Read The Girlfriend Contract for Free Online Page B

room toting the lacquered tea tray Gwen kept in the cabinet over the sink. It held her red tea pot and two cups with their accompanying saucers. All this, Beatrice put down on the coffee table and then sat on the bit of couch Gwen wasn't sprawled across. She squeezed Gwen's leg.
    "What happened?" Beatrice said, "I mean, I know I was running late, and it touches me you feel so strongly about our relationship..." she finished with a smile and a wink.
    Gwen sniffled as she sat up. The tea smelled good. English breakfast, her favorite. Little curlicues of steam issued from the spout of the tea pot; Beatrice had forgotten the cozy. But that didn't matter. It was the thought that counted.
    "No, no. It's not you, stop flattering yourself," Gwen said, giving Beatrice a playful nudge.
    "If not me, then who?"
    Gwen related the story. Or most of it, anyway. She couldn't bring herself to tell Beatrice, her closest friend, about being propositioned like that. Instead, she left it at Aiden just being a complete jerk.
    "You were right about him," Gwen said.
    "Just goes to show that you need to believe me more often."
    "Yeah. Oh, and I should also mention that we can never go to that Starbucks again. I did make a bit of a scene. I don't think I can ever show my face around there."
    Beatrice put her arm over Gwen's shoulders and pulled her close. "Well, I guess after we get this rent thing all sorted out you're going to have to invest in an espresso machine. Momma needs her caffeine, you know. Needs it bad. And I don't think tea is going to cut it."
    "You addict," Gwen said, always grateful for her friend's ubiquitous sense of humor. She sniffled one last time as the final vestiges of that awful meeting with Aiden left her system. I have more important things to worry about than some rich jerk with more money than sense.
    So Beatrice and Gwen had their tea, and even caught the last half of Ellen on TV.
    But all good things must come to an end, Gwen knew. This rule apparently went double for her. Beatrice begged off, citing a trip into the city to meet one of the guys from the party.
    "Mr. Number Two, actually," Beatrice said as they hugged at the front door. "You just concentrate on finding a way out of all this, and remember, I'll help any way I can."
    After Beatrice left, Gwen went back to the couch. She poured herself another cup of tea, but it was cold.
    That just made her think of the cup of water she'd thrown in Aiden's face. And that just made her think of his offer.
    "I don't need your money," she said, watching the tea slosh around in her cup.
    It really did hurt to think about him. And she realized she must have really begun to actually like him for that to be true.
    But apparently, she was a poor judge of character. After all, she'd thought Janice was a good person. And look where that's gotten me, she thought.
    The blame game circled around to her for other reasons, too. She thought about how she'd already wasted most of yesterday, and all of the current day, on stupid things that got her no closer to finding that money.
    But it was also clear that unless money literally fell from the sky into her hands, there were only two real solutions, and they were called mom and dad. It was time to swallow down her pride and call them.
    Remembering coming clean to her father on the ice cream carpet debacle, and the way he'd handled that, she decided to get in touch with him first.
    "I thought you said you wanted to try and make it on your own? Isn't school going well?" her dad said. She'd caught him on his lunch break at work.
    "School's going just fine, dad. It's not that. I could really use your help here. I'm not sure what else to do."
    Her dad paused on the other end of the line. In the background, she could hear the voices of his coworkers in the office. He'd been at the same place for 21 years now, pretty much as long as Gwen had been alive.
    Then came a question she'd been expecting. "Have you talked to your mother yet?"
    Which really