by K. A. Linde
Hollin’s eyes tracked her. There was no way that was happening. He’d said so when he hired her. Even if she wasn’t off the market, she’d bust his balls for even trying. “I like good news. Lay it on us, Villareal.”
“We’re booked out for tours the next two weeks.”
“Shit!” Hollin said.
“I know. We sold off a few cases of wine already, too. Not to mention, the admission costs more than covered the event, even with Cosmere’s fee.”
When it had just been Campbell, he’d done it for free, but we hadn’t expected the rest of the band to comply with that. Also, I was sure their manager, agent, and record label wouldn’t have liked it either.
“That is good news.” I lifted my glass to her. “Want to stay for a drink?”
“Unfortunately, no,” she said. “I’ll leave you to celebrate. I’m going to go home to Adrian. I don’t think I’ve seen him all week.”
I finished off my beer, and Hollin passed me another.
When I started to protest, he held up his hand. “Cuz, we’ve earned it.”
“Fine.” I pulled it toward me.
Just then the door to the backstage opened, and out walked Jennifer, talking to Campbell with wide, adoring eyes. I’d never seen her look at anyone like that, and something twisted in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t care if Campbell Abbey was a famous rockstar and Jen loved his music; I didn’t like it.
I stood. “Hey, Jen. Celebratory drink?”
Her eyes snapped up to mine, and her smile brightened. “Uh, sure. I need to get home to Avocado and Bacon, but maybe one.”
“Avocado and Bacon?” Campbell asked.
He nodded his head at Hollin as Jen slid into the seat next to me, and Campbell walked around to make his own drink.
“They’re her cats,” I explained.
Jennifer wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like cats. They’re just cats that live on my street.”
“That you feed.”
“Well, yeah. I don’t want them to starve.”
“They have names.”
“I can’t just call them Cat One and Cat Two!”
Campbell laughed. “I think I get it. You take care of stray cats?”
“I…well, yes.”
“Cute,” Campbell said with a wink.
Jennifer flushed and took the drink that Hollin had passed to her. I glowered at him. Hollin tried not to laugh as he leaned his elbows against the bar.
“So, next weekend.” Campbell arched his eyebrow.
“What about next weekend?” I asked.
Hollin buried his face in his drink at my tone.
“I liked Jennifer’s images, and she asked if I’d be interested in sitting for a portrait series she’s working on. She said she could get us studio space.”
Oh. Not a date. What the fuck was wrong with me? Why had I immediately jumped there?
“That’s cool,” I added lamely.
“I’d really love to shoot the portrait session, but I’m not free next weekend. Sorry,” Jennifer said with a wince. “It’s my brother’s graduation in Austin, and my parents would skin me alive if I missed it.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s going to be terrible.”
“Why?” Hollin asked. “Don’t get along with your brother?”
“No. I mean, we get along okay, but my mom’s…tough. She doesn’t approve of my job, especially because Chester is kind of a genius. And then I’ll get the third degree about not having a date. My mom even made some comment about how my brother’s girlfriend will be there and I won’t have a date.”
“Oof,” Campbell said. “Tough.”
“Fuck that shit,” Hollin responded eloquently.
She shrugged her shoulders and took a sip of the drink Hollin had poured her. “It’s fine.”
There was that word again.
Fine.
It wasn’t fine.
“Well, no problem. We can reschedule,” Campbell agreed. “I miss being home. Hoping to spend more time in Lubbock this summer. Maybe another show in a month?”
“Definitely,” Hollin agreed.
“Fuck,” I whispered as I checked that date on my phone. “Just not that last weekend in June. I have a gala I’m supposed to attend.”
Jennifer slid her eyes to mine. “The one Ashleigh mentioned?”
“Ashleigh was here?” Hollin demanded.
“Uh, yeah…meant to tell you,” I muttered. “I took care of it. She wanted to cause trouble.”
“That’s all she does,” he snarled.
Hollin had never forgiven her for trying to sabotage the winery. None of us had, but Hollin had taken it personally.
“Yeah. Well, we planned this gala to help promote the winery when we were still dating. Now, I have to go stag. Kill me.” I downed the rest of my beer.
Hollin shook his head. “That fucking sucks.”
“Maybe there’s a solution here,” Campbell said, his gaze shifting between me and Jennifer. “Maybe y’all should go together?”
“What?” I barked.
“I mean, you’re friends, right? It’d be easy enough for you to go to Jennifer’s brother’s graduation party and woo her parents, and she could go to your gala and make Ashleigh jealous.”
Jennifer’s eyes went wide, and she shook her head. “I don’t think—”
Hollin nodded his head. “It’d be great. Julian, you can woo anyone. And having Jen there would make Ashleigh go crazy. It’d be beautiful.”
“The perfect fake dates,” Campbell said with a knowing smile.
Jennifer stood, shoving her drink farther away from her. “I think we’ve all had a long night. I’m going to go check on the cats. Thanks for the drink, Hollin. Night, y’all.”
I watched her walk out with something heavy settling on my chest. I’d pushed her too far. That kiss had ruined any chance I’d had. Just the idea of fake dating me and she’d literally run out of the room.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Hollin asked.
“What?”
Campbell arched his eyebrow and tossed back his drink. “This is your cue to go after her.”
“Fuck,” I muttered and dashed from my seat and into the cooling summer evening.
6
Jennifer
Oh my God, what was wrong with me?
Seriously, why couldn’t I act like any other normal person? Just laugh off Hollin’s and Campbell’s joking and change the subject. Instead, I’d freaked out at the very idea of what they had suggested.
I couldn’t force Julian to do something that asinine. He didn’t want that. I knew that without a second thought. I wouldn’t put him in a situation where the guys had bullied him into going on some fake date with me. I couldn’t hide how I felt about him in a quick interaction with him. There was no way I’d be able to do it at my brother’s graduation. Let alone some fancy gala. What would I even wear to a fancy gala?
And then there was the fact that the thought of actually taking anyone to my brother’s graduation made me feel sick. I didn’t like having anyone around my mom. Not even Sutton or Annie. Julian would never look at me the same. It’d be so humiliating.
I fumbled with the keys as I hurried to my car, trying to fight back tears. I was such an idiot. I wished that my anxiety hadn’t fucking spiked like this.
I dropped my keys and cussed, grabbing them off the freshly paved parking lot. I took a deep breath and tried to calm my racing heart the way my therapist had been teaching me.
Then I dug through my purse for my pills. I took an everyday anxiety medicine to regulate the day-to-day anxiety, but for spikes like this, I had emergency medicine that I always kept with me. I popped a half of a Xanax into my mouth and downed it dry.
“Jen!”
I whipped around, hastily stashing my pills again. My eyes widened in shock at the sight of Julian Wright heading in my direction.
“Hey, wait,” he called.
I froze in place. Why was following me? Hadn’t I embarrassed him?
“Hey.” He
smiled that charming Wright smile when he caught up to me. “You move fast.”
“Uh, yeah. What’s up?” I clutched the keys tighter to keep my hands from shaking.
“I didn’t mean for Hollin and Campbell to run you out of there.”
I could barely manage a smile. “No, it’s fine. I really do need to feed the cats.”
“Of course.” He took another step forward. “But…maybe what they were saying wasn’t actually that crazy.”
I winced at the second use of that word tonight. Crazy was a word that had been used about me enough that hearing it in other contexts still hit me a little too hard.
“Unless you really don’t want to do it?”
“The…fake dates?” I asked in confusion.
“Yeah. I mean, I think it sounds like a great idea.”
My eyes widened. “You’re serious?”
“Yeah.”
“But…why?”
“Think about how well we worked together tonight. I saved you from Evan, and you saved me from Ashleigh. We played it all off fine then. We could do it again for bigger stakes. You really don’t want to go to that graduation, and I can think of nothing less I’d like to do than attend that gala.”
“Yeah. I mean, I don’t want to go to the graduation, but I couldn’t subject you to that.”
“To what?” he asked with a laugh. “It’s a graduation. We’ll tell them I’m your boyfriend. Parents love me.”
“But I haven’t told them we’re dating.”
“So? Make it a surprise. You didn’t know how to tell them on the phone or something.”
“I guess I could do that,” I said.
The possibility materialized before me. Bringing Julian Wright to graduation would make everything better for me. He could keep my mom from vocalizing her biggest disappointments in me. She was usually better around strangers than when it was just me. Usually. Not to mention, I’d have someone to talk to and laugh with about all the rest of it. And no one was immune to the Wright name. It would make me look good either way…even if it was fake. It would get me through graduation.
“But what about you? I don’t make Ashleigh Sinclair jealous,” I said with a self-deprecating laugh.
“You did today.”
I scoffed, “Did you hear her?”
“Don’t let her poison infect you,” he said immediately, reaching out to touch my arm. “There is no hierarchy like her bullshit. She shouldn’t have even said it.”
But it was true. Ashleigh Sinclair might have a shit personality, but she had everything else. Even Julian for two years. If she had been satisfied with where he worked, she’d still have him. They hadn’t broken up because he’d stopped caring about her.
“Okay. I just…don’t know that I’m the kind of person she’d take as a threat.”
Julian waved his hand. “It’ll be fine. You don’t have to do anything about Ashleigh. I’d actually prefer if you weren’t anywhere near her. As long as you’re there, it’ll be good. Just like me being there for you.”
My face flushed at the comment. I’d been so adamantly against this at the mere mention from Campbell and Hollin. But that was when they were pushing it on Julian. It’d felt like they were forcing him into something that he didn’t want. Now, he was trying to convince me to fake date him.
Julian Wright.
The man I’d been pining after for years.
Why wouldn’t I say yes?
It might be a disaster to have him around my parents. I was sure that I wasn’t going to make Ashleigh jealous in the slightest. If we could even keep her thinking we were dating for a whole month. But still…that meant I would have a whole month of his time.
Didn’t I want that?
Yes, it’d be fake. It wouldn’t mean anything. If I was going to have ninety days of no dating, it’d be better to fill that time with fake dates with a friend than nothing.
“All right,” I said tentatively.
“Is that a yes?”
“Are you sure that you really want to do this? It’d probably be a whole month, right? The gala isn’t until the end of June.”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
And he looked so damn sincere. Those dark eyes considering me so carefully, looking deep into the windows of my soul. For a second, it was as if he knew how much I wanted this in reality and not just as a fake date.
Then he smiled and held his hand out.
I blinked down at it.
“Partners?”
I laughed softly. Of course he didn’t see the real me underneath. It was an arrangement. A fake relationship that meant nothing else. And I wanted it regardless.
I put my hand in his and shook. “Deal.”
Part II
A Fake Relationship
7
Jennifer
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
I half-opened one eye and reached for my phone. I swiped at it to silence the alarm, only managing to throw it onto the floor. I groaned loudly, but it did nothing to turn off the alarm.
“Shut up.”
It didn’t listen.
I pushed the covers off of my chest and reached for the phone. I finally hit the button to cancel the alarm.
“Finally,” I said as I flopped back into bed.
I yawned and checked the time—seven a.m. Ugh. Normally, I was up at six thirty without an alarm. I’d forgotten that I even had an alarm set. It must have been from my last sunrise graduation shoot. I was and always had been a morning person. Anything past seven felt like I was wasting the day. But today, I wouldn’t have minded a few extra hours of sleep.
I’d been at Wright Vineyard until past midnight. It might be lame, but I was usually in bed by ten and sometimes even earlier. Today was definitely going to be rough since I was also a terrible napper and I didn’t drink coffee. Which Annie thought was sacrilege.
My yawn was as wide as the Grand Canyon as I fumbled out of bed and into a super-hot shower. I blew out my brown bob—which almost reached my shoulders by now—and got into lounge clothes. I grabbed my camera and computer and headed for the dining room table, where I would likely live the rest of the day. Editing was the bulk of the job. If I was lucky, I wouldn’t get carpal tunnel for at least a decade from all the micro-clicks as I worked.
I deposited my work on the table and grabbed a banana and the cat food. Another yawn hit me full on as I went outside.
“Avocado! Bacon!” I called into the early morning.
I nudged their two bowls before pouring cat food into each of them. Everyone made fun of me for feeding the stray cats, but I didn’t want them to go hungry. Yes, they could probably fend for themselves. It made me uncomfortable to think that they might be hunting and not find food. I couldn’t do it.
I didn’t even like cats. Yet here I was. The cat lady feeding cats that didn’t even belong to me.
“Cado! Bakey!” I called again. I peered into the bushes, and two sets of eyes looked back at me. “There you two are. Come eat.”
As if they understood me, Avocado, an orange-and-white cat, and Bacon, a black cat, slunk out of the bushes and began to eat their breakfast. I stroked Cado and then Bacon before heading back inside and sitting at the dining room table to get to work.
Time moved at an unreasonable rate when I sat down to edit. Hours flew by without interruption. By the time the door opened, my eyes were bleary, and the sun was sinking.
“Annie?” I croaked.
“Hey!” she said. “How’s it going? Have you moved at all today?”
I looked around the room and shook my head to clear it. “I think I need some lunch.”
“It’s dinnertime.”
“Sure.” I rubbed my tired eyes. “I forgot to stop and eat.”
Annie rolled her eyes. “Emergency pizza it is.” She pulled out her phone and started to order. “By the way, we need to talk.”
“Are you breaking up with me?” I asked as I stood up. My body creaked from lack of use, and I stretched to try to release
the tension.
Annie laughed. “You can’t get rid of me that easily.”
“Well, thank God.”
“Like, what would you even do without me?”
I shook my head. I remembered the first twenty years of my life without Annie Donoghue in it. We hadn’t become friends until I’d started taking care of Jason for Sutton. Annie and Sutton had been popular cheerleaders in high school. Annie was the captain, who always wore name-brand clothes and had more confidence than the rest of the school. I’d learned later that so much of it was a facade, but from the outside, looking in, I hadn’t known that.
I’d been a loser in high school. Annie and Sutton barely knew my name. I had been on yearbook and in the marching band. I didn’t play the flute anymore. The flute jokes in high school had been enough to make my anxiety peak at a young age. If my home life hadn’t done it. My parents were pull yourself up by your bootstraps people. They’d done it and expected it from their children. It had not gone well for me, especially with my undiagnosed dyslexia and anxiety.
Things were better now. Well, as long as I wasn’t dealing with my mom. Dad had lightened up some over the years. Annie, Sutton, and I had put our differences long behind us. I didn’t know what I would do without them now.
Once the pizza was here, Annie and I curled up on the couch and started a rewatch of Bridgerton. We watched it for the plot. Seriously. Not for the many shirtless Regency men.
“Okay, I have been left in suspense,” I told Annie. “Spill. What’s going on?”
She spun to face me. “Jordan asked me to move in with him.”
I screamed. “Oh my God! That’s so awesome! You said yes, right?”
“Well, I said that I had to check with you.”
“What? Of course you’re going to do it. You already practically live there.”
“Yeah, I know, but you’re my roommate. I wouldn’t want to abandon you without first figuring out our situation.”
“I appreciate it. Situation figured out.”
Annie laughed. “Well, I’m so excited. But what are you going to do? I don’t know anyone who is looking for a place. I’m sure you don’t want to pay rent all by yourself.”