We Make Mayhem [boyxboy]

Chapter Two

San Francisco was hot. In the front passenger seat of the Uber from the airport, beads of moisture trickled down my scalp, tickling me as they crept between my hair toward my forehead. The driver passed me a tissue, smiling.

"Bet it's not quite so hot up in Vancouver," he laughed.

I patted my forehead down. "No, not quite."

"So what're you guys doing down here? Vacation, or what?"

He glanced in the rear-view mirror, directly the question to all three of us: myself, Chloe, and Chloe's twenty-two-year-old sister, Caitlyn, who was our adult escort. She looked bored out of her skull as she stared down at her phone—probably dreaming of her return to university in a few days, when she'd finally be able to escape Chloe.

"We're here for the Love Beats Lies protest," Chloe told the driver. "I'm actually leading the march to Temptr's headquarters tomorrow."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah, Riley and I have a podcast. The Real Love Show, ever heard of it?"

"Hmm, I don't know."

Chloe leaned foward, perching her elbows on my seat and the driver's seat. She was shifting into evangelist mode. "Did you know the divorce rate in the United States has gone up to seventy-eight percent since Temptr launched?"

"Is that right?" He chuckled. "What if they were married to the wrong people in the first place?"

Chloe stared at him. Her nostrils flared.

"You're one of them," she said. "You've used it."

"That's right. Now we're going on three months. And honestly, it feels different from any other relationship I've ever had. I've seen you guys on Twitter, you know. You're very angry."

"Pull over," Chloe said. "Pull over now."

"Chloe, shut up and let's just get where we're going," Caitlyn whined.

"No, I'm not riding in a car with someone who thinks it's okay for—"

"That's fine," the driver said, pulling over into a motel parking lot. "I don't want to drive someone who thinks my relationship is part of some scam. You can get out here."

Caitlyn groaned in frustration. Chloe flounced out of the car as soon as the driver stopped, opening the truck and pulling out our suitcases.

"What do you got against people being happy?" the driver shouted out the window to her.

"I'm going to give you the lowest rating possible," Chloe said shrilly. "You have no right to—"

Caitlyn rolled her eyes and got out of the car.

"Sorry about this," I said, awkwardly getting out.

"Oh, it's okay," he said. "I don't need her approval. I'm more in love than I've ever been."

"That's great," I said. "I'm happy for you."

"Don't let your girlfriend hear you say that," he laughed.

As we waited for another Uber driver, I couldn't stop thinking about that whole exchange. Chloe was still stewing, typing madly on her phone. I opened Twitter and saw that she was telling the whole story in a huge, long thread: about how an Uber driver she had was a "Temptr pig," how she was "still shaking" over it. She wasn't. As soon as she'd pressed "send" on those tweets, she was showing me funny memes and laughing, having a grand old time.

The next Uber driver was an old man who showed no interest in talking to us, so we arrived at James Roth's house without further incident. Standing outside the gate of his Spanish-style mansion, it hit me: I was going on the biggest podcast in the world.