But not because it’s just her or me.
“No, Summer. Do you know why it’s so good?”
“Why?” she asks as she gasps, her voice cresting to a needy cry.
As I move in her, I pull back to look at her face. Her brown eyes are glittering with lust and something else.
Something deeper.
Something far more powerful.
Something that lasts.
I bury my face in her neck, whispering against her ear, “Because it’s us. That’s why it’s so good. Because we’re so good together.”
“Ohhhh,” she calls out, rising up, her hips bucking, her voice catching, her sounds reaching the ceiling. Then she’s losing control, and it’s beautiful—absolutely beautiful and erotic to watch her fall apart beneath me.
And I follow her there, chasing my pleasure to the other side of bliss too.
Soon, I’m lying next to her, panting, sated, drawing lines with my fingertips down her warm skin when my phone rings.
I have half a mind to ignore it, until I realize it’s Jane’s ringtone.
I grab the phone from the floor and answer. “Hi, Jane. What’s going on?”
She clears her throat, and a pit forms in my stomach. “Well, love, it seems that America’s Best Boyfriend is now America’s Fakest Boyfriend.”
35
Oliver
That pit? It becomes a cavernous maw as I read. It’s like rubbernecking, and I can’t stop.
This time, it’s worse. Far worse. Because there’s a GIF someone made of Summer splashing water at me, saying, “You’re evil! You’re laughing at me. You’re a terrible fake fiancé.”
And that’s all it takes.
* * *
@ManCandyFan: NO!!!! It was all fake???? They were fake dating? They were faking us? No, no, no.
* * *
@LovesListsofMen: Do you mean YES???? It means he’s single.
* * *
@GossipLover1andOnly: Single and going right back on my Single and Hot in the City list.
* * *
@ManCandyFan: Put him at the top. But also, NOOO!!!! They were such a cute couple.
* * *
@CheetahNoah: They seemed real to me. So real. I don’t know about this new intel. Are we sure? Like, really sure? Super sure?
* * *
@MenAreJerks: He’s a douche. This proves his douchiness.
* * *
@PeopleAreJerks: Um, hello? She’s a douche too. She’s just as bad. They both lied to us. They totally lied. And I’m sad, sad, sad, but not surprised.
* * *
@ILoveJerks: I love liars. They are so hawt.
* * *
@IloveCockyJackholes: OMG, yes. Liars are like the hottest guys ever. They lie, and they look good lying. And he sure looks delish lying.
* * *
@DownwithDouches: Look at this picture of them eating cookie batter. I hate them.
* * *
@ILoveJerks: Would eat cookie batter off his chest. Even with raw eggs in it.
* * *
@MenAreJerks: I would eat it off her chest.
* * *
@DownwithDouches: Also, her ring looks fake. I bet it’s cubic zirconia.
* * *
@FanofNietzsche: What did I tell you about jerks? Jerks are always the hotties. And jerks always win. And he won. The hot jerk got the hot girl, and they hoodwinked us all. Once again, it’s the universe’s way of reminding us that nihilism is alive and well.
* * *
@QuestionEverything22: Or maybe that they are pranksters?
* * *
@DownwithDouches: They pranked us! Let’s start a movement to stop pranksters. Also, I zoomed in on her ring from the hockey game. TOTAL FAKE, like they are.
* * *
@HZRedhead: Ahem. We stopped the pranksters. You’re welcome.
* * *
@TheThird: Yes. You see, we had a feeling, Hazel and I. We sensed they were faking it. So we followed them. And then we caught them on camera. They tried to trick us all. But guess who’s getting the last laugh?
* * *
@HZRedhead: We are. We’re cackling as we sit in a coffee shop writing this and smooching and enjoying the satisfaction of exposing two douchey jerk canoes who tried to trick us all!
* * *
@ManCandyFan: Umm, aren’t you married, @TheThird?
* * *
@TheThird: Happily divorced and enjoying my new girl. We fell in love as we took down the fake fiancées. NO ONE should lie about love.
* * *
@HZRedhead: Love is beautiful and true. Like you.
* * *
@TheThird: No, like you. <3
* * *
I yank on boxer briefs one-handed while scrolling, slack-jawed, through my phone.
“The internet must end,” I say.
“Like my dreams are ending. This is terrible,” she says, hunting around for clothes in a hurry, finding her purse where she stashed her sundress from the thrift shop. She tugs it over her head, then borrows some boxer briefs from me and retrieves her wet dress and underthings from the bathroom. The briefs on under her dress are kind of an odd look, but, hey, desperate times.
And they’re definitely desperate when I see there’s a message from my newest client on my phone. It’s three words long.
Is this true?
And another from Helen Williams Designs asking me to call her.
Then Summer wags her phone. “Look at this.” Her breath catches, and her face twists in a wince as she shoves the screen at me.
It’s a message from The Dating Pool.
The note is terse, to the point.
* * *
This email is to inform you that both the Best Dates piece and your winnings from the essay contest have been canceled, your entries disqualified.
* * *
And one from her mother too. She thrusts that at me next.
* * *
Honey, are you all right? My book club is forwarding me a lot of strange tweets. I told them that I would know if you were engaged or if you were faking it. So let me know which it is. Love you, Mom.
* * *
“I need to go.” Her voice cracks, and she covers her mouth with her hand.
“Yeah, I need to deal with this too.” I scramble to get dressed, cursing as I tug on jeans then a shirt. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. Not a single bit of it.”
She freezes. “What?”
“The whole thing. It’s a fucking shitshow.”
She swallows roughly then nods. “I didn’t mean for any of it to happen either. None of it.” She grabs her purse and says, “I’ll talk to you later.”
Then she marches out, stopping at the door to turn and offer a helpless shrug. “I’m sorry. This is all my fault.”
“It’s my fault,” I argue, but the door’s falling shut behind her.
Out in the hall, her phone rings, and I hear her ask, “What’s going on, Roxanne?”
36
Summer
“You’re stuck on a stripper pole?”
I rub my ear in case I’m hearing things. Because that just can’t be. How can Roxanne be stuck on a stripper pole? How can anyone be stuck on a stripper pole?
“I’m not stuck,” she says diplomatically.
“Who is, then?” I ask, swiping at the tears pricking my eyes, zeroing in on the Mayday call instead.
“It’s more like the pole is stuck.”
“In your apartment?”
“In the activity room,” she confesses in a hushed voice.
“How is there a stripper pole in the activity room?”
“I had it installed. As part of the bingo revolt.”
“Oh my God,” I groan, rushing to the stairwell and racing downstairs so I can get across town. “I’ll be there in five.”
Once outside, I call a Lyft, which speeds me through the park to Sunshine Living.
I run to the second-floor activity room, blinking when I find Roxanne,
a seventyish man named Michael, and a woman Roxanne’s age, tugging at a silver pole.
“Ah, Summer!” Roxanne rises, a little wobbly, setting her puma head cane down. “Be a dear. You’re so strong and young. Can you help us move this?”
I shake my head in disbelief. This is my life? I’m carrying a plastic bag with a sopping wet bridesmaid’s dress inside, and now I have to uninstall a stripper pole, plus the internet hates me, my dreams have been crushed, and the man I love thinks we are a mistake. He didn’t mean for any of it to happen. He didn’t mean for us to happen.
But first things first. Dropping the bag, I rush to the crew who are pulling—to no avail—at a stripper pole installed in a silver base. After a quick assessment, I figure out they were unscrewing it the wrong way. Grabbing the screwdriver, I slide the tool into the base and detach the pole from it, holding tightly so it doesn’t fall. Once it’s detached, the pole comes apart in two pieces.
Roxanne guards the entrance to the activity room, then mouths, Coast is clear. Let’s take it to my place.
I hand her and her friends the pole pieces. “Maybe that’s where it should have been installed in the first place.”
“Live and learn,” she says, then stomps off with her friends.
I sink down on the couch, grab my phone, and stare at my messages, trying to decide what to tackle next.
But really, there’s nothing to tackle.
I can’t undo The Dating Pool’s decision.
I can’t convince them to requalify me.
And I can’t prove we didn’t lie. We did lie. We were fake, and we won’t ever be real.
But I can at least return my mother’s call.
“Sweetheart. I’m at Mags’s place. Where are you?”
“I’m on my way,” I say, crying for real, and there is nothing fake about these tears.
37
Oliver
“So this is true.”
The words are clipped, crisp.
I pinch my nose, nodding as I slump down on my couch. “Yes.”
I tell Geneva the truth. There’s no point in lying now. “It’s all true that it was all fake.”
She sighs. “I’m soooo—”
I take the liberty of filling in the blank. “Disappointed. Yeah, I’m disappointed in myself too.”
“Yes. I thought I could trust you as my attorney.”
“Of course you did. That’s why you hired me.” A weight sinks onto my shoulders, dragging me down. There is no point backpedaling now. No purpose in covering it up. The proof’s there on social media, where all truths and lies are exposed.
The ring, the comments, the offhand joke between Summer and me post-paddleboat hump. Those people who took a picture of us on the street last night were probably sent by our crazy exes. More proof that exes are crazy.
But even so, I deserve this.
I tricked a client.
“And I suppose that’s what is most surprising. I would expect you, of all people, to know the value of trust,” she says.
I hang my head, dragging my hand through my hair. “You’re not wrong. It was a mistake. It seemed like a way to save face at the time, but I should have told you the truth when you first called me. I wanted to help you with your deal. I want to take care of my employees and my aunt and everyone else. So I said we were engaged because it seemed easier.”
She sighs heavily. “I suppose what’s so strange about it is that . . .” She takes a beat to think, or maybe to mull over what to say. “It seemed so real. Last night, the things you said to Summer, the way you looked at her. I suppose it made me believe in love again. Like it was possible to get hurt and then get back up and try again. When you said—”
“‘I realized after all these years that it’d always been her.’” I repeat my words from last night. Words that make my chest feel lighter. Words that fall from my lips so easily.
“Yes.” There’s a smile in her voice. I can hear it. “When you said that, Oliver, I was so sure you meant it.”
I sit up straighter, recalling last night, remembering how my heart thundered when I looked at Summer at the party. How it ached when I put her in the car. How it sped up when we were in the paddleboat, then the shower, then the bed, only an hour ago.
“I did mean it.” I’m speaking the whole truth now.
“What?”
“I did. It was all fake, and it was all true too.”
She’s quiet, humming softly then asking carefully, “What do you mean?”
“It started as a ruse. It started because you didn’t trust me. So I thought it’d be safer if I was involved with the woman who wrote the letter, so it wouldn’t be a character indictment. And Summer’s my best friend. I’ve known her for seventeen years. She’s been by my side through everything. I know how to make her laugh, I know how to comfort her when she cries, I know what makes her happy—the park and exercise and her grandmother and trying new things—and I know her dreams. And I want to help her achieve them.”
There goes my heart again, pounding mercilessly against my rib cage, trying to find her, to see her. “And I suppose I didn’t truly realize all of this until we faked it. But I also think maybe a part of me knew I had feelings for her and just didn’t see what was in front of me. After all, I never wanted to invite Emily to prom. I only wanted to go with Summer.”
Geneva sighs happily. “Oh my God, that’s so sweet.”
Then I freeze, remembering something else I said, not last night, but just an hour ago.
I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.
Those words could easily have been misinterpreted.
Shit.
I picture Summer’s face, the hurt in her pretty brown eyes, and I’m sure they were.
There’s a voice in my head, loud and clear, and it’s not my sister’s voice, though I suspect she’d tell me exactly what I need to do right now.
And I know she’d be right, because my own voice is telling me the same thing.
“Excuse me, Geneva. You’re not the one I should be saying this to. Summer is.”
I hang up, grab my keys, and leave.
38
Summer
I am a stubborn girl.
I know this about myself.
But when I walk into my apartment and find not just my roommate but my mother, my niece, and my twin brother, I let all the tears rain down.
I head for the couch, nosedive into it, and cry in my mother’s lap. Amelia crawls up next to me, crouching by my side. “Don’t cry, Aunt Summer. Everything’s going to be fine. I swear.”
And that makes me cry a little harder—her sweet six-year-old faith in the world.
“Tell me why you’re so sad, honey,” Mags says.
“Yes, tell us. What can we do?”
Amelia snuggles on my lap. “I’m all ears. That’s what my daddy says to me when I want to talk to him. He says, What can I do?”
Logan ruffles his daughter’s hair, then plops down on the couch next to all of us—four women and a guy.
“I’m in love with Oliver Harris.” I choke out the words past the prickly, complicated emotions that clog my throat.
Logan snorts.
I shoot him a sharp stare. “What was that for?”
“Tell me something I don’t know. I came here to see if you were okay, and this is what you confess? Something we’ve all known for years?”
“Thanks a lot,” I mutter.
My grandmother smiles, petting my hair. “Ignore him, honey.”
“Yes. We all do,” my mother says.
“I like Oliver,” Amelia chirps.
“Me too. But it’s a mess, and he said the whole thing was a mistake, and it is a massive mistake. Just look at what happened. I lost the prize money. I lost the chance to write the feature piece. I lost Oliver.”
My mother tuts. “Did you lose Oliver though?”
I make a show of looking around. “He’s not here, and he said it was all a mistake.”
“It’s h
ard to believe it’s a mistake when you seem like such a great couple,” she says diplomatically.
“But we’re not. This isn’t some cheesy romance where everything works out perfectly. It’s real life.” I swipe my hand across my face, swallowing these dumb tears. I draw a deep, fueling breath, one that I hope masks all this pain in my heart, this wild ache for Oliver. An ache that won’t be soothed. “It’s fine. I don’t want a relationship. I’m not interested in one. It doesn’t remotely make sense in my life.” I hold my chin up high even as my lower lip quivers.
“Relationships never entirely make sense, dear,” my mom says softly. “Did you think it made sense to me when I met your father?”
I furrow my brow. “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it.”
She tucks a finger under my chin, tilting my head so she can look me in the eyes. “I just loved him. It wasn’t always convenient.”
I straighten my shoulders. “Well, I don’t have time for a relationship. I’m trying to grow my business, and it’s going to be even harder now. I’ll have to start over.”
Dear Sexy Ex-Boyfriend Page 19