“Another glass, please,” Preston yelled, sitting in one of the empty tables of the bar - his hand lifting his glass to the waiter.

“Good Heavens! Stop it, Preston!” Gerald said, frowning at his half-drunk friend. “Have pity on me, will you? I promised Martin I’ll keep an eye on you!”

Preston drank the newly filled shot glass of cognac. “You’re already keeping that promise. You’re here,” he said, tapping the table between them. “—watching me drink.”

“I meant that I was supposed to make sure you didn’t do anything stupid!” Gerald hissed, sitting across from Preston.

“I’m not doing something stupid,” Preston defended.

“Drinking seven shots of cognac is not stupid,” Gerald mocked. “Wow.”

“I’m not going to drive my car home after this,” Preston said, rolling his eyes at Gerald. “That’s why I called you here in the first place.”

“Of course,” Gerald snapped. “How would you even drive your car home if you don’t have your car in the parking lot?”

Preston smiled and glugged the contents of the glass. He raised his finger up to get a refill. 

Gerald Hissier frowned. One of Preston's closest friends since childhood, Gerald was the naughtiest in Preston's peers but one of the most reliable in their social circle. He always seemed to have ample time for whatever Preston needed – be it to do Preston favors or act as his nanny.

“Preston, it’s over,” Gerald exasperatedly said. “It's been two freaking years. Just accept it. She’s not for you.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Preston muttered. “You’re not in my situation.”

“Of course I’m not in your situation. I’m not stupid enough to fall for her in the first place,” mumbled Gerald.

“What did you say?” Preston asked, glaring at Gerald.

“Nothing,” Gerald said, shaking his head. “Look, if she really was for you, do you think any of this will happen?”

“This is just a test to prove my feelings for her,” Preston whispered, winking at Gerald.

Preston was drunk.

“Right,” Gerald scoffed. Luckily, Preston wasn’t the type that kissed anyone he was with when in the clutches of alcohol. “That’s a very nice test you have there. Very nerve wrecking.”

“Whose side are you in, anyway?” Preston asked, frowning at Gerald.

“I’m on your side. That’s why I’m being frank,” Gerald answered. “Preston, wake up! Move on. Lilian’s gone.”

“NO,” Preston said, looking gravely into Gerald’s eyes. “You should’ve seen how she gazed at me this morning. How she turned to see me—”

“Okay,” Gerald cut in. The girl was pretty, sure. And she was a long-time friend of his, but she was just too damn selfish to be loved by someone as innocent and selfless as his drunken friend. Lilian Willows prided herself in making men drool over her. And here was one of Gerald’s closest friends, blind to the fact. “So you’re saying she’s still in love with you. But she was there with her arm wrapped around David’s arm. And she's been hooking up with him for the past two years!”

“Come on, Ger!” Preston argued. “Don’t you get it?”

“Get what? As far as I can see, there’s nothing more to get from it. You two are done. D-O-N-E done!”

“Why do you think she broke up with me when we never had a quarrel,” Preston asked – his eyes narrowed at Gerald. "Not even once..?”

“Gee,” Gerald jadedly said. “You were too submissive?”

“Gerald!” Preston exclaimed, scowling.

“Honestly, Pres?” Gerald asked, his eyes pleading for him to say ‘no.’

“Just answer the damn question!” Preston snapped instead.

Gerald sighed and scratched his head before looking up at his friend. “Preston,” he began. “You’re not the type of guy Lilian would enjoy to spend her dandy life with.”

“I—I’m sorry?” Preston asked, looking baffled at Gerald.

“—Exactly!” Gerald said, pointing at Preston like he just heard the answer to a million-dollar question. “You can’t see it because you two are different! Lilian is the liberated type.”

“If you’re referring to the ‘thing’ you guys do, well I can do it with her too!” Preston snapped - cheeks red, not just because of drinking too many shots of cognac.

Gerald rolled his eyes. “You can’t even say the freak'n three-letter-word,” he muttered.

Preston frowned. “It doesn’t necessarily mean I can’t do it! It’s instinct!”

Gerald gawked at Preston. “Wow,” he mumbled. “You are so much worse than I thought.”

“Hey!” Preston muttered – cheeks flushed a deep shade of red. “Word is different from action!”

“Sure,” Gerald mocked, rolling his eyes. “I swear this talk looks weird on you. You might even suck at doing it.”

“Valuing marriage vows before fornication doesn’t reflect a flunking sexual performance,” Preston defended – his cheeks scarlet. There was nothing wrong with making sure he didn’t get anyone pregnant before he got married using the most potent way possible.

“That’s exactly my point,” Gerald reasoned. “Preston, you’re a saint! Lilian left you because you’re just too damn good! You don’t buy porn magazines or watch porn clips online. You don’t even glance at them. You don’t buy condoms because you don’t even make out with anyone. Heck! You've shared a room with Lilian dozens of times - all instances spent with you snoring on the floor! You’re like your brother without the holy cloth. Lilian is not like that. Preston, you’re just not meant for each other.”

“Fine,” Preston said, looking confidently at Gerald’s explanation. “So how do you explain our two-year relationship?”

Gerald gave an exasperated sigh. He knew how Preston felt. He had been there - still is. Lilian was Preston's first love, and given his loyal and devoted personality, forgetting her was harder for him.

But fact was, Gerald knew things he couldn’t tell Preston – at least not yet. “So you’re saying it’s love?”

“Yes,” Preston proudly said, smiling at his friend.

“So what happened?” Gerald asked, looking bored at Preston.

“I was too busy,” Preston said, looking away and remembering the times he chose to attend business meetings over taking Lilian to the mall. “I didn’t pay much attention to her so now—”

Gerald rolled his eyes. “You’re the only guy in our group who never forgets birthdays, anniversaries, and other dates girls think are important,” he muttered.

Preston, she had been ch—! Okay, that wasn’t the wisest thing to do.

“…Fine. You’re saying this break up is a big hoax?” Gerald said wryly.

“Yes,” Preston said, nodding proudly at Gerald.

Gerald stared at him for a moment. “But why the freaking trouble?”

“Ger, open your eyes! Lilian went to David because she wants to make me believe that she doesn’t love me anymore – to make me jealous and run after her! She did this to make me feel sorry.”

Gerald frowned. The cognac had burned through his friend’s logic. “Uh–huh and now you’re drinking in misery and jealousy. So why is she still with him?” he asked monotonously - tired of trying to explain what was really happening.

“Pride of course!" Preston almost shouted. "She’s clinging to her pride.”

Gerald grunted. Preston was just too dense when it came to Lilian. Heck! He treated her like a goddess who was just too damn perfect to do or to be anything wrong. Should he tell Preston that he needed a trip to one of his therapists? Or— “So how do you get her back?” Gerald asked, smirking at Preston.

“Make her stop clinging to her pride,” Preston answered, shrugging his shoulders.

“O—kay,” Gerald said, nodding - the wheels and axels in his brain whirring with excitement. “—And how in detail would you do that?”

“I would— Well…I uh—” Preston said, looking sleepily away.

Gerald burst into laughter. “You don’t have anything up there yet, do you?” he asked, tapping the side of his head.

“Y–yeah,” Preston shyly answered, scratching his head. “But I’ll figure something out!”

“Gee. That’s hard,” Gerald wryly muttered. He stared at Preston’s gloomy face, shook his head and sighed. “Okay. Since you're so adamant about this, let’s try doing it your way. Hmm…" he said, feigning the act of thinking deeply. If he couldn’t convince Preston he was out of his mind, he might as well have some fun with babysitting him. "Hey, how about you do to Lilian what she did to you?”

Preston raised a brow at Gerald. “You mean get a new girlfriend to make her jealous? No way! She’s not going to fall for that.”

“—Not if you get someone she doesn’t think you’d get as a girlfriend,” Gerald said, smirking.

 “What?” Preston asked, confused. Lilian was a full-fledged socialite. She knew everyone in their social circle.

“Here’s the thing,” Gerald said, leaning closer to the table – excited at the plan he was forming in his head. “Women hate being replaced, especially when they get replaced by someone who’s not worth as much as they do.”

“Are you saying I should get a not-so-beautiful girl as my girlfriend?” Preston asked, raising a brow at Gerald.

“Yes,” Gerald answered, smiling widely at Preston.

Preston nodded. “Yeah… That just might work. So now, all I have to do is ask Darly to be my girlfriend.”

“What—! No! Not Darly!” Gerald said, frowning at Preston. Sure, Darly the daughter of an oil tycoon isn’t that pretty. But she isn’t that ugly either. She just... She just looked so much like her pig-nosed father. And that wouldn’t be fun to watch – Preston smooching with Darly’s pig snout. “Lilian will definitely know you’re faking it if you end up with her one of these days. The girl’s too scary to be anyone’s girl! Besides, Darly doesn’t look that bad even if you compare her with Lilian.”

Preston frowned. “You’re rude,” he said. And yes, Darly does look bad compared to Lilian. Sure Darly was blessed with a supermodel body. But her face was… Thank heavens she was wealthy. “So who should I get?” Preston asked. “Annie?”

“No!" Annie the awkward hotel heiress had humongous glasses and horrific jaw-aligning braces - your typical social outcast. She had fairly improved her looks in the past four years, but her peculiar habit of snorting loudly while laughing was still there, keeping her from penetrating the elite yuppie circle. "She’s still going to make the relationship look fishy,” Gerald said. “You've never been close to her after all. Get a stranger - someone Lilian doesn't know so we can draft a fool-proof story about how you ended up with her. Or better yet, get someone from the lower social class.”

“A commoner..?” Preston exclaimed. "Commoner" was a term he and his friends decided to call people who were not at par with their social class. Lilian, ever the princess, made it the "in" word in campus when they were in primary school. And it had been widely used in their age group since then. “—A stranger commoner?! NO WAY!”

“Preston, it’s the only way to make it work!” Gerald reasoned. “Think about it. First, Lilian doesn’t know her. She won’t have any idea how the two of you met and dated. You can easily make up a story. Second, she’s a whatever-we-call-it.”

“A commoner,” Preston finished, frowning. Gerald never liked using the term though. It seemed to be the only term Gerald considered to be derogatory. Perhaps it was due to his odd preference for -people from the lower middle class. Ever the playboy, Gerald made quite a reputation with fooling around in commoner pubs.

 “—A commoner,” Gerald yielded, rolling his eyes. “It’s a great insult to Lilian. It’s like she was just worth a not-so-beautiful commoner!”

“NO,” Preston said, shaking his head. “I can’t do it! It’s crazy!”

“Crazy? You want her to stop clinging to her pride, don’t you?” Gerald taunted, knowing Preston wouldn’t resist a dare. His friend always felt like he had a lot to prove and that made him bite on any stick people dared him to chew. It was a good thing he had friends who gave him good advice.

…Except at that very moment.

Preston folded his arms over his chest and scowled, thinking about what Gerald said. His crazy friend had a point. Or was it the liquor telling him the idea had a point?

He sighed. “But I can’t just barge into a ghetto and ask any girl there to be my girlfriend,” he said. He might end up being kidnapped for a hefty ransom!

It happened to their Chinese friends – getting kidnapped, not barging into the ghetto and getting a girl. Why wouldn’t it happen to him?

“I wasn’t expecting you to do that,” Gerald said, chuckling. “I’m not that harsh.”

“Oh really,” Preston wryly said. “So what do you call suggesting I get myself romantically involved with a commoner? Being divinely humane?”

“Preston, the ‘commoner’ caste isn’t just comprised of people from the slums,” Gerald explained. After all, when Lilian coined it, she was thinking about anyone that didn’t have the ability to experience their luxurious lifestyle 24-hours a day. “It’s also comprised of people who don’t live in tattered houses but are not considered part of our class. You know – the middle class!”

Preston wanted to roll his eyes. Of course Gerald would offer a sample of his preference. “And where do I find these people?” Preston asked.

“In parks, in streets,” Gerald answered, thinking of where they could meet a girl from the middle class. “…In malls! Of course! I’ll be going there next week. You can go there with me and I’ll help you get a girl you can use.”

Preston cringed. “That sounded wrong on so many levels,” he muttered.

But Gerald just went on talking like Preston didn’t comment on his words, probably too excited at the idea of getting a girl to act as Preston’s girlfriend to hear what Preston said. “Commoners go there often for window shopping and well, shopping. The point is they go there. And most of the commoners in malls reach your standards of neatness and decency.”

“Conceding to the idea that they can, Ger,” Preston said. “How will I choose a particular girl in a swarm of commoners? If I examine them one by one, they’ll probably have me arrested for sexual harassment.”

“True,” Gerald said, nodding. “How about choosing one randomly?”

“No way,” Preston scoffed. “You’ll just point a finger at the most hideous commoner girl you’ll see.”

“Hey,” Gerald said, frowning. “It would surely be more effective.”

“You cruel fiend,” Preston hissed.

“Okay, fine,” Gerald said, rolling his eyes. “Let’s make it even and fair. Let’s seek help from the Fates.”

“Fates..?” Preston asked, frowning. “You’re admiring your Humanities professor too much. Is she that pretty?”

“She’s a goddess,” Gerald sighed, imagining his half-Greek Humanities professor. He then shook his head to go back to the topic of their conversation. “Anyway, yes – Fates...”

Preston smirked. “You now have a direct hotline to the mystical blind women of destiny?”

Gerald rolled his eyes. “Very funny, but no,” he said. “You will ask the first commoner wearing pink, that we see in the mall, to be your girlfriend.”

Preston frowned. “No deal,” he said. “It’s too common. Do you have any idea how popular pink is in the female population? What if we spot a group of girls in pink uniforms? And I’m going to ask her to be my girlfriend? You mean I’ll ask her to be my fake girlfriend, right?”

Gerald sighed. “You’re no fun, Preston,” he said.

Preston stiffened. “You mean I’m really going to ask her to be my girlfriend?!” he exclaimed. “ARE YOU CRAZY?! I’m going to deceive her?!”

“It will make it more realistic,” Gerald said, shrugging his shoulders. “Besides, you have the looks, Preston. I doubt any girl would resist your charms.” Preston, like many of Gerald’s friends, had modeled clothes for elite fashion magazines since high school. Unlike most of their friends though, Preston modeled for fun and he preferred tending to his restaurants more than posing for the camera.

“I am not doing that,” Preston said. “What if Lilian comes back to me?”

Gerald shrugged his shoulders. “You break up with her.”

“And break her heart?!” Preston exclaimed.

“Yes?” Gerald said.

Preston sighed, shaking his head. “No.” If there was one rule he learned from the start of his existence, it was never in any circumstance hurt a girl.

“Fine,” Gerald said, rolling his eyes. “Hire the girl.”

“You mean ask her to act as my girlfriend?” Preston asked, raising a brow at Gerald. “So I’ll have to pay her?”

“Why not..?” Gerald asked. “This is Lilian we’re talking about after all – you always spend money on Lilian.” Preston was also one of the stingiest in Gerald’s peers, possibly because he was taught to work for his allowance at an early age. But he always heeded to Lilian’s expensive whims.

Preston frowned. “Don’t you spend money on Natalie?” Natalie was Gerald’s fiancée. She was also one of the elite kids he and Gerald grew up with.

“Not as much as you do,” Gerald said smirking. And he was proud of it. Natalie was a spoiled brat. If he heeded to her every whim, he wouldn’t have enough money to spend on “Pub Nights.”  

Preston sighed and shook his head. “I’m not doing this.”

“Just hear me out, okay?” Gerald said. “If you pay the girl, you’re sure she won’t get hurt when you ‘break up’ with her. It’s just going to be ‘the end’ of a job contract.”

“What if she falls for me?” Preston asked, uneasy at the idea.

Gerald burst into laughter. “More like what if you fall for her,” he said.

Preston glared at Gerald. It was possible, right? It’s on movies and TV shows…

“Okay! Okay…” Gerald said, smiling and raising his hands up in resignation. “Make a contract then – make sure your relationship will be strictly professional.”

Preston looked away frowning. He hated it when he and Gerald met an impasse. “I’ll just contact Natalie’s casting agencies then.”

Gerald frowned. “Really, Preston,” he said. “Drinking kills a lot of your brain cells.”

Preston raised a brow at his friend.

“Lilian’s into commercial modeling now,” Gerald said. “She’s developed her contacts in the field. She would know if you’ve gotten a girl from a casting session. And Natalie’s casting agencies? You’re screwed before you even spot the screw driver.”

Prestion groaned and looked away. Darn it. “Again, pink is too common,” he said surrendering to Gerald’s mall-hunting suggestion.

Gerald gave an exasperated sigh. “Now you’re just making excuses.”

“No, I’m not,” Preston said, scowling at Gerald. “Think about it! What if we see a bunch of girls wearing pink in the mall? Who of them would I choose then?”

Gerald snorted. “Fine, you have a point,” he said. “We’ll need another condition then,” he said, looking away to think. “A condition where we only get one girl… And where you can only say its fate…” He looked at Preston with a naughty smile on his face. “You will spill a frappuccino on her.”

“What—!”

“You will ask the commoner girl you will spill a frappuccino on to act as your girlfriend,” Gerald excitedly said.

Preston grinned. “Are you out of your mind? That will make me too fully aware of not spilling a frappuccino, to spill a frappuccino on someone!”

“That’s why I said ‘the Fates will decide,’” Gerald said, winking at him. “If you’re going to spill a frappuccino, you’re going to spill a frappuccino no matter how much you try to avoid doing so.”

Preston laughed. “That is not going to happen,” he said. “You have a .01 percent chance that I’ll spill a frappuccino which makes the choosing of a girl for the plan problematic. And back on the plan itself, Lilian isn’t just a stupid fan of Vanity Fair Magazine. She’s also clever and cunning. She’ll easily smell the stench of fake-ness in the air a mile away! And I am not hiring a girl to act as my girlfriend. That would just be… Wrong.”

“Okay, let’s say you’re right, though I highly doubt it—,” Gerald said.

Preston frowned at him. “How am I not right—?”

“Do you have any other idea on how you’re going to make her cast her pride aside, and run back to you?” Gerald asked.

Preston looked away to think. Was there another way?

“Exactly,” Gerald said, slamming his hand on the table with finality.

“I’ll think of something,” Preston muttered, frowning.

“When are you going to come up with something?” Gerald asked. “When she’s totally over you, or worse?”

—Or worse, she’s married to someone else.

“NO,” Preston said, glaring at Gerald. “I don’t know…” he said, looking uneasily away.  “But I will come up with something soon. I have to.”

“That’s why I’m giving you this option, Pres,” Gerald said. “How about this – I’ll let you think of another way to get her back, but only until next week. If you come up with a good plan by then, we’ll go with my plan. Deal..?”

Preston took a deep breath and sighed.

“Preston, I’m not just doing this to see you suffer the fate of having a commoner girlfriend, or to prove you wrong later on,” Gerald said. “I want to help you as your life-long friend. Please think about this. This is better than having nothing at all.”

Preston looked at his empty shot glass. He remembered how Lilian looked back at him in the mall that morning – how she turned her head, smiled teasingly at him and held David’s arm.

Would she go back to him if he just knelt in front of her and begged her to resume their relationship?

“Alright,” Preston said, looking up at Gerald. “It’s a deal. But I’m telling you right now – I’m not going to let myself spill a frappuccino.”        

Gerald smiled. “No problem,” he said, leaning back on his chair. “Like I said, even if you cross your toes, if you’re really going to spill a frappuccino next week, you will spill a frappuccino next week. That’s why it’s all going to be a matter of fate, right?”

“Right,” Preston said, nodding his head in agreement.