Chapter 1: The One-Day Boyfriend Click

I ordered a one-day boyfriend service on Amazon, thumb hovering over my phone at 12:23 a.m., the blue glow lighting my face as I clicked on a third-party “boyfriend-for-a-day” gig listing buried in the marketplace like an urban legend.

Honestly, I never imagined my life would come to this—ordering a fake boyfriend online like a pair of shoes. But what else could I do? This was right up there with panic-buying a ring light during a late-night Prime binge I swore I didn’t remember the next morning.

I didn’t have a choice—I was forced into it. If I didn’t bring someone home soon, my mother had promised a full week of back-to-back blind dates and, worse, another surprise drop-in at my hospital.

My mom, desperate for a grandchild, actually brought a blind date to my workplace for a physical exam, totally disrupting my day—armed with her canvas tote and a Tupperware of cut fruit, like it was a picnic.

It was one of those mornings where nothing goes right. The disinfectant smell was sharp, the triage printer was jamming, and someone kept snapping gloves behind me. If it wasn't the caffeine jitters, it was my mom playing matchmaker in the literal worst place possible. I mean, who drags a blind date into a doctor’s office during business hours? She’s relentless.

Every corner was bustling—athletes joking, nurses darting back and forth, the squeak of clogs on linoleum, a monitor beeping somewhere, a gurney wheel rattling every time someone pushed through the hall.

Normally, I’d just let it go, but today the city basketball team was scheduled for physical exams at Silver Hollow Medical Center. The place was packed and noisy, and I was acutely aware of patient privacy the second my mom crossed the threshold.

While I was performing an EKG on a male player, she yanked the curtain open. I’d just placed the adhesive electrode stickers, not even done securing the leads.

I wasn’t exactly startled, but the male player—just as he was lifting his shirt—was completely caught off guard and jumped.

“Autumn Brooks—I mean, AUTUMN BROOKS!—I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” my mother blurted, a little out of breath, like she’d jogged the length of the hallway.

Her voice cut through the chaos like a foghorn, and the poor athlete just about dropped off the exam table. My jaw clenched; a small throb started at my temple.

I sighed inwardly, told the player to wait a moment, then pulled the curtain back and stepped outside.

The blind date wasn’t unattractive—a finance manager at a Fortune 500 company—but to me, he just seemed really clueless.

He had that kind of Wall Street polish, but standing there awkwardly beside my mom, he looked like a kid lost at the mall. I could practically hear him mentally reciting bullet points off his resume, waiting for approval.

“My mom’s making a scene and you go along with it? Can’t you see I’m working? Do you know where you are? If you have something to say, wait until I’m off duty. If you keep causing trouble, I’ll have security escort you out.” A couple of nurses paused mid-step, eyebrows up; the receptionist stopped typing for a beat.

With a cold face, I shut the curtain again and returned to normal. The male player looked uneasy and couldn’t help but ask, “Doc, you okay?”

I shook my head. “We’re almost done—when you’re ready, lift your shirt, please.”

I come from a single-parent family. My father died young from illness, and my mother raised me alone, never remarried, so she pinned all her hopes on me. When I reached the right age, she started urging me to get married. After retiring, her daily routine is to visit every local matchmaking group to find blind dates for me. When I was a kid, I’d do homework in the break room of the school where she worked late; now that she’s home, she over-waters the plants and calls relatives twice a day because she’s lonely.

She’s got a running tab at every matchmaking coffee shop in town. Her phone is basically a shrine to the art of setting up her only child—Meetup groups, church socials, Facebook neighborhood groups, the works.

After all these years, I think she’s a little obsessive.

But she usually knows her limits, so I don’t say much—it’s an old person’s hope, after all. Work is sacred ground for me, though, and today she really crossed the line.

The male player could sense the tension in the small room. As I lifted his leg to attach the device, he hesitantly suggested, “Doc, you could rent a boyfriend on Amazon to deal with parents. It’s really popular online.” He meant one of those gag-y gig services people list on the marketplace—half joke, half side hustle.

His suggestion was so left-field I actually paused, hands hovering mid-air. But I kept a deadpan.

I kept a straight face. “You’ve tried it?”

He laughed, shrugged. “My cousin did it for Thanksgiving. Said it saved her sanity.”

My mom goes to such lengths to set me up because I’ve always been single. I was always top of my class, never did chores, all my friends are married, and I’m the only one left. My girlfriends joke that I’m ice cold.

They tease me with labels like “Dr. Brooks: Queen of Alone,” sending Schitt’s Creek eye-roll GIFs and Real Housewives memes every Friday night. It’s endearing. I pretend not to care, but the truth is—I do feel a little left out sometimes.

Lying in bed at night scrolling on my phone, I told my girlfriends about my mom’s antics at the hospital today, and the group chat exploded with chatter.

My phone buzzed nonstop—laughing emojis, sympathy GIFs, snarky “Bless your heart” messages. It was comforting, in a weird way.

Somehow, I remembered the male player’s joke suggestion. After thinking it over, I exited the group chat, opened Amazon, picked the shop with the highest rating, and clicked in—even as the doctor in me cringed at how sketchy a third-party “boyfriend-for-a-day” listing sounded.

I didn’t expect to find a “Boyfriend For Hire” section, but America’s got everything. It felt both ridiculous and oddly hopeful.

The system filtered options for me, and I entered some basic requirements. Soon, it switched to manual service.

“Hi there! What kind of boyfriend persona are you looking for?”

A little cringe, but I played along. I imagined customer service reps sitting in cubicles, sipping Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, typing away.

I thought for a moment and typed: “Are these job titles real jobs or just for show?”

Customer service replied: “Hi there! Our reps have real day jobs. You’re good to go.”

Reading this conversation, I couldn’t help but feel weird. After hesitating, I asked, “Can I choose?”

Customer service quickly listed options:

“Startup founder—$4,500/day; software engineer—$3,800/day; city council staffer—$3,300/day; doctor—$3,000/day; grad student athlete—$2,200/day; teacher—$1,800/day; firefighter/bartender/musician (ask for specifics)—negotiable.”

What the heck? The price tags are clear, but this is just bizarre...

It felt like the world’s oddest dating app, but with receipts.

Strangely, I actually started comparing prices.

I did the mental math—after taxes, fees, and probably tip, this was more than my last car payment. But my pride was on the line.

No need for anything too expensive, since it’s only for a day. Looking again, except for athlete, my mom has introduced me to almost all the other professions.

So I should pick something different.

In the end, I chose athlete—mostly because it’s the one category my mom has never tried.

Two thousand two hundred. Damn, that’s steep.