3. Hallie
HALLIE
I'm sitting in my car outside Caius's Auto, staring at the pro/con list I've scribbled on the back of a library receipt.
Pros:
Kyle's face when I show up with Caius
Caius is objectively hot
I don't have to face the wedding alone
Helping a friend (?)
Cons:
Ryan will literally murder us both
I've had a crush on Caius since I was sixteen
This is a romance novel plot and those never end well in real life
Did I mention Ryan will murder us?
The smart thing would be to tear up this list, march into that garage, and tell Caius I've changed my mind. That we should just suffer through our respective problems like normal people instead of concocting an elaborate fake dating scheme that has disaster written all over it.
Instead, I shove the receipt into my purse and get out of the car.
The bay doors are open, and I can hear classic rock drifting out along with the smell of motor oil and something metallic. Caius is under a Jeep Wrangler, only his legs visible, worn jeans and steel-toed boots.
"Hello?"
The creeper rolls out, and there he is. Grease smudged across his cheekbone, dark hair falling into his eyes. "Right on time. I like that in a fake girlfriend."
"Look, if we're really going to do this, and I mean actually go through with this whole fake dating arrangement, then we need to sit down and talk about establishing some ground rules first."
"Rules." He sits up, wiping his hands on a rag that's probably dirtier than his hands. "Very romantic."
"This isn't supposed to be romantic. It's a business transaction."
"A business transaction." He stands, and I have to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact.
When did he get so tall? He's always been tall, but it feels more pronounced now that we're alone, now that I'm hyperaware of the six feet between us and how easily he could close it.
"Okay, Ms. Miller. What are your terms?"
I pull out my phone, where I've actually typed up a list because of course I have. I'm a librarian. Organization is literally my job. "First, no one can know. Especially not Ryan."
"Agreed." He crosses his arms, which does interesting things to his biceps. I refuse to notice. "What else?"
"We need a believable backstory for how we got together. Your mother is going to ask questions."
"Ma is going to interrogate you like you're a suspect in a crime drama. Good call." He gestures toward his office, a small room off the main garage that's more closet than actual office. "Come on. Let's hammer out the details."
The "office" contains a desk buried under invoices, a rolling chair with duct tape holding the seat together, and a mini fridge that's probably a health hazard. Caius leans against the desk, and I perch on the chair, pulling up the notes app on my phone.
I clear my throat, trying to ignore the way the cramped space makes everything feel too close, too intimate.
The office smells like the pine air freshener hanging from the lamp, and I'm acutely aware of how Caius's long legs are stretched out in front of him, ankles crossed like he doesn't have a care in the world.
Meanwhile, I'm perched on this disaster of a chair like a bird ready to take flight at any moment.
"So," I say, scrolling through my notes with a finger that's definitely not trembling.
"Let's start with the basics. We need to figure out our backstory, when did we supposedly start dating? "
He tilts his head, thinking. "Has to be recent. If we'd been together for months, Ryan would've noticed."
"Two weeks ago," I suggest, my thumb hovering over my phone screen as I try to sound more confident than I feel. "Right after you came by the library to help us move all those donation boxes from the main reading room to the storage area in the basement."
"I brought you coffee the next morning as a thank you for letting us cause chaos in your workspace. We got to talking. You were funny and smart and beautiful, and I asked you out." His voice is casual, like he's reciting a grocery list instead of fake-wooing me, but my pulse kicks up anyway.
"I said yes because..." I trail off, suddenly aware that I need a reason why Hallie Miller would suddenly start dating her brother's best friend after years of absolutely nothing.
"Because I'm devilishly handsome and charming?" He's grinning again, and I roll my eyes even as my cheeks heat.
"Because you were sweet. And persistent. And I'd always thought you were cute but never imagined you'd be interested in me."
Something flickers across his face, too fast for me to read. "Why wouldn't I be interested in you?"
"Because I'm boring. I'm a librarian who spends Friday nights rearranging my bookshelves and color-coding my planner. You could have anyone."
"You're not boring." His voice has gone serious, the teasing edge completely gone. "You're brilliant and kind and you remember everyone's favorite books and you hum Biggie when you're shelving and you've got this smile that could stop traffic."
I blink at him, momentarily stunned into silence. My brain seems to have short-circuited somewhere between smile that could stop traffic and the fact that he's apparently been paying attention to my unconscious habits. "I... what?" The words come out breathless.
"What?" He looks genuinely confused now, like he hasn't just casually dropped the fact that he's been observing me closely enough to notice things I don't even notice about myself.
"You know I hum Biggie?" I manage, my voice pitching slightly higher than normal.
"Like, you've actually noticed that?" Heat floods my cheeks because suddenly I'm remembering every single time I've been shelving books in the stacks, completely in my own world, probably humming "Hypnotize" or "Mo Money Mo Problems" under my breath like the secret nineties hip-hop nerd that I am.
How many times has he been there, watching, listening?
He shifts, and I swear there's color rising in his cheeks. "You've been doing it for years. I notice things."
"What else do you notice?"
"That you organize books by color when you're stressed.
That you keep a stash of chocolate in your desk drawer, the dark kind with sea salt.
That you dog-ear pages even though you tell everyone else not to, but only in books you really love.
" He's ticking items off on his fingers, and each observation lands like a small explosion.
"That you wear your hair down on Fridays because it's the end of the week and you're tired of being professional.
That you have a freckle right here." He reaches out like he's going to touch just below my ear, then seems to catch himself and drops his hand. "Should I keep going?"
I can't breathe properly. My lungs have forgotten how to do their basic job. "You..." I have to stop, swallow hard, try again. "Why do you know all of that? Those are such tiny, random things. Most people wouldn't even notice, let alone remember."
His eyes haven't left mine, and there's something raw in them now, something vulnerable that I've never seen before. "Because I pay attention to you, Hallie. I always have. Every single day, every little detail, I notice all of it. I can't help it."
We're staring at each other, and the office suddenly feels about three sizes too small. This is dangerous. This is the exact opposite of keeping things fake and uncomplicated.
I clear my throat and look back at my phone. "Right. Okay. So, rules. No one can know, we have our backstory, and... we need an exit strategy. How long does this last?"
"A month?" He leans back in his chair, and I can see him working through the timeline in his head, counting out the days and obligations.
"That should be enough time to get me through Ma's birthday dinner—she always goes extra hard with the matchmaking around then—and it gets you through your sister's wedding weekend. After that, we're in the clear."
"And then what happens?" I ask, even though we both know the answer. Even though I should probably just let it go and not make him spell out the inevitable ending before we've even started this charade.
"We realized we're better as friends. Mutual decision. No hard feelings." He says it smoothly, like he's done this before, and I wonder if I'm an idiot for agreeing to this.
"No catching feelings," I add, because apparently I'm a masochist who needs to state the obvious.
"No catching feelings," he echoes.
"I should probably have your number saved under something romantic in my phone. In case someone sees."
He rattles off his number, which I already have saved as "Caius (DO NOT CALL AFTER MIDNIGHT)," a relic from college when drunk-me had a habit of almost-confessing my feelings. I change it to "Caius " and show him.
"A heart emoji," I say, trying to sound casual and not like my pulse just kicked up at the sight of that tiny red symbol next to my name. "How absolutely scandalous of you."
"Your turn," he says, holding out his hand expectantly for my phone.
He pulls out his phone, and I watch him change my contact info. He shows me the screen: "Hallie "
"A red heart?" I manage, staring at the screen like I've never seen an emoji before in my life. "We're really selling this, aren't we?"
"Go big or go home, Miller." There's that crooked smile again, the one that's been short-circuiting my brain since I was fourteen.
He pockets his phone with one hand, and then, without any warning, without any preamble, without any consideration for my fragile mental state, he reaches back and peels off his shirt in one smooth, practiced motion.
The gray cotton drags up over his torso, revealing skin and muscle and, oh my God, is that a scar along his ribcage?— before he tosses it carelessly onto the workbench behind him.
I completely, utterly, catastrophically forget how to form words. Or thoughts. Or any coherent brain function whatsoever.