Chapter 1

Before we moved in together, she told me she was an independent woman who didn't spend a man's money, and she insisted we split everything 50/50.

I said fine. I'd cover the rent, she'd cover the small day-to-day expenses.

But she wasn't having it. "Do you have any idea how much the day-to-day stuff adds up to? You cheap little schemer, you're trying to take advantage of me, aren't you?"

We ate every meal at the company cafeteria, though, so the so-called day-to-day expenses were nothing but water, power, and gas.

So she said, "I'll pay the rent. You cover the rest."

The apartment was my father's. At market rate it went for at least four thousand a month.

I hated the thought of her spending money, so I had a word with my family, and we only charged the two of us fifteen hundred.

But once we'd moved in, she suddenly decided she didn't want cafeteria food anymore and started demanding I buy groceries and cook.

Rent was fifteen hundred a month. Groceries ran at least three thousand.

I figured couples shouldn't nickel-and-dime each other like that, so I let it go.

One day, mouth full of the crab I'd bought, she mumbled,

"My parents and my brother are coming to stay for a while this weekend, so buy extra groceries."

But my paycheck had just gone toward my mom's surgery. I didn't have any spare cash on hand.

I asked if she could chip in something for the groceries. She slapped her phone down on the table.

"You're living rent-free in a place I'm renting, and you want me to give you money? I don't spend a cent of yours, and now you've got your eye on mine?"

"Groceries and meals barely cost anything. My friend's husband cooks a whole dinner for two bucks. You're the one getting the sweet deal here."

I looked at her and said nothing.

I quietly texted my father: 【Dad, don't rent the place to her anymore.】

……

"Buy more jumbo prawns next week, and pork ribs, get the baby back ribs, my brother loves those best."

Paige Gilbert barked out her orders while digging through the spicy crab with her chopsticks.

At the bottom of another plate sat the last piece of braised pork belly.

The second I reached for it, her chopsticks shot across, snatched the pork, and shoved it into her mouth.

I set down my bowl.

Since we'd moved in together, most of the meat on every plate ended up in her stomach. I only got what she didn't want.

The day before, I'd worked late until eight, my stomach cramping from hunger.

She came to meet me downstairs from the office, and we ducked into some little diner.

She ordered a basket of steamed dumplings, ten in all.

When they came out, I was so hungry I ate three in a row.

Just as I was reaching for a fourth, Paige slammed her chopsticks down on the table.

"Do you know how many you've eaten?"

"You only think about yourself, don't you? There are only ten in the whole basket, and you've killed three on your own. Did you ever once think about me?"

I was floored, staring at her in disbelief. "Ten in a basket, five each, and I've only had three. What's the problem?"

She flared up instantly. "Five? You've got the nerve to say that? You don't know the meat filling is my favorite? Shouldn't you just eat the skins and leave all the filling for me?"

I waved the owner over, about to order another basket.

She grabbed my hand and pinned it down. "Order what? Another one?"

"A basket of dumplings is fifteen bucks. You've got money to burn? You really don't know how to manage a household."

It was completely unreasonable to me. "So what am I supposed to do when I'm still hungry?"

She just dragged the basket in front of herself.

"Still hungry? Then go home and boil some noodles or gnaw on a roll."

"The steamed dumpling filling is my favorite."

She didn't even glance at me, just started eating in big bites.

In the end she dug out every bit of filling, left a basket of empty skins, wiped her mouth, and dragged me out.

I went home hungry and boiled myself a pot of plain noodles.

That was the day I started keeping accounts.

The fifteen hundred she paid in rent didn't even cover half a month of her own food.

Every day she demanded meat at every meal, fruit on hand at all times, and seafood on the weekends.

All of it, I was footing.

Her voice, touching up her makeup, pulled me back to the present.

She pulled out a tissue, wiped her mouth, and said, "Anyway, you do the math yourself. My parents are coming, partly to see me, and partly to sample your cooking."

"You're going to be my husband, and what matters is that you know how to take care of people and put family first. You'd better make a good impression and not embarrass me."

With that she stood up and left, leaving a wrecked table behind.

Paige and I were college classmates, both in the astronomy club.

She was the club president. At the welcome mixer, she went from the Orion Nebula to black holes, then from the Big Bang to the nebular hypothesis.

Back then I thought she was learned and gifted, different from all the shallow girls,

We clicked, and it felt only natural that we ended up together.

But real life has no stars and no oceans. It's just one mess after another.

Since we graduated and moved in together, she's fancied herself the career-woman lead of her own story, and every bit of the housework has fallen to me alone.

Every day she gets home, sprawls on the couch, and starts scrolling on her phone, waiting for me to bring the food to the table.

The reason she felt so entitled about it was that in her mind, paying that fifteen hundred in rent meant she was supporting me.

And me doing the chores and waiting on her was an even trade.

She had no idea how this apartment had actually been rented.

House-hunting after graduation, she'd fallen in love with this finished two-bedroom at first sight.

But the landlord of this place was actually my father.

I hated the thought of her carrying the rent, so I had a word with my dad and knocked the four-thousand-plus rent down to fifteen hundred.

At the time my father was very pleased with her, thought she was a sensible girl who wasn't a gold digger.

But he'd cleverly buried a trap in the contract.

He explained it as a couples-friendly unit, rented at a discounted rate,

But if the accounts ever showed that one party had long been shouldering the main living expenses, the discount would automatically lapse, and the tenant would have to pay the full difference for the lease term.

Back then Paige only figured she'd landed a steal, signed without even reading the contract.

Looking back now, my father really did see far ahead.

Since she'd taken the good deal and still played the victim, convinced I was the one exploiting her, then fine.

She wouldn't be living in this apartment any longer.