, she'd just shower when she got home.

Auggie sighs. "Maya's coming to the wedding with Josh. If you're not going to do things that she's at you'll miss the entire thing."

"I wasn't asking about Maya. I was asking about mom."

"She's gonna be at the whole wedding too."

One of the many facts that Riley's not looking forward to but has accepted that she can't change. "No, you dork!" If they weren't separated by a phone line (and in fact across the country from each other), Riley would shove Auggie's shoulder. "I meant, Ava is having a Pleasure Party for her Bachelorette, and I'd rather be stuck smoking cigars and playing cards with you and the rest of the Matthews Men then find out any details about what my mother likes in a sex toy."

Auggie's groan of disgust is definitely worth it. "I'll tell her that's a 'maybe' pending more information."

"Wonderful. Anything else I can do to soothe the bride-to-be's nerves?

"Well, she wanted me to ask you why we haven't gotten your RSVP yet."

Riley nearly rolls her eyes again. "Because I've agreed to be in the wedding. My RSVP is implied."

She hears some muffled conversation on the other end of the line; Auggie is obviously talking to Ava with his hand half over the receiver, so she finishes changing while she waits for his return to the call.

"Ava says she needs an official RSVP anyways. She needs your choices for the food for the caterer, and she needs to know if you're going to be bringing a plus-one." Riley freezes at the notion, but she manages to control her breath so Auggie doesn't notice and he keeps talking. "I told her that you're not seeing anyone but she insisted that you might bring Zay, or that you might be seeing someone that you haven't told me about and you might want to bring him so my say-so wasn't good enough."

Riley's mind races to contemplate her options. Desperate to avoid facing her family and childhood friends alone, her first thought had been bringing her best friend and roommate, Zay, with her as an escort; unfortunately his career is starting to take off and he's simply unavailable when he would be needed. She's not seeing anyone (her love life having remained stalled other than a handful of ridiculously terrible first dates ever since her official break up with Charlie Gardner in their junior year of high school) so left without a boyfriend, and lacking the options of available friends, her only real choice is to attend alone.

Not ideal, but it won't be the first time she's dealt with her family on her own.

Except…

Auggie had just said it. Maya will be attending with Josh. And in all likelihood, the attendees will also include innumerable other figures from the past that she's tired of presenting the same life story to, and hearing the same not-so-whispered comments and judgements. In the past it would happen over the course of a couple of hours at a dinner or a party and then she could find an excuse and retreat for another five years before putting herself through it again, but this will be an entire week. Carefully planned and scheduled and filled to the brim with activities that she has no choice but to attend and facilitate as Auggie's 'Best Sister'.

She can't face that alone.

Riley's not entirely sure what she's going to do to make it happen, but the lie is falling out of her mouth before she can stop it. "Actually, Ava's right. I have been seeing someone."


A week later, and a full day and a half before she has to board her flight to Boston to get to the wedding, Riley finds the solution to her non-existent boyfriend dilemma.

"Hey, I need you to give me a call around 1:00 today." She announces, leaning in the doorframe of Zay's bedroom. Her best friend is sitting on the bed, slipping on socks and shoes before he heads to work for the day, so she's lucky she caught him. "You don't have to say anything special, I just need to have a call in case I need an out."

Zay stops pulling on his shoe, and looks up at her raising an eyebrow. "What for? You got a blind date or something, Sugar?"

Riley looks askance briefly under the scrutiny. "Or something."

"What? Did you finally decide to stop waiting for a grocery store meet-cute and venture into the world of online dating?" Riley doesn't know how to answer that, but she starts to blush and Zay gets a wicked grin on his face as he continues to probe. "Don't tell me Little Riley Sunshine has gone straight into the deep end and made herself a Tindr date. How will her innocence survive?"

"I'm not that innocent and you know it." Riley crosses her arms over her chest. "And I'm not going on a date at all, for your information. It's more like a...a business meeting." In that money will be exchanged and if she understands the information she read on the website correctly a contract will be signed, but that's neither here nor there, and absolutely none of Zay's business.

The pointed expression on Zay's face tells her that he doesn't buy that one bit. "A business meeting that you might want an excuse to leave? And just moments ago you practically compared to a blind date?" His eyes and grin both slowly start to widen. "Riley Eleanor Matthews, are you meeting with an escort!?" The last word comes out in a heightened whisper.

Riley doesn't answer, choosing silence over either confirming or trying and failing to deny the accusation, but Zay takes the silence as confirmation anyways.

"Oh my god, you are! I can't believe this. My sweet little Riley," he claps a hand to his chest, wiping a fake tear away from his eye, "going to visit a male escort. How will we survive the scandal?"

"First of all, there will be no scandal, because no one is going to find out." Riley says, quite firmly. It's really a foolproof plan, if she does say so herself. She doesn't use social media for posting any personal updates so there's no evidence to the contrary that the man she's found isn't her boyfriend, and every article and review she had found on the service she had stumbled across was full of praise at the level of 'boyfriend experience' the escorts were able to provide; as long as this initial meeting goes well (and for a somewhat shameful amount of money), she'll have a doting companion for every moment of wedding festivities and everyone will stop seeing her as the unfortunate girl who never got past what happened in high school. That's two wins for the price of a major dent in her bank account. She can live with that. "I just need someone to bring to Auggie's wedding since you're not available, and this is the perfect solution." She explains why it's a great plan. "And it's not like he's a prostitute or anything."

"Sugar, I am not passing any judgement. You can do what you want to do with your money and I am all for a plan that makes sure you're not going back to deal with those people on your own. But in what universe is a male escort not a prostitute?"

"It says right on the website, 'Outside of the occasional chaste kiss, sexual encounters of any nature are strictly forbidden. Our fees cover solely emotional companionship.'"

Zay shakes his head, chuckling. "Oh Riley. My sweet, innocent, beautiful Riley… You know they put that to cover their asses, right? Because technically speaking, money for sex is illegal and having that on their site keeps them mostly out of trouble. You know, unless a scandal breaks."

"Oh god." The floor falls out from beneath Riley's stomach. "I'm having lunch with a prostitute."


Riley white-knuckles her drink while she waits for her lunch companion. She'd been very tempted to cancel the entire thing, cash in the second plane ticket she had bought and just suffer the embarrassment of showing up to the wedding alone, but with some well placed arguments and the decision to cease teasing her, Zay had convinced her that meeting with the guy couldn't hurt.

"Just because he has sex for money, doesn't mean that if you give him money he has to have sex with you. This is a business transaction. If outline your needs and expectations clearly, that's all that will happen. Otherwise it wouldn't be very good business."

So she's at the little sidewalk cafe, resisting the urge to order something stronger than water, and silently wondering if every guy under the age of fifty that walks past is going to be the one who recognizes the agreed-upon signal of a daisy pin near the collar of her sweater. So far, two minutes past the scheduled meeting time, no one has approached.

Maybe he got a better offer and he's standing her up. Or he came and saw her and decided there's no way he could make it work.

Both options are upsetting in their own way, and Riley's so caught up in her own paranoia and feeling conflicted about being a little disappointed if he's really not coming that at first she doesn't notice the tanned, sandy blond approaching her table. Right up until he's standing directly in front of her. "Hi, you must be Riley." He holds out a hand. "I'm Lucas. We've been e-mailing the past couple of days."

Riley's eyes scan up his body-muscular in a way made obvious by the way his green t-shirt stretches across his chest-right up to a handsome smile and the softest, most gorgeous set of green eyes she's ever seen, and her mouth goes completely dry.

She doesn't remember seeing anyone this good looking among the profiles on the website.

"Y-yes." She struggles to swallow around her sudden onset of cotton mouth. She does manage to rise from her chair and shake his hand, hoping that she's only imagining the sweat that might have sprung up on her palm.

Lucas' smile shifts in a small way that Riley can't quite place as they sit back at the table. "This is the first time you've done something like this, isn't it?"

"Is it that obvious?" As she asks the question, her wrist bumps into her water tipping the glass over the edge of the table.

Lucas catches the glass as it topples, although the water still sloshes out, and he chuckles softly as he answers. "Only a little." He pauses to set the now empty glass back down. "But there's no need to be nervous. This is just a first meeting. A chance for us to get to know each other a little bit, and to talk about what you're hoping to get out of this if we move forward. Nothing's going to happen today, or at all if you don't want it to."

The waitress comes back to refill the water and get Lucas' drink order. When she leaves, Lucas looks to Riley, obviously waiting for her to step and say something, but she can't even manage that. Her nerves are at a high, still reeling from the fact that she's meeting with an actual escort (even if she had had the opportunity to change her mind and cancel but hadn't taken it) and that he's quite possibly the most attractive guy she's ever seen outside of a movie screen. He's the sort of guy that never even looks twice at her and at the moment the entire thing is feeling a bit...much.

"Would it help if I did the talking first?" He asks, taking pity on her. When Riley nods, he continues. "OK. Well, since you're new to this and a bit nervous, how about we see if this is really something you think you'll be up for? I can tell you a bit about my packages-,"

"You have more than one?!" Riley squeaks, unable to stop herself from glancing down towards his lap, even with the table blocking her view.

Lucas' laugh is a bit more obvious this time. "My experience packages. You know, 'The Doting Boyfriend' package, the 'Dad's Worst Nightmare' package...those sorts of things. I accompany people to all sorts of different events for any number of reasons. How I act, both with you and the people around us, can be tailored for that."

"Oh. Right." Riley starts to fiddle with her napkin, just to have something to do; if she doesn't look at him, she doesn't have to see him noticing her embarrassment and taking pity.

"Now, from your e-mail, it sounds like you're primarily looking for some backup for this wedding of your brother's, right?"

"Yeah. A week in Cape Cod with my family."

"And you don't get along with a lot of the people there, but you're not really interested in freaking them out, right? You just don't want to be alone all week."

Riley agrees, feeling some of her nerves inch back. At least two of them. There's something about Lucas that has a soothing presence. Even from across the table, he comes off as steady and calm-someone that's there for her. She supposes that's part of him being a professional.

"Then I would probably suggest a variation of the doting boyfriend. We could agree on the pertinent details when we're travelling, but essentially I'll be your boyfriend. Your very loving, caring, supportive boyfriend, who takes care of you as much as you require the entire week, and runs interference between you and the people you don't want to deal with."

"You really do that?"

"As long as it's legal, I do what's required to make a client happy." Lucas nods.

As long as it's legal...Riley wonders if that means if the disclaimer on the website is actually true, but she doesn't ask. Instead she thinks about what's actually on the table. A week where she'll be on the arm of the very good looking guy sitting in front of her, and he'll be doing his job which is to make her look good, and keep her comfortable and happy. She has to wonder, can she get over her nerves and play along with the game? Does she want to?

Riley pictures what it will be like, staying true to everyone's expectations and showing up in Cape Cod tomorrow alone. Then she imagines showing up with Lucas on her arm, and finally getting to lay some of the perpetual assumptions and rumors about her to rest. Even if it's only pretend, only she and Lucas will know that. And the temptation of that moment of satisfaction, and of having someone by her side and looking out for her (even if she is paying him to do it) is too great to pass up.

"That sounds...fantastic."

"So you want to move forward?" Lucas asks, his smile taking on that unfamiliar quality once more.

Riley's fairly certain that if she weren't already seated, she'd swoon. Resolving to work on that before they officially start putting on a show at the wedding festivities (being swoon-worthy is pretty much his job after all, and not at all indicative of how he feels about her), she matches his smile and nods. "I do."

"Great. We can work on the contract and get to know each other a bit better after we order."